The thought of sending the girl for pie and then making her escape appealed mightily, but Ari tried to remember that they still had to work together for several months and so told her, “You’ve already bought me cider; I’ll get pie later. In any case,” she added, carefully keeping the hope out of her voice (worst case scenario, she would send the girl for pie), “shouldn’t you be with a whole crowd of friends trying to sneak hard cider?”
She was about to say that that was for later in the evening - hard cider was always better at night, everyone knew that - but she was playing the part of the good little apprentice. And good little apprentices doted on their mentors. She smiled. “Nope. I’m meeting up with some friends later tonight, but for now I’m one hundred percent free.”
Of course you are, Ari thought. And unless she did something, she’d have a barnacle glued to her side until someone happened along to rescue her -- and she wasn’t planning on seeing Aspel until much later, Drake was at home, she doubted Aud was out in such a crowd, and who else was there on whom she could rely?
Clearly, it was time for another tactic.
“Well,” she said, making her voice thoughtful, “I’d assumed you had plans -- otherwise, why wouldn’t you be taking the opportunity to busk right now?”
“Busking?” Celia frowned. She’d heard of it, of course, but she’d never done it before. There were too many other people vying for the attention of the crowd, and how would they appreciate her voice and technique if it was being drowned out by some idiot’s caterwauling?
But if Ari was asking….
“I wasn’t planning on busking,” she admitted.
“No?” Ari exaggerated the surprised look just a little -- just, she hoped, enough. “When I was a chorister, I spent three afternoons a week busking as part of my training.” At her mentor’s insistence, sometimes in sleet. It had been, frankly, terrible. “I still do it, from time to time. It isn’t like the stage -- the audience is closer, and they’re not initially focused on you, so it takes a particular adaptability and stage presence they don’t really teach in classrooms. But,” a small shrug, as if to say she couldn’t possibly care less, “I don’t suppose everyone is mad enough to stand on a street corner until she’s collected three hundred gil at minimum. Or was it four? I don’t recall anymore, it was quite some time ago.”
The younger bard blinked. Busking. Three nights a week. With a threshold of three hundred gil? That was…. Insane. Impossible. All sorts of other words that started with “I” that she couldn’t think of.
But this was a challenge. And a challenge meant that Ari was thinking of it. And it wasn’t like she didn’t have her lyre with her. Celia’s mouth set in a determined line. “I can do that,” she said, and her voice didn’t even waver. Project confidence and you’ll be confident, she told herself.
“In which case,” Ari said, “I suggest you get started. You’ve limited daylight, after all.” And please, please, please, let this mean that she would be free for the rest of the day. Three hundred gil on a first attempt? Impossible. She’d failed that challenge spectacularly, she recalled. Hopefully, this girl would prove stubborn and maintain her post late into the night, leaving Ari in blessed peace.
Celia nodded. “I won’t let you down.” She gave Ari a big smile and turned around. She’d need to find a hat, but that wouldn’t be too hard. Tons of old people with hats around here.