For once the ale tasted about as good as Skandra fucking well expected it to. In this case, that meant delicious. It still took him longer to drain it than Ithacles, but it wasn't as though either of them nursed it. Didn't matter. Ithacles had a head start, of course; his eyes were loose and red - not the sort of red that came from weeping, of course, the kind that came from rubbing them to bring the world back into focus. The kind that came when drunks didn't sleep and thought they were handling it better than they actually were. Skandra didn't think it was his business to shatter illusions, so at first he simply nodded - both at the taste of the ale, and to Ithacles' toast.
It was a common one.
"You know," and Skandra grinned.
What he'd been about to say changed quite suddenly; right about the time the ale hit his stomach. They were two grown men standing up in a row of cots with sleeping bastards all around. Pretending that it didn't matter, that none of it mattered, was not the complaint Skandra currently had. They were grown men. They could talk about it or not talk about it. But Skandra would be damned if he was going to drink standing up like a child being observed. The stools arranged so carefully in the middle aisle, which ran between all the cots, would do just as well.
Carelessly the Immortal dropped his empty tankard on his former bed. The full one he kept in his hand, and then he sat down.
"I wasn't happy to hear Lethe was hurt," Skandra's grin was growing wider, his voice was growing slightly louder. "But I was hoping that when she came to see me, she'd still have a giant red hand-print on the side of her face. Oh, I think my soul could be cheerful for a thousand years, if I saw that one day."
The chuckle which escaped his lips, Skandra drowned out by beginning to pull from the second drink.