She draped flowers around his neck.

It was difficult to tell that there'd been a fight. Someone had thrown down sawdust to clean up what little blood there was. He could see narrow choked lines of it. As though it had been pushed about by some of those flat brooms they used on marble and stone. As though. He knew it as well as he'd have known if he'd watched it happen. Then one of those pretty temple dedicates with the straw hair had come out, sponge and bucket in hand, for the work of scrubbing what did not sweep. No one wanted a temple and a tavern to have anything in common, did they? This worked so well in the tavern that it was bound to make its way to the temple. They were not bloodless things, either of them. They were the places where life happened.

One of the dedicates had swept by him, thin waist easily fitting into the crook of his arm as she slung a string of flowers around his neck and kissed both of his cheeks.

( Well, festivals were liberal times, here. )

It was morning now, light was streaming inside of her cell and Petra was trying to ignore it. Everything still screamed that she was tired. Perhaps she shouldn't try falling asleep with her mind full of clutter. From thoughts to what they were going to do, to things she wished they were doing, Petra had been very awake long after Adward's breath drifted into that relaxed state of slumber. She couldn't tell the time in here, without a clear view of the stars and their alignment, but she had guessed more than once that it was long after midnight when she'd finally lost track and shut her eyes tight and drifted. Now she fought the light. Scrunching her eyes, rolling on the hard mattress and covering her head in the singular pillow as she used the crook of her arm for a place to rest her head. The thoughts came flooding back. She wasn't home. She wasn't anywhere near home and she had to find her work. That was what was important. Sleep could wait. Food could wait. Waking Adward was going to be her task for the morning. It wasn't that he was a sound sleeper, but he could really sleep when he wanted to.

( Unlike her, who slept when she was too tired to work any longer. )

"I'll grow tits when they add rooms for us," im insisted.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Sharaf replied diplomatically.

"It already has, boy!"

"Well, I won't hold you to the tit thing," Sharaf tried again.

"Ha!" was the response.

In contrast to the grand and open spaces of the temple below, the offices of qa Yvutha Pharath were quite small. There was only one jolly fellow there at the moment, an elder tracker who could not move without the use of a cane and would probably not see a city outside of Urt Ivis again so long as he drew breath. His name was im in any case, and im was not one who spent a great deal of time mourning the loss of a prisoner. There were no rooms for spare here, not when they were all being used to store the belongings of other trackers out in the desert, so the best that im could offer was a pair of empty cells.

( He laughed, as though it were some grand joke. )

There had been little peace.

Oh, she wasn't one for shouting above and beyond desert wind, this Petra he'd managed to pick up somewhere along the way. She was perfectly content to walk behind him and laugh, just loud enough for him to hear. When he turned? She would deny it. They were quite the traveling pair, and there was nothing about the travel that made him feel better about his decision to have her along. Something in him said that this was going to be a mistake, and he didn't doubt it for a second, even if he had no evidence of that as yet. Petra was going to find a way to make him regret it if it killed her.

( Hey, maybe it would kill her. )

Sunlight was the enemy of festival-goers.

Qas Burus was busy on any day of the year except this one. The day after Mahragan no one in their right minds was out and about. Loud music, violent drinking, and more than one arrest. In all truth he should have been working yesterday. That was a problem the teeth handled more often than not. The violent drinking and the subduing of persons. He hadn't felt like working in any case. So there he was, half-splayed onto the floor, face pressed against a damp pillow. It took Sharaf more than a moment to realize that he'd been drooling into the down-and-cotton business which supported his head. A longer moment to realize it was well after ten, if the position of the sun could be believed. He was not looking too closely. Right in front of his eyes was a folded paper, with ink bleeding into the pillow. His face ached. Hardly looking at the big picture. It was his body that ached, and rightly so, given how hard that fellow had punched.

( Winning was an exercise in luck. )

Sharaf eyed the steps leading to this more-than-modest home with the intense scrutiny that everything received, upon being seen for the first time with these humble eyes. The steps were cut from stone, and accurately. Must have cost a good deal of money. There was even a porch. Not much of one. Stone bricks built in behind the stair held this platform of heavy wood aloft. Heavy vibrant cloth was hanging from hooks above the door; it seemed to sway in the wind no matter which way the breeze flowed. This was a time of wild winds, at Mahragan. Blues and pinks and yellows and greens and whites and golds flowed in interesting but meaningless patterns upon the cloth. And though the heavy door, with its fanciful archway, stood open... he hesitated. Inside there was the sound of laughter. No doubt Sal had set the table with every glittering bauble that she and his father could locate.

( He said he'd come, but... )