“Achaaa, a kiss from a siren,” Avi murred, making as if to swot her bum as well, but she pranced away easily. She was a scamp, that was for sure. But Avi liked it immensely. Anyone who could chatter on about nonsense with him, Avi enjoyed. He was an out-going person after all, and sought out similar people.
“You know what they say about the siren’s kiss,” he said - but then perhaps she didn’t know. It was more Loqoalan myth than Elysian.
He drank, soothed into compliance as Aspen continued to explain her love of Ravencliff. Avi didn’t mind hearing it. Now that he’d gotten over his initial surprise, he found her perspective notable, for what it was worth. In fact, Avi sensed a curious note of pride in the way she spoke. Even her voice changed - it was subtle, but Avi noticed it. Like she was making a speech as a different person, and not as the canny little Aspen - gambler, card-player, and all-round mischief-maker. Like someone with the education to back her glorification of her city.
“Your speechcraft is impressive, Azza,” he complimented her, although his dark eyes remained steady, more piercing than before. “Don’t pretend I’m being condescending - you know what I mean.” This wasn’t the first time that Avi wondered if Aspen was, perhaps, something more than she told him. In the past, Avi hardly cared to find out what. He was generally content to take people at their face-value - whatever Aspen told him that she was, Avi was content to believe.
But since Glasswater - no, since two years back, when everything changed - Avi realized he could no longer afford indulging others with deliberate naivety. People weren’t who they said they were, in dangerous revelations. Cecily Gwynne, for example, was not a courtesan, but a spy. Beric Stoneward turned out to be a rebel.
What did that make little Aspen? A spy? A rebel?
As much as Avitej didn’t want to start suspecting everyone, seeing shadows around every corner, he particularly didn’t like thinking such dark thoughts about Aspen. She was a good girl. Wild and reckless and drunk half the time, but still good.
He tuned back in, as she told him about siblings. Lies, or truth? There was one easy way to find out. “I want to meet them,” he stated. A pause, and then he motioned to her.
“These brothers of yours! I’d like to meet them, and I promise I’ll be as generous to them as I am to you. I like your little family, luv. Allow this Duke from Rajayer to patronize all of you, whenever I visit Ravencliff. But first, I want to know who I’d be patronizing, hm? May I meet them?”
“You mean how they’re thought to be deadly?” She asked with a playful look. “Or am I thinking of a different legend? The tip of her tongue gliding across the front of her teeth as she grinned up at him. ” Stella had hung out with enough pirates to hear plenty of different myths of the sea.
“My what?” Stella’s eyes widened nearly spitting out the mouthful of liquor she had been starting to down back. “I don’t know if I’d go that far. But, thanks, I guess? Perks of being literate, I suppose,” A light laugh escaping her lips at the thought. Stella knew that she was more well spoken than most commoners. But, she hadn’t expected Avi to pick up on it after all the time.
“Y-you... want to?” If Stella had been slouching in her seat before, she wasn’t any longer. Her spine practically snapping into place as his statement. Her brain stuttering for a moment and her eyes taking in more light than expected. It was as if every part of her paused while her thoughts tried to catch up to his request. “Why?” She asked, visibly making a face at the thought.
Stella adored her brothers, but she had a hard time picturing them and Avi hitting it off. Maybe he would with Thomas. Her second-youngest brother was one of her more rambunctious siblings, besides her that is. Its partially why the two of them got along so well. They were two middle children of the Seaworths and the two flirts for that matter. As children, they’d often be caught roughhouse around until they were told off by one the maids. He was the one who helped her train when she had the idea to try and sneak off to join the military. But, then again, despite Tom’s carefree nature at times, he was also the most self righteous of the bunch. He wasn’t particularly found of pirates, let alone looters. And between Phillip and the future Duke who were much more in line how nobles were expected to behave, the image of them all gathered in a tavern for a round of drinks seemed more like a humorous joke than anything.
“Am I not enough for you then? Seeing that you’re already looking for entertainment elsewhere?” Stella teased, still trying to wrap her head around why on earth the Duke from Rajayer would want to spend the day with her entire family. But, at next words, it was like gears were clicking into place in her head. “And here I thought you knew who you were patronizing already. But, if you do have questions for me, I hope you know you can just ask, my friend.”
Leaning back in the bench once more, a light laugh escaped Stella’s lips at his question. “No, you may not. You know I adore you, Avitej, but if I’m being honest, I don’t think they would take to you very much and I’d prefer if my overprotective brothers don’t know that I’ve been spending my evenings drinking at the tavern with pirates and other questionable men. You understand, don’t you?”
