Caritas, Monday

[1000yearstoolate]

Seivarden had decided to leave the boxes of arrack she had had delivered from Athoek for next week's special, as she was being late to work, having got stuck in front of an entertainment while drinking copious amounts of tea. It must have made her fidgety, or maybe it was the fact that Breq hadn't returned her messages, letting her know that the arrack had arrived. Of course, time between the universes were rarely as synchronised as she would like, but still.

She kept texting, aware that if Breq was in a situation where Seivarden had reason to be worried, she probably wasn't going to be able to answer to her increasingly concerned messages. 

To try to calm herself down, she let Summer know about it.

Tino rolled his eyes, when he wasn't throwing glances towards the door.

Today's Special
Beer

It had worked last week.

[Open and OCD-free]

Comments

[special_rabbit]

Amaya had pretty much been anxious all day, to the point where she risked some pretty severe injuries if she kept trying to keep up with her forge work, which meant spending most of her day in the greenhouse worrying about whether all the plants were just about to put up their roots and start failing on her and feeling that the snapdragons felt a bit more...murderous than usual. The fact that she was pretty much strolling into the bar as soon as time allowed showed that she was really looking forward to getting into that beer, and there was definitely a sigh of relief to discover that Seivarden was actually there, as if she'd somehow been convinced that she wouldn't actually be.

"Ah, yes," she said, taking a seat and doing a poor job of not tapping her fingers nervously on the bar as she tried for a jocular tone that didn't quite get there when her eyes skittered over to the specials board. "Good old beer! Can't go wrong with good old, trustworthy, dependanble, unsurprising beer!"

...or could you?

[1000yearstoolate]

"Same as last week?" Seivarden asked, a little relieved to have Amaya show up.

Let's stick to Amaya-approved subjects, Seivarden reminded herself.

[special_rabbit]

"That is the special," Amaya pointed out, glad to have something solid like that to latch onto that she could focus her attention on, especially since now she started to wonder if there was some sort of loop thing going on--

--nope. Nope. Not thinking about it, just going to focus on having a beer in the company of her friend who was there.

....for now....

....unlike....

If she didn't have that beer soon, she might have to have a word with Seivarden about picking up the pace on the service around here, zounds.

[1000yearstoolate]

"I meant the same kind of beer," Seivarden said, not waiting for Amaya to reply and placing a bottle of Hobgoblin in front of her.

See? Fast service.

[special_rabbit]

"Oh," said Amaya, blinking down at the bottle. "Right."

She barked out a laugh that felt totally, completely, definitely, without a doubt natural, as she reached for the beer and lifted it in appreciation.

"Of course! What else would you have meant? Same beer as lask week, the one with the hob--"

--but now Amaya was frowning at the bottle and the label and thinking of just how easy it was for something like that to turn out to be a bit, er....prophetic, and suddenly, she didn't want to risk any association with anything goblin related, hob- or otherwise!

"On second thought," she said, setting the bottle back down, "I think maybe I'll mix it up a little. You think you have anything a bit more...generic?"

Generic was safe!

Right?

[1000yearstoolate]

"Of course."

Seivarden exchanged the bottle for the most generic-looking one she could find.

"Better? So, how are things at the forge?"

[special_rabbit]

Much better. A nice generic beer like that was far less likely to tempt fate in awful ways.

As for the other question?

"Depressing," said Amaya miserably, and only even realized she'd said that about halfway through her first swig.

"I mean!" she amended quickly, face filling with red and blue eyes wide. "Fine! They're going fine! Finished up a real nice piece with a fine amber hilt just the other day, actually, thinking about maybe doing some halberds next. Been a while since I did a halberd...."

[1000yearstoolate]

"I don't even know what a halberd is," Seivarden said, trying to let that topic distract her.

[special_rabbit]

And distract her it would! And not a moment too soon,Amaya realized, sighing a deep breath of relief and swigging about half that bottle in her next go.

She'd just about talked about her feelings then!

She set the bottle down with a shudder, and then launched into an explanation. "Basically," she said, "it's an axe on a big long pole. Like a spear! Only with an axe on the top!

"It's actually a bit more complex than that," she added, picking up the beer again, "but that's a good way to put it in layman's terms."

[1000yearstoolate]

"So a two-in-one weapon?"

Yes, Amaya talking about feelings, even if it had just been one word, was disturbing, and reinforced the feeling that something was wrong.

"How is the halberd business here?"

[special_rabbit]

"Possibly three!" Amaya offered up. "The shaft itself could make for a good bow-staff in a pinch.

"And currently untested!" she added. "No one's taken me up on any of the ones currently on the wall, I'm afraid, but who knows? Maybe there'll be someone with a spark for it coming in with the summer sessions."

Normally, she might have sounded quite a bit optimistic about the prospect, but today, her tone was decidedly doubtful, complete with a dissatisfied curl of her lip.

[1000yearstoolate]

"Let's hope for a halberd enthusiast," Seivarden said, attempting a grin, and missing Amaya's fistbump.