Rictor/Ari | Theatre District | 11:00am
Bella’s father – now there was a sore topic. So he didn’t broach it, instead chasing the rest of what Ari had brought up: spinsterdom, forced marriages, her mother’s concern.
“Does it?” He smiled wryly. “I can empathise. They try to marry us off as soon as possible. It’s pretty much finding that exact line between seeing enough of your family to soothe everyone’s nerves… but without overdoing it and getting way too fucking much. You seem like you go back to Ordalia pretty often, though. Been a while since I saw Kerwon.”
It was a new tactic, this: rather than rushing directly into the subject, all bull-headed persistence to find out more about Aspel via the people she knew, he might try the roundabout approach and get to know Ari better as a person instead. It already seemed like a better method all around.
And besides, it meant developing a new friendship.