Victor’s eyes were neither glaring at a risen Seven nor hiding behind drowsy lids. They were trained stiffly on the brute who was also a poet who was also a god, showing perhaps a little more white around the irises than was polite. In his short life, he had not met many men who really knew the world. They were below him in Ravok and above him in Syliras; now there was one beside him, pouring his wizened troubles into the sort of bottomless mug from which Victor drooled to have a drink. There were plenty of things he thought to say. He could fashion opposing words and frivolous twists to challenge the opinions spoken and the men who spoke them; he could continue to water the seed of divulgence he had planted by accident, and see if it would still flourish beneath the weight of increasing regrets.
But he was not alone. The intimacy of investigation was not a game for witnesses.
He had not touched his own mug of ale. As Laszlo spoke, he regarded the thing and lifted a finger to trace the splintery circle where his mouth should have been. At the cue of an irritated and self-righteous tongue, Victor moved his gaze to the flute. His friends seemed so keen on it, but it was only a thing. There was no soul in it, as the offended ethaefal seemed to think. Ulric’s soul was in his words, and on his face. If only to delay the tedium of some slow and presumably mournful melody, a fellow human spoke up.
“Seems to me, the fire’s not the only one.” He looked at the man then, met his eyes with a pair that had never once known pain or guilt or sadness. There was an emptiness in them, though sometimes he managed to make them laugh, to trivialize the deepest of aches. He smirked, shrugged. “I suppose alcohol is as good for the hearth as dead tinder is.”
And with the hollow murmur of wood on wood, he pushed his full pint towards Ulric’s emptying one.