At the Emerald Lilly (Skandra)
Leir was singing to her in elvish. And being a young human, she hadn’t a clue what any of the words meant. But she let him spin her around all the same right there in the middle of the wide boulevard bathed in the amber glow of lamps. The words slipped from his mouth in the odd elvish way, where sounds blended into one another slow and warm like butter down into bread. Her feet left the ground, his arms cradling her behind her knees. Her scarlet skirts twisted round as he took a knee, balancing her upon it.
I cannot take another without you Come to the window my heart And let me breathe again
She was laughing into her glove as the song ended, his nose pressed against her ear as he hushed the words. And then a round of applause from the glowing porch. All the women finally had something else to look at other than all the Johns and the drunks, it seemed, and one of them let out a sharp whistle from up above in the orange windows. So he kissed her on a blushed cheek and stood up once more, hand wrapped around the tips of her fingers.
"It's still four crowns," she laughed.
“Got the smile for free,” he replied as he let go of her hand. And with a wink and a bow to the crowd of whores and sailors, he turned away from the woman and resumed his jaunty stroll down the stones. He walked oblivious to any of the calls that followed.
Filthy rich!
They’re fer fuckin’, y’know!
“You’re not going to do that at every brothel we pass, are you? I’m too sober for that,” said the man next to him.
“Of course not, Skandra, we have a destination.”
“Ready to call you a liar. You’ve been marching up and down this gods damned district for two hours now.”
Leir crunched up his mouth and lipped some silent bickering, doing his best to imitate his new friend. They were filthy rich, and the elf couldn’t have been happier about it. One day prior they’d sailed full speed into the booming ports of Trone like a couple of seamad idiots; in a pirate ship nonetheless. Ah, but it wasn’t just any pirate ship, it was The Twisted Noose. And for the first time it was waving the white flags. They’d tied every scrap of white they could find to the ropes, knotting them anywhere a cloth could be. Still, it took all the shouting and waving they could muster to stop the Port Guard from opening up every weapon in sight.
“Look, you fucking idiots!” Skandra had screamed. And in his hands was a massive head; the severed skull of Djokole the Black.
But now they were rich. Rich like the heroes the city’s council had declared them to be. Of course, if Leir hadn’t been a known Privateer, and if his name weren’t already buzzing around the mouths of captains desperate for a demon swordsman, they might’ve been tried as pirates themselves.
“Too bad we had to pay for that dock, though,” Leir said as they continued down the boulevard. It twisted gently to the left, the yawning eaves of the taverns and the gambling houses stretching out over them as if to capture all the laughter and stop it from lilting over the rooftops and into other districts.
“To be precise, it’s too bad that you didn’t know how to steer the blasted thing,” Skandra grumbled.