Spring 37th 512 A.V
Location: The Pig's Foot Tavern
For most of the night the tavern had been quiet. Or rather, it had been loud and raucous, but to the people who attended to mugs of beer every night in the establishment, it was quiet. Nothing had been broken yet, and yet it was well past the twentieth bell. The arguments that had, of course, taken place, were unusually quiet.
The djed storm of the first day of spring had placed everyone into a morose mood. Some snapped under the pressure of believing they were at the mercy of magicians, the scourges of the past, but they were outside calling for blood.
Still, it seemed to have become a crime to tell an acquaintance in a tavern to have a nice day.
"Are you mocking me, Widow?" The woman bore down over Chamaeleon, her hands like the claws of a harpy at her sides as she interpreted a polite farewell as an insult to honour, or something as equally foolish.
Why was it always something foolish that had to overexcite the people in this city?
"I merely meant that I wish tomorrow to go well for you," the Ethaefal's soft voice was sly off the tongue of the bony little Symenestra. Her violet eyes were earnest, but the woman saw only the eyes of a despicable kidnapper.
"Are you daft, you petching vagik?" She spat. Literally. She spat her words and saliva with the ugly curse word, slipping her own venom into it.
Repulsive.
"The world has gone upside down. The witches have made their move and are going to smear us all off the face of the world, and you petching dare to tell me to have a nice day like the grass is green?"
And, she overexaggerated. Terribly.
"Do you want to burn too, Widow?"
Chamaeleon tilted her head at the woman and just stared. Here she was confronted once again by a violent inhabitant of the dark and murderous city. Here was another asinine beast trying to intimidate her with sharp words and a loud voice. She had enough of that.
Slowly and very deliberately, Chamaeleon pulled back her lips from her teeth in a fearsome approximation of a smile, baring fangs and incisors.
If these Sunberthians couldn't accept that she meant only kindness to them, then maybe just this once age could indulge in her instincts and frighten away a threat before it became violent.