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Caritas, Friday Evening

Fjord was in a pretty damn good mood today as he came in for his shift, in spite of Tino's usual side-eye of him as he stepped inside the building and settled himself behind the bar. Last night had seen another fitful sleep for him, sure, one which had been plagued by vivid dreams of Vandren and life on the ship that had left his morning feeling directionless and out of sorts, but he'd mostly recovered from that by noon with the assistance of far too much coffee.

Amaya was going to get him hooked on the stuff. Or maybe just his penchant for fitful sleep these days would manage the same.

Anyway, he was here, behind the bar, and if he happened to have his fifth coffee of the day in hand as he prepared himself for his shift... at least he was decently functional as a result?

[OOC: I maintain that the three hours of sleep I got last night were completely worth staying up and listening to last night's episode of Critical Role live HOLY MOLY. Open!]

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And, lookee there, here came the little unassuming caffeine pusher herself.

"'Evening, Fjord," she greeted with her usual nod, feeling a particularly productive day deserved to be acknowledged with a bit of her own newfound habit. "How's the day treatin' you?"

"No complaints this evening," Fjord replied, toasting her with, you know, a cup of coffee. "The day was off to a rough start, but at least this time it wasn't my own damn fault."

For once.

"Ale tonight?"

"You know what?" said Amaya, tilting her head thoughtfully. "Let's be bold and go for a stout instead tonight. Seems a shame to be somewhere that serves more than just rotgut swill and not take advantage of it, right? What got you off on the wrong foot, if you don't mind me asking?"

She was always a little wary about the line between making small talk and sticking her nose where it didn't have any business being, which was why she usually avoided it all together, but, eh, it was Fjord.

"Bad dreams," Fjord replied, shrugging a shoulder and rummaging around for a good stout to pass her way. "Never used to have much of a problem with those. These days I suppose I just have too much on my mind."

He said this like it was no big deal. And mostly, this time, it actually wasn't. But 'bad dreams' could have a whole fun variety of meanings when it came to Fjord, these days.

They were definitely on the other side of that line for Amaya, though, so she just gave a thoughtful sort of grunt. "Well, I hope," she said, nice and vague but no less sincere, "whatever it is gets itself cleared up in due time. Meantime, I'll just stay the course and make sure you've got more than enough work on your hands to outweigh all the stuff on your mind."

Because that's just how everyone handled things like that, right? Just distract yourself with work, work, and then maybe....more work.

"I'll take that distraction happily," Fjord replied, actually sounding thankful as he said so. "Unless I can get back home, the cause of this particular one isn't going to clear itself up any time soon, after all."

Hard to investigate the murder of everyone you ever knew in a tragic shipwreck from here. Harder still to find someone who knew their way around... whatever these powers of his were.

"Well," Amaya ruminated over her beer for a moment, "if it turns out you do need my help with any of that business, you know where to find me, not that I imagine I can offer much as it stands. But, you know, in case anything else eventually pops up. Never can tell, around here."

"Never can tell," Fjord agreed, looking thoughtful. "Thank you, Amaya. I appreciate that offer. Not sure what might come up that'd see me needing to collect on it, but..."

He shrugged.

"It's mighty kind of you."

Amaya just shrugged a shoulder. "Least I could do," she said dismissively, and then, a little more wryly, she added, "Quite literally, the least thing I could do, outside of just not saying anything, really, and there's no way I'd be doing that."

Fjord gave her a considering look at that, and then just kind of nodded. She was right, of course. So far as he could tell, she wasn't really the 'doing nothing' type.

"Well, I'm thankful all the same," he decided. "Even if I never collect, it's a generous offer. Especially since there's really no telling what the trouble is in the first place."

It wasn't like Portalocity had any clue.

"Always could be my old stand-by that a wizard did it," Amaya mused, and offered over a faint grin, "and you're actually from somewhere else where that notion would be entirely plausible, too, far as I can tell! And I've got a good handful of ways to deal with those, if it comes to it. 23 of 'em, in fact!"

...weapons. They were all weapons. 23 was the precise number of types of weapons she specialized in.

Weapons just so happened to be her solution to most problems, really, wizardly or otherwise.

Someday there would be a wizard in Fjord's life that he would more or less be willing to die for, and conversations like this one would be a whole lot more awkward.

Of course, being a warlock himself, they already sort of were. But since he wasn't running around throwing Eldritch Blasts at everything all the time, he couldn't exactly blame Amaya for not realizing that. Especially since, ah, that would pretty much validate her opinions on wizards and the like in the first place.

"Here," he noted, looking amused, "is where I ask what the twenty-three represents, you know."

Amaya didn't have a problem with all wizards. She was sure some wizards were just great. She just knew that those were the wizards you never heard much about because they weren't the wizards going around doing things like what far too many wizards in her world liked to do.

...and kidnapping innocent people and keeping them stuck in one specific location was right up their M.O.

"Aww, c'mon, now, Fjord," Amaya shook her head in disappointment, which might have been more effective if she hadn't looked so amused herself, "and here I thought you'd know me well enough by now to at least make a decent guess at that one."

Fjord chuckled easily at that.

"I know well enough to guess that it's got something to do with weapons," he replied. "I just haven't managed to narrow it down from the list of options. Just checking, you don't have anything with twenty-three spikes on it in stock, do you?"

IT WAS A PERFECTLY FAIR GUESS.

"Probably," Amaya admitted easily, "but after a certain point, I just sort of lose count. But 23's the number of types of weapons I specialize in, from varieties of different swords and axes and spears to your more advanced flails and mauls and bows and whatnots."

And each and every type would be pretty effective, she felt, so long as the wizard let you get close enough to 'em.

Wizards were generally glass cannons, it was true.

"Well, in that case," Fjord replied with a grin. "That's even more impressive still."

And he was looking forward to learning his way around all of it, eventually.

"It's not a bad arsenal at all, at any rate," said Amaya, with no small amount of pride, "and I may have even found a twenty-forth today, too!"

"Well, you can't say something like that and leave me wondering what it is," Fjord replied with a little grin. "Do tell, Amaya, what's this new weapon you've figured out?"

She was obviously building up the story for dramatic effect over here! And it worked, too!

"Now I didn't figure it out myself," Amaya pointed out, just because she wasn't about to take credit for it. "But it's belts, Fjord. Belts! I had a girl in the shop today who, honest to goodness, used a bunch of books on a belt as a weapon!"

And fourteen-year-old-Amaya-in-her-heart was still a little mad she hadn't thought of something like that herself!

And Fjord... just broke into a grin at that. He'd had the pleasure of fighting bandits alongside Nina in Greece; he could guess at who had given Amaya this particular inspiration.

"You have to admire the person who can wield a strap with some books on it with deadly accuracy," he agreed. "So, planning on going into business as Blackstone Foundry, Forge, and Bookbelts, then?"

Amaya definitely admired the person, even if she definitely did not admire the person's taste in reading material, but she was hardly about to rip on a kid for not really knowing any better.

"I don't quite see it building into a particular illustrative market," she admitted with a grin, "but I'd be open to the idea if it turns out I'm wrong. More than happy to take it on as a special commission, though; seems like she's looking to upgrade a bit."

"Looking to upgrade her... bookbelt?"

Yeah, Fjord looked utterly confused, now.

"Ah... how so?"

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Caritas, Friday Evening

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