#log 121

[travellers-log-lawrence]

I'm at a trading center run by some Korvax here; and one of them taught me a word! Lifeform. Useful for me and for the translator.

They also were happy enough about my interest in learning to give me a map to an ancient plaque. That sounds like something that would have words on it, so I'm heading there next.

[rta-alec-blog]

Coffee and Bad Poetry

Theodore is seated on the settee with Will. He is not talking at the moment as he has burned himself on his coffee and his cleaning up the mess with a napkin. A small packet of loose leaf papers has been lost to the coffee spill.

Will yelps as he's jostled by Ted's cleaning. He looks at his friend in concern.

Carmichael makes his way into surya's at a brisk, determined sort of pace. The kind that coffee addicts deploy when things have reached critical mass and caffiene must be had /naaaaaaaaaaaao/. "Cappuccino, please with dark chocolate sprinkles," this placed, he takes in the others in the cafe, spillages and silence both.

Alec enters the coffee shop not long after Carmichael does, harp tucked under one arm. A good number of the instrument's strings have been removed, however, and he carries fresh ones and a tuning pin in his other hand. He takes a seat at a free table not far from the pair, giving a nod to Carm when he spots him. He orders himself a coffee and then starts to work on restringing his instrument.

The yelp may have thrown Theodore off his cleaning or maybe it's that he has spilled on his trousers. He is doing a little dance in the settee putting cloth down the front of his pants. He appears to notice that he has some discomfort. "I know it heals fast, but it still hurts."

Will grunts, "settle down, will ya? You'll only make it worse. And you're making it worse..."

Carmichael glances to the entrance of Alec, giving the bard a nod as he makes his way to an intimate table with a good view of the cafe and is reasonably close to the setee with its sartorial disaster playing out. His coffee is brought over with a biscotti and he takes the large cup, which is truly large in his case, to hand. "Standing up and holding your pants out from your body helps," he offers in a deep, whiskeysmoke voice.

Alec occasionally looks over at the commotion in between his work, tying off the string and threading it through before tightening it with the tuning pin. His coffee arrives, and he ignores it for now, looking a bit confused at the pair's reactions to the spill.

Theodore has tears forming at the cornr of his eyes, they appear gunuine. He he sniffs and tries to hold them back as he stands up and attemps to follow the advice, doing a bit of a coffee soaked dance. The music reminds him why he came tonight. Bad poetry night:

Your eyes don't see

the darkness of my eyes

You think you know,

but you don't.

Because...

I smile,

I am a fool,

filled with lies

deep inside.

Bleeding,

but, you don't see the blood....

These eyes see no joy,

for they run dry."

His words are soaked in the drama and pain of the burn but getting some air in there helps it is all just pain of bad emo poetry at the end. "For Will. Your turn, man..." he stays up on his feet.

Will whines, "but I never agreed to perform."

Carmichael's brows lift slowly. With a twitch of his nose he sniffs the air toward Will and Theodore, akin to the way an animal might, blinks slowly and spends a couple of moments tying his hair back in a leather thong. There is then a quiet round of clicking fingers from the man, looking at the pair silently at the poetry spilled forth. He flicks eyes to Alec afterwards, as if expecting a sardonic plink-plonk of strings. "what happened?" he asks.

Alec leans his ear close to his instrument as his fingers pluck the new string as well as those few remaining around it, providing Carm's expected plink-plonk, but at the same time, Alec tries to keep the sounds from being too loud and distracting the other customers from the poetry performance. Half Alec's focus is kept on his instrument, the other half kept on the recital. He looks away from the poet and at Carm at the question, and then glances down at his instrument with a grimace. "Long story... Basically, I had a bit of a rough night last night. Luckily, this thing was strapped to my back and spared me from having my spine torn out..."

Theodore looks prepared to argue with Will but the question and answer throws him off his game. He shrugs his shoulder. "I thought you wrote a poem about the Lady Marlene?" He thows one of his arm out moving it like a human flail, bending his knees to give the skin of his legs a little test before retaking a his seat.

Will says, "Okay fine." tersely. "Marlene. So Keen." he pauses. "Er. Lean? No that's a guy. What rhymes with Marlene?"

"Clean? Preen? Mean?" Carmichael offers three options, watching the odd couple a moment or two longer, tenuously looking back to Alec with a frown. "Your harp deserves a commendation then it seems, for its actions on the battle field." He offers.

Alec raises an eyebrow and shifts his focus toward the poetic pair when he hears Marlene's name mentioned. "Foreseen? Machine?" he adds to Carmichael's suggestions. He gives a glance to Carm when addressed, and then grins and nods. "Probably," he says. "I think it did more good than I did out there."

Will grumps, "I'm better at death scenes." he takes a deep breath.

"I could not have forseen

My Sweet Marlene

Now I'm no longer blue.

Because you're you."

That's it that's the poem.

Theodore shakes his head, "Don't send her that, that was seriously bad and I know bad..." he is more or less comfortable in his own pants again and the servers have brought him fresh coffee. He closes his eys and struggles for a minute, "Where the wild things run through the grass and the pine-needles next to the shore, you walk, yellow dress

(finishes)wrapped tight with your arms folded around you." He frowns, "That's not exactly the Lady Marlene, though is it? More citified and Begman. Maybe you should stick with writing your own poetry, Will. I don't remember where I got that, some class at the Collegia? Yes, yours is for the best. Stick with that."

"My lady, Marlene, how you do the things you do, makes me think," Carmichal murmurs, a poem but not one for clicks and an emo audience it seems, he looks over the damage to Alec's harp, looking over the man it belongs to afterwards as if trying to spot where there might be any sign of injury. "What happened, may I ask?"

Alec sips at his coffee as he listens to both poems, and once the works are finished, he grins at the pair. "I take it you have a bit of a crush on Marlene, then?" he asks Will, returning to the work of tuning, which he continues while answering Carm's question. "I was part of Balthus' trip to gather nonperishable goods for you," he says. "I'm not sure how much Balthus told you, but while we were out there, Zach sensed something. Last night, went back a second time to investigate what Zach felt. That second time was a lot more difficult and more involved than the first, though..." The harpist looks completely unharmed. Seems that the instrument was the only thing damaged.

Theodore smiles toward Carmichael, reaches for his coffee. "She'd probably like that, yeah.." but grows silent at Alec's story focusing on him. He tests the temperature of his coffee with his pinky.

Will broods, he's broody. He eyes Alec, "She's far too good for the likes of me. Nice." he claps at Carmichael's way. "I'm Will. That's Ted."

Carmichael gives a bow of the head to Theodore and Will, "Prince Carmichael d'Benedit of Amber," he offers politely to the introductions, "Will. Ted," at the naming each receives a fair attention and he lifts his cup. "Coffee addict," there's a pause, looking at Alec again and contemplating the news. "I do not know this Zach individual. Hmmm." Hmm carries ENORMOUS weight, like a wordy elephant.

Alec glances at his already empty cup and orders a pot so he can make sure it stays full while he works on repairs. "Well, best of luck to you then, Will," he says. "I'm Alec, Dirk's son." To respond to Carm, Alec adds, "Zach spends a lot of time out in Arden, helping out the rangers and such." He pauses. "I guess Balthus didn't tell you anything about our adventures, then."

Will looks like he might only be pretending he knows what all that means. He understands Prince. So Carmichael gets respect for that. He perks up at Alec, "Rangers? I want to be a ranger!"

Theodore stands and bows toward Carmichael, "Your highness." He doesn't elbow Will but he sends him a look while he puts his coffee down so he won't spill it.

Carmichael shakes his head. "No, just provided the results," and there may be more grilling of the man in the aftermath of this, picking apart the mission and recounting it in detail. Who Zach is, earns a slight nod from the man then a gracious expression at the honorifics. "Why do you wish to be a ranger?" this is asked of Will. "Also, I do not think I have seen either of you before. New to Amber?"

Alec looks like he's about to say something to Will but then stops and reaches into his pocket to pull out some cards, which he flicks through quickly. He then grimaces and returns the set of cards to his pocket. "I'd give you a copy of my trump, but I'm out. I've been too busy with everything that's been going on to make fresh ones. But if you want to be a ranger, come by Eastgate. It shouldn't be too hard to find me or a ranger who can point you to the people you should talk to." His pot of coffee comes, and he refreshes his cup. "I've seen you two not too long ago in the Crown. The two I was with at the time are also rangers, so you can look for them."

Theodore takes his seat again slowly and reclaims his beverage which has cooled to the point that he chances a drink. "I've heard that have the best stories and mud."

Will thumbs up at Alec. "We'll go there. ...Uh, where's eastgate?" He looks between all three getting whiplash. "Er... I like Trees? We're new, I followed Ted here. But we were here before while before the mission." That was too many words. He looks pained.

Carmichael sniffs the air toward the pair again, as if he might be able to gain insight there. Odd! "Well, that's true enough. Lots of mud, lots of stories, lots of independent thinking. I wouldn't be much help there, but as Alec says," he gestures to the other man with an open palm. "Eastgate is a half day ride out of the gates of the city. It's the market town and fort on the east side of Arden... the rangers are the elite of my uncle, Julian."

Theodore swallows more coffee tries to help Will out, "We were here a few years back. I might have lost count in shadow. Will knows how many, he's good at math. Random showed us the thing in the basement and gave me a bottle of booze and told us not to out stay our welcome. Anyway, I don't think we could get lost with those directions. We still get lost in town."

Carmichael flicks an eyebrow up at the mention of the fink, sitting straighter, his sword hanging in oversized glory and swinging slightly with the shift in posture. He sips at his coffee, reaching for the biscotti to snap it in half and dunk. "Pattern walker then. One of Random's?" he supposes. "You may wish to travel with a trade caravan heading out to eastgate if you find yourselves easily lost. That will guarantee that you'll get there." He offers.