It was another three hours to Sorjek from Korjek, but soon the rainforests beneath them gave way to grasslands broken up by many farms. This meant they were close. There was one last grassy theome to pass over before reaching Sorjek upon the coast. The waters of the Vendarian Sound glittered to the south of them as they flew southwest across the grasslands.
It was by the light of the early afternoon sun high overhead that they got their first glimpse of Sorjek. The farms intensified and consumed the plains. Between the farms were sometimes woodlets, miniature clumps and trails and lines of forest of the sort planted chiefly to prevent the wind from blowing away the soil. The skies above were a patchwork quilt, too neatly divided. Rain and sun fell on different fields, a sure sign of weather magic being used in this place. Natural weather had been replaced with something as artificial as Aleicree’s amicus breeze.
As with many theomes, there was Sorjek-the-theome which in this case was all of farmland, and there was also Sorjek-the-city which was the destination they actually sought. The three veered south now to the shore of the Vendarian Sound to seek the port where Sorjek had grown a city to send its produce out into the oceans of Theoma.
Being chiefly concerned with the farms, Vrekant lived on the northern edge of the city. He had said as much in his letters. To that was added that Aleicree knew the address, but zie knew it only as one might know the name of a famous street in a distant city. Knowing not the map of the city itself, zie sought out some landmark that would yield up a city map. A post office would be ideal; a temple of Querent-Querent would suffice. Aleicree recognised neither from the air and settled for a solid third place by directing the three to land in the courtyard of what looked to be the city hall.
When the three had landed, Azosta stepped up to Aleicree and said, "I have been here before, though many decades prior. If you landed us here to ask for directions, I may be able to guide us."
Aleicree asked, "Can you point me to 3 Tavanth Street? I know it's in the north of the city, far from the port and near to the farmlands."
"That shouldn't be too hard. I don't know Tavanth Street itself, but I know a tavern in the north of the city, and if Tirivolt's is still there we can ask for directions." With that, they were off again.
Shortly after (for distances in a city are quite short if one can fly directly), they landed in an empty lot near a busy commercial street. The empty lot appeared to be so for the specific purpose of ensuring that flying traffic had somewhere to land and take off from. Just down the street past a general store and an intriguing place called Hotwasher whose icon showed a dragon standing in a waterfall with a blissful expression, there was a business set back somewhat from the road with its front yard covered in a yellow canopy sheltering tables from the sky. In big yellow letters over the door and front windows, the legend Tirivolt's made it clear that this was the business Azosta had referred to. There were lanterns set with glowing yellow crystals in their hearts that glowed under the canopy, across its front, and inside through the windows. Aleicree was a little disturbed to see that the ones outdoors were locked into cages.
The interior wasn't exactly a picture of prosperity, with bare walls and a lack of seating pillows, but there were a few dragons at the bar nonetheless and the bar looked well-stocked. Evidently they served food as well, for there was a menu posted on the wall near the bar proclaiming the prices for soup and hand pies. They had two kinds of hand pies (liver was an upcharge) and the soup seemed unexpectedly pricy.
Behind the bar was a yellow-scaled izerah of the exact same colour as the canopy and the lettering over the door, which made Aleicree wonder if zie was looking upon the eponymous Tirivolt. Azosta took the lead and went right up to the bar saying, "Ho there old friend, glad to see you're still in business. I need three liver pies and a round of ale for my party."
"Nix one ale," Aleicree said, coming up to the bar after Azosta. "I'll just drink water."
"Three liver pies, two ales, and a water. Coming right up," said the izerah, who was already filling bowls from a tap. Those first two bowls went down the bar to a different party, and then the yellow izerah vanished through a door for a moment before returning with three hand pies on a plate and a pitcher of water. He set these down in front of the group, then stepped away to fill two bowls from the tap for Azosta and Limist. He glanced down the bar. Seeing nobody looking like they needed his attention, he lingered. "Need anything else?" he asked.
"Directions," Azosta said. "Do you know the way to Tavanth Street from here?"
"I do," said the yellow izerah, and launched into a short list of streets to watch for along the way.
It itched at Aleicree to think of him as the yellow izerah, but zie couldn't very well interrupt the directions he was giving to satisfy zir curiosity. When he'd finished zie asked, "Are you Tirivolt?"
"I am," said the izerah behind the bar. "Pardon the bare furnishings. I keep a humble place, but my food has good reviews." Tirivolt left then, moving down the bar to serve someone else.
Aleicree bit into zir hand pie then, and said, "He's right, this is good."
"Just pub food. Easy to serve, prepared in large batches. Try the soup sometime," said Azosta.
"No, zie's right," said Limist with a grin. "This is a good liver pie."
Aleicree looked over at Azosta and said, "'Many decades' you'd said, but Tirivolt is still here. So little changes, sometimes."
"I'm a little surprised." Azosta took a big swig of ale. "Ahh! But not complaining. It's only been, what, sixty years? That's not a long time."
Aleicree laughed. "That's most of as long as I've been alive!"
"Most of?" asked Azosta, tone lifting in surprise.
Limist said, "Yeah, you didn't seem that young."
"I'm 75," said Aleicree.
"That's very young," said Limist.
Which was true by the everlasting standards of Theoma, where dragons were Fated to live forever. Aleicree was even still on zir first career as a sailing windmage. Zie was even somewhat awkwardly young. Breaking into a second career was a major life milestone that Aleicree had yet to fly over, and some dragons spurned relationships with anyone under a hundred.
Aleicree said, "We should head on our way. Vrekant knows we're coming." The coastal courier should've taken the Shibanyet to Sorjek flight in one connection without a night of rest at Mount Ardaziel, so the mail should have arrived first. Aleicree was hoping zie was correct about that.
They left Tirivolt's and went out to the streets to walk along them, making first one turn then another, and going several streets north until they passed a signpost saying "Tavanth Street". The houses here had large yards, so there was a good little walk between each one's mailbox, where they could see the house number. Soon enough however they found 3 Tavanth Street, and Aleicree got zir first look at the house of Vrekant the Raincaller.
The front yard was an empty lawn, good for landing and taking off. Off to the right of the house was a garden, currently sprouted and not yet fruiting. The house itself was a one story wooden building with a sprawling footprint, with its exterior painted farmhouse red like a barn in the countryside, and a green pitched roof above it. There was a path two dragons wide made of smoothly fitted stones which ran through the lawn from the postbox to the front door. A narrower path meant to be walked by only one dragon at a time went from the front door around to the side with the garden, which it entered by a trellis gate.
The three dragons went up the path with Aleicree in the lead and the other two walking abreast behind zir. Aleicree knocked on the door hopefully, but too timidly. After a minute of waiting zie knocked harder.
"It is still the middle of the day," said Limist. "He may not be here."
Azosta added, "Rain-calling geomancers often have to fly afield to summon rain, he may be quite a ways away."
They waited at the door. Aleicree fretted. Zie couldn't quite bring zirself to keep knocking. "He'll likely be back in the evening, if he's not here now," zie said.
"If he knows we're coming," ventured Limist, "We might just let ourselves in."
"Oh, surely not!" said Aleicree, shocked.
Limist shrugged and gestured at the door with a hand. "Y'know, it's not like theft is a big problem most places. The door may not even have a lock."
Aleicree touched the knob of the door and very hesitantly gave it a wiggle. Locked. Zie was relieved. No need to rudely step into Vrekant's house and await his return indoors. Zie looked at Limist and said, "It's locked. Do you remember the cages on the lanterns outside of Tirivolt's? I think there's enough theft in this theome to keep locksmiths busy."
"We should come back in the evening," said Azosta. "He should be home then."
"What should we do in the meanwhile?" asked Limist.
Azosta said, "I think we should visit the Temple of Querent-Querent and acquire an up-to-date city map, but that won't take long."
Aleicree smiled. "Oh, we can disperse from there... and I might just stay there. I've been copying a book, and I think I could spend a few hours on it at a library-temple." For library-temples were what every temple of Querent-Querent was.
They did exactly that. Azosta led them. Of all the buildings that might change in the theome, this was an improbable one to change over time, and indeed it had not.
The local Temple of Querent-Querent was a seven-story building of grey stone that took up an entire city block. Across the first five stories it had great windows between massive stone buttresses. The sixth and seventh floors were considerably smaller than the first five, perched centrally atop the building, and jutting through the roof atop those was a metal spire. The windowless upper floors reminded Aleicree of the architecture of the Temples of Uttermost Dark, though of course this was not one. Above all save the metal spire, the roof of the temple was a slope of dark slate. Aleicree thought now that zie knew which building it was, zie'd never fail to recognize it from the air again.
The streets near it were thronging with dragons and provided no safe landing zones, but the three landed upon a great landing strip upon the second floor of the temple itself, and went inside from there. Inside the building was clearly a library, with shelf after shelf of books, floor after floor of books, all rearing up over vibrant red carpets. It was lively with dragons of every shape and colour, many of them travellers visiting the library-temple to seek information about Sorjek or some potential destination theome to which they were travelling.
In bare spaces on the walls of the Temple of Querent-Querent there was religious iconography, but it was varied and eclectic. Here there was a gryphon rampant, and under it the legend Iskold. There, an abstract shape of metal edges and gleaming curves, and under it the legend Skrakaer. Upon another wall a burning tree, and under it the legend Tremthein, and this one had an izerah crouching low before it, his tail out in the walk path as he prayed. Had zie never been to a Temple of Querent-Querent, Aleicree would have been mystified by the icons, and would have sought one of the librarians to ask about it. Zie had done so in childhood, long ago! Zie remembered well the answer. The symbols belonged to other land gods in the same region as Sorjek. Each one provided a small prayer space for pious travellers to connect with a beloved land god.
Aleicree wondered if zir mother Praoziu would hear, if Aleicree prayed to her. Zie hadn't practised much. There was something demystifying about being born of a land god. It was easy to love Praoziu and hard to venerate her. She was special like family, not like a greater divinity.
The three of them together went down a magnificent staircase from which they could clearly see the main information desks, a great rounded square of desks staffed by dragons in elaborate geomancer costumes with bright colours, dangling holy symbols, and exotic hats. Their attires were mostly well-coordinated with their underlying scale colours, though some choices were a bit overbright. Aleicree, accustomed to the windmage uniform worn by most sailing geomancers, thought that the diverse land-side geomancers put too much stock in their outfits.
Regardless, here and now the geomancers behind the information desk were just librarians, and a moment's ask got the three pointed to the city cartographer's office, conveniently located down a wide hallway off one of the ground floor entrances to the temple-library. It was close at hand for foot traffic.
The map itself wasn't free - scribegons felt ill-appreciated when pressed to work for free - so the three just got one map between them. Aleicree let Limist carry it off, since zie was most interested in retiring to a study room of the temple-library for zir own scribe-work.
Several hours later, Aleicree was another tenth of the way through that farming manual. The lessons of the book were not applicable to zir own life, nor to any future zie planned to have. Zie was not going to be a farmergon any time soon. Zie did not care for the balance of sand and clay in soils, nor for the catalogues of which plants favoured which environments and what yields they could expect. Yet there was an achievement in having two fifths of a useful book copied, and because zie looked forward to completing an entire copy of the book, zie had read intently through something whose applicability in zir own life was wholly improbable.
Someday, a farmergon in Denxalue would read this book, and become wealthier than they would otherwise have been. It would affect a few acres for the better. It might even be shared around in a small community of farmergons and affect several farms. Now, if only there was some way to copy books faster and in greater numbers, maybe even more than that could be affected.
Every book is a Fate of erudition, thought Aleicree while taking a momentary break from the copying. It takes me a certain number of hours to copy the book, but it is only days of labour in the end, and then I can cast a charm of Fate out into the world without any geomancy at all. The land gods might even bolster the book and protect it so that its potential to help others gets fulfilled more completely. Oh, I hope this book does somebody good! And with that thought, zie returned at once to copying pages, zir lev-i-quill whirling through the air as it put ink down swiftly on the page.
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These quiet hours were eventually interrupted by Azosta knocking on the door of the little study cell that Aleicree had borrowed from the helpful geomancers of Querent-Querent. Aleicree guessed who had knocked before zie looked, and being right made zir feel for a moment as though zie'd glimpsed the strands of Fate. So zie smiled broadly at Azosta and said, "Is it time to try again at the door of Vrekant?"
"I think so," said Azosta, and Limist dipped a wing from alongside him.
The three flew back to 3 Tavanth Street again, and once more walked up the path to Vrekant's house. The house's red walls welcomed them in the declining light of the evening, and this time when Aleicree knocked, the door opened a moment later. Vrekant stood there, a violet vashael with emerald eyes, and Aleicree felt small and overwhelmed on seeing him. "H-hi," zie said, dropping nearly to all fours.
He hugged zir. He put his arms around zir and tugged zir gently back upright. "Welcome," he said, letting go and stepping back from the doorway. "My house is your house."
Zie stepped over the threshold into the house of zir old friend, and saw a living room of roughspun cushions. Scratchy, humble, better than a bare floor, not too bad on a scaled body. Where the stereotype of the land-bound geomancer was a clutter of symbols and colours like the geomancers of Querent-Querent, Vrekant wore a light brown shirt and a matching hat. Of the room that Aleicree stepped into, zie saw a harvest tapestry on one wall between two windows, depicting autumnal colours under a gleaming stone light that kept it illuminated. The other lights about the room were likewise enchanted stones. Some shelving held a few more harvest trinkets that may have been magic or mere symbols. There were books on the shelves, but very few; Aleicree saw five texts in blank bindings, and wondered at their contents. Doubtless every book here was read and cherished.
Vrekant gestured them all in and towards the living room, waving his arms and smiling at them as he said, "Come in, come in."
Limist and Azosta entered and went over to places in the living room, sitting down and looking about. Aleicree did likewise. Vrekant sat with them. "Aleicree! It has been absurdly too long. You should have visited sooner. Tell me, who have you brought to me?"
"These are Limist the Pipeseller," Aleicree said, indicating them each in turn, "And Azosta the Endseer."
"Endseer! What a title!" Vrekant perked up. "What does it mean?"
"I think I know why the world will end," said Azosta. "And it's why I try to avoid magic now."
"Do you really? You'll have to tell me more sometime," said Vrekant. He stood up then and asked, "Have you eaten? I have a hospitality charm that may let me summon up some meat, or if you'll spare my magic I can serve you bread, cheese, and autumn greens."
"Please, no summoned food," said Azosta.
Vrekant dipped his head and stepped out of the room.
"Not even when it's meat?" asked Limist, grinning at Azosta.
Azosta sighed. "I'd rather eat salad than summoned meat. The harvests are amply bountiful, and the farmergons poor enough already. Let's not impoverish them further by summoning delights at every meal."
"Do you think... it leads further towards the end, to summon food?" asked Aleicree.
Azosta nodded and lifted his head. "When we struggle to find enough food, we are driven into the world. It is a pure and strengthening trouble, especially given that none starve, as is the status quo already."
Aleicree studied Azosta. He was a pure white vrash with no colour beyond his brown eyes. Wearing nothing save his travelling pouches, stripped of the presence that the traditional vrash armour gave him, he looked... not small, but unassuming. He was a mage, not one of raw might. Aleicree thought he looked better without his armour.
Limist moved as though to say something, and Aleicree glanced to him and held up a hand for silence. Zie looked again to Azosta. "I think you are someone I dearly want to introduce to Praoziu, but I think you'll have to bend on your rule against summoned foods at least a little. She does not cook. Would you eat food summoned by a land god?"
"I usually make exceptions for land gods. It's not a good habit for a geomancer to stand firm against them in anything, really," said Azosta, but then he shook his head. "I still think it's a bad idea. Even the land gods should not just summon food, but if they wish to eat they should give thanks to the labour that went into their meal."
Aleicree smiled. "I think Praoziu is preserving things from prior worlds when she summons foods. I'll ask her to summon for you what she summons for family, so that you'll get the most of your exception."
Azosta leaned in towards Aleicree. "Even if she is summoning things from prior worlds, shouldn't she be out there building up in her dragons the ability to make those things again?"
Aleicree matched his body language. "I think you're right, and that's why I want you to meet her."
Vrekant returned then, and Aleicree half-expected him to be carrying dishes, but he instead said, "Come, come. I've set a table. Let's eat and speak more."
As they were walking through the hall, Aleicree spotted Limist trailing the group and looking down. Zie thought to cheer him, and wondered what was dismaying him, but there was no chance in a brief passage through a wooden hallway to gossip.
Vrekant's table was a simple thing in a simple room, and Aleicree had the sense that Vrekant had attained no great prosperity as a weathermage. He set out an abundance of greens for them and a modest though delicious bread, and some cheese of which Aleicree ate a small amount for politeness' sake. He seated Aleicree next to him, and after years of writing poetry to him and then being greeted by a hug, Aleicree had fantasised that zie would find his tail touching zir own as they ate. It was a storied little gesture among dragons, but it didn't happen.
Instead, Vrekant said, "I'm glad to see you arriving in company, Aleicree. I've been worried. Your letters have made little note of you making friends or pursuing projects outside of your work."
"W-well, I haven't, I admit," Aleicree said, caught out by Vrekant's piercing green eyes.
"Nothing at all?" he asked.
"I've copied a few books, and of course written all those poems I sent you. I was rather upset when you said I should stop writing them," Aleicree said, dipping zir head.
Vrekant sat proudly, voice rising in exuberance, "I hope you've kept copies. You could give performances of such poetry, or publish it as a collection." He took little notice of the way Aleicree quailed at the mention of performances, and instead looked over to Limist and Azosta. "Have you heard any of zir poetry? Zie's been writing of the sea and of sailing for decades now."
"No," said Limist. "Not a word."
"Perhaps we could hear a recitation," Vrekant said brightly.
Aleicree's mouth went dry. "No," zie said softly. "I have kept copies, but I have not memorised the work..." It was true, but moreover it had the power of a ready excuse to ward off the unwanted performance.
"Sad, that. Your poetry includes some real gems," Vrekant said to Aleicree. "I imagined you were a poetgon to all your friends."
No, just you, thought Aleicree, clutching zir drinking bowl to zirself.
Azosta said, "We've only just been acquainted. We met Aleicree by Fate in Shibanyet, and trusted in that Fate to have a good end for us if we pursued it."
Vrekant sobered. "I hope you don't bear that habit too strongly if you stay here. Sorjek isn't a model city like Shibanyet, and here it's said you meet dragons by chance, not Fate."
"I'm aware," said Azosta.
Limist said, "We're planning to follow Aleicree to Nidrio, whenever that will happen."
Vrekant looked towards Aleicree. "A trip home, next? How long will you stay?"
"I defer to you," said Aleicree, "But I had imagined that Limist and Azosta might have time to do some irrigation work while they're here."
Vrekant smiled as he said, "Ah, you've brought a competitor for my rain calling."
Aleicree's mood brightened again to see Vrekant smiling. "You don't mind?"
"No, I don't. The farmergons here are my friends. I want to see them prosper." Vrekant glanced upwards. "It has been so long since I saw you last, that I think you may stay for a month if you like. I will even host my own competitors for that long. How's that?" He looked across the table with that smile again.
"I would like that very much!" Aleicree said.
So it was set.
After dinner, the four returned back to the sitting room near the front door. It was dark outside by now and the cold glow of the lights didn't help with the slight chill of the room, but the four were alert after dinner and there was more time to talk.
Vrekant, for instance, dearly wanted to know why Azosta was "Azosta the Endseer".
Aleicree had heard the story already. As much as zie wanted to introduce Azosta to Praoziu so the two could talk about magical and non-magical endeavours, zie was only half-attentive as Azosta explained his title. Zie noticed instead that Limist seemed shut out of the conversation.
He was a bulkier dragon than Azosta. Without his vrash armour, he was still a stronger presence than Azosta. At a glance, he looked like he ate more and valued his strength more, though he wasn't some matchless titan.
Aleicree walked over and tapped him on the shoulder, then tipped zir head to draw him to the side of the room. They went as far from Vrekant and Azosta as they could get within the same room, dragging two of the seating cushions into new locations as they went.
When they were both seated, Aleicree said, "I know we just met, but... You look kinda down."
Limist nodded, "Yeah, no sense hiding it. Azosta overshadows me. Nobody really cares about plumbing, but everyone wants to hear about the ex-geomancer's weird viewpoint."
Aleicree's eyeridges went up. "You're pretty open."
"What, am I just supposed to grunt at you?" It was a joke, to go by Limist's smile as he said it, but he followed it up with a sigh. "I'll feel better once we're out in the field. Farmergons will listen when we're talking irrigation, especially if Vrekant will do a few introductions. Do you think he will?"
"There's a good chance," Aleicree soothed, rubbing at Limist's shoulder. Zir hand dropped after a moment.
They sat in a brief silence. On the other side of the room, Azosta and Vrekant were still going strong. Vrekant had just pointed out something about necrotic weather outbreaks in Sorjek, and Aleicree had only picked up the part of it that was said during the gap in zir own conversation with Limist. What were they talking about?
Zie refocused on Limist. "How old are you?" zie asked.
"457," he said without a moment's hesitation.
"Surely you've got your own interesting tales from a life that long," said Aleicree with an encouraging smile.
Limist shook his head, and his gaze sought the floor again. "You'd be amazed how dull my life must seem to an outside observer. I've been several kinds of manual labourer, like one of those wagon haulers who goes theome to theome carrying goods on the roads, but there aren't any books about that profession."
Aleicree said, "My sibling Denziu recently did a stint of wagon hauling. Zie wrote me letters about the journey, like the time zie met an undead geomancer in Inaildoro."
Limist looked up at Aleicree with his jaw hanging open. "Undead?" he asked. "How can a geomancer be undead?"
Aleicree giggled and said, "I didn't know it was possible, but if Denziu says zie met one, I believe it."
"I don't know where Inaildoro is, but I never saw anything quite that interesting while hauling wagons. I'm just a big, stout lug," said Limist. "Plumbing's the smartest work I've ever done. And it was the most profitable too, for a while."
"Until Vesset decided to send you somewhere else. A few accidents cost you all your savings?" Aleicree asked.
"I didn't have a lot. Labourers live, they don't thrive."
Quietly, Aleicree thought that Limist must have been living without frugality. Then, a different thought. "Is the cost of living high in Shibanyet?"
"Well... yeah," said Limist. "Ton of dragons want to live where everything is Fated to go well. So every service ends up packed. That's good for the service-providers. There are lots of queues where the prices won't rise, lots of high prices where they will. Things get slow or they get pricey. Sometimes the model city is at war with its own attractiveness."
"What kind of life do you want?" asked Aleicree.
Limist took a deep breath and said, "I just want to be comfortably well-off. Give me a nice house, decent friends, and a job that pays for all necessities. That's a good eternity to me."
"Nidrio may be good for you..." said Aleicree, but zie was thinking, Your humility would be good for Nidrio.
Limist settled down. "Yeah? How so?"
"Praoziu doesn't know how to make life hard for settlers. She'll give you a nice house and a comfortable lack of bills," said Aleicree.
"How many dragons live there?"
"Just 3," Aleicree admitted, dipping zir head. "But I've heard there's another 21 incoming."
Limist stared at her. "I don't think 3 or 24 dragons need a plumbergon yet. That's too small. Especially if a land god is making life easy."
"You're 457," Aleicree said with a smile. "You've worked lots of jobs. Maybe you don't need to be 'the Pipeseller' in Nidrio."
"True..." said Limist.
Vrekant stepped over to them then. Azosta followed after him. "Would you like to see the guest rooms?" he offered.
"Is the evening so far gone?" asked Limist.
Vrekant clapped his hands together. "By all means, if you wish to stay up, you may. I would just caution that I had a late night last night and an early morning today, so I would like to get to bed soon. I can't very well send you off without telling you where to find your rooms, so I'm doing that now."
"Of course," said Limist.
"Right," said Aleicree.
Azosta just went along quietly.
The four of them trooped through the house. There were few doors in the house of Vrekant. Aleicree glimpsed dragon statues in a pantheon room, a stone-floored meditation chamber, a deck that looked out onto the fields behind the house through large glass windows, and a larger gathering room with a fire pit under a central chimney. Vrekant stopped to tell them about these rooms, and then they moved on again.
Where there were doors, it was mostly because of the house's abundance of guest rooms. Aleicree thought that Vrekant must be popular with the local community if he was ready to host so many of them. It was like the house had been expanded to host community events.
There was something that stood out interestingly from room to room. The build quality was different. Aleicree was no trained eye, but past the well-built core of the house it grew drafty. Simply-patterned tapestries and rugs started appearing on the walls and floors in rooms that needed the insulation. The guest rooms were likely freezing in winter. They were a bit cold on an autumn night, too.
Vrekant led them to a closed door and said, "This is probably the best room for the three of you, though you're free to spread into more rooms if you please, as I'm not entertaining any other guests right now."
While Limist and Azosta went into the room, Aleicree hung back to ask, "Do you often entertain large numbers of guests?"
Vrekant laughed and said, "Do I! The local farmergons've paid for some of my work by expanding the house, and when they'd made it big enough, they started flocking to my place for seasonal events."
Aleicree said, "Oh. That sounds... Stressful to host."
"They're good dragons," said Vrekant. "Not too wild. They keep me fed, I keep their weather working. You know how weather-magery works."
"I do," said Aleicree, although quietly zie thought it meant weather-magery would not be a good future career for zirself to pursue. "Goodnight, Vrekant."
"Goodnight, Aleicree."
As zie went into the guest room, Aleicree saw that it had one vast bed in it, covered with a thick quilt so big that it left Aleicree wondering how it was ever washed. The room was cold, and the quilt was obviously necessary.
One bed? Aleicree thought with dismay, but while zie stood there thinking about how Vrekant had obviously expected zir to sleep with Limist and Azosta, zie was interrupted by Azosta speaking up.
Azosta said, "I think we should use more rooms."
Aleicree smiled. "Yes, I think we should."
Checking other rooms, they found a mix of one bed and two bed rooms, and a lot of quilts to cover for the draftiness of the rooms. They abandoned the room that Vrekant had shown them entirely in favour of taking smaller beds. Azosta and Limist shared a room with two beds. Aleicree took one alone.
Zie thought about Vrekant while laying in bed. Zie hadn't realised he had such a social circle. He'd spoken glowingly of plenty of farmergons, and if zie scraped zir memory zie knew of this-and-that house expansion project being described, but he'd never sent a floorplan of his home or a detailed account of a seasonal celebration. There wasn't much to Aleicree's life that hadn't gone into the letters zie sent to Vrekant. There was clearly more to Vrekant's life than zie knew.