A Letter to Samak Nerinide

[Nyssis]

As per their arrangement, a coiled strip of parchment awaits at a hidden location nearest the mausoleum in Sestra. As soon as Samak's homunculus has the opportunity, it could find and retrieve the relatively short missive decorated with only a few words in Common script and bound tightly with a length of orange ribbon.

Of course, she keeps an unerring eye on its location until such happens.

Curled up with the paper is a Church of Waukeen withdrawal slip for a sum of 60,000 stags from one Lasvi Norreitryn's account. It is unsigned by the recipient and the giver, however, and thus would require them both being present to exchange funds.

[Nyssis]

Her lips ajar, they quiver in anxiety when she brings the bottle close, closer. Closer still until her breath can be heard 'gainst the neck. But she cannot bring herself to drink. Something holds her back and keeps her poised with fear. Something makes the smell vile, the bottle uncomfortable in her sweating hand, and the hair on the back of her neck rouse.

Something too makes her discard the glass container, chucking it with such force that it collides with the stand pressed warm against her bed. Wood too that recoils from the marriage of glass and alcohol that ricochets onto the carpet. A thing Exigo has done well is making their liquor bottles sturdy, but the she-elf was especially vicious with this murder.

She would make the Bhaal of ales proud.

Four more shudder against one-another with disquiet, arranged in a lopsided row parallel to the edge of her desk. Watching the scene. One on the middle right runs in terror and tumbles to the floor, but the carpet underfoot is enough cushion to prevent another casualty. When it tries to crawl out from under the desk to safety, a boot caked in gravedirt bears down hard on the glass.

Their executioner leans forward with both elbows on the wood, making them tremble louder a second time, and her fiery golden eyes apply an unsettling stare to the three that remain. They hush, they stare back. Hasn't she destroyed enough already to suppress her rage?

"A disgusting waste of shilmaer," whispers she a barely audible reply, her very words a venom both painful and achingly nice. A smile softens her prey to her foreign charm as she leans close, closer. Closer still. And then her arm sweeps the other three off her desk in scorn, sending all of them to their white graves in disjointed pieces after they hit the wall. The whole room smells like a brew.

Lasvi's arm returns before her and the naked hand raps its fingertips against the polished wood separating she from a stack of parchment. It's been there for the longest time now, both this morning and the last, and only received a hint of acknowledgement when she came back with spirits. Her eyes flit down briefly to reread the contents in the dead center of the paper.

What kind of alcohol do you fancy the most? I am of want to taste some, but I've never drank before and know nothing about the differences. I'd rather leave the choice in your learned hands.

And when they come back up, a look of equanimity colors her countenance grey. Both hands grab the top sheet and begin rolling it up into a tight coil for delivery, then secured doubly so by a segment of orange ribbon. Her raised boot kicks the bottle under the desk --- the last of its kind left alive --- and she stands to go deposit the epistle in their 'hiding spot' near the mausoleum.

[Chocolate Radio]

The abandoned barn was little more than a framework of beams, half-rotten wood overgrown with wild vines. However, it served as a sufficient perch for the elven vagabond to enjoy a quick breakfast of a half-bottle fortified wine and two cigarettes. With his feet dangling free, he sat upon an exposed ceiling girder, but as the roof was stolen away by time, he was able to enjoy the rising sun and refreshing breeze.

The homunculus spotted him easily as it returned from its ranging, its claws now struggling against the pull of the winds to hold a message for its master. Dropping sharply from the sky, it landed with a small thump beside the elf, both arms embracing the ribbon-bound parchment.

"Well, this is unexpected." Tucking the smoke into the corner of his mouth and setting what remained of his drink down, the man removed the missive from his familiar's hands, and with swift and practiced motions rolled the parchment back to expose the contents. His eyes quickly flickered over the words, paused dead and unreceptive for a few brief moments, and then shot a brief frown to the winged creature.

"By any chance, did you somehow develop a keen hand at forgery and a sadistic glee in pranks throughout the past few days?" The words came with practiced tone of humor, but the lips wore no smile. After returning the parchment to its tightly bound state and tucking it away somewhere under the folds of his mangy cloak, he procured a piece of blank vellum and some writing instruments of his own. Setting them across his lap, he began laying down one rushed mark after another, before just as impulsively balling up the scroll into one hand. A quick invocation spawned a small gout of violet-and-black flames to flash over the claim of his grip, and what may have been his reply dissolved into a gust of wind as a stream of loose ashes.

With a long sigh, he put the quill and inkwell away before turning his attention over to the clay wine bottle still sitting untouched beside him. A few seconds passed before he made a move, one of drawing the slowly lengthening stick of ash from his mouth and dropping it into the top of the bottle. A barely-audible hiss quickly killed the stream of smoke which followed the smoldering tobacco inside. Snatching an unstrung bow from beside where he sat, the elf kipped himself off the beam and into the sea of ferns growing at the base of the derelict structure. The only real mark of his visitation left at the site was the bottle still standing on a timber.

[Nyssis]

A sea rocks between her hands, undulating with ivory waves that drain from inlet to ocean and back again. The dam keeping the bottle of liquor contained holds taut no matter the voluminous force pressed against it, but a single puncture in the cork speaks of embittered mortality. Mortality that led to a flood. A flood that led to song, to reverie.

The conductor is mesmerized by her own symphony. Her mithral claws manipulate the ewer as Sashelas would His bays, which in turn shifts the flow of citrus wine, and her eyes flicker to follow like a goddess observing cause-and-effect. But she isn't perfect like the divine are. While they would persist for eternity --- to guarantee all is as it should be --- she grows bored much sooner.

A goddess of short attention spans, if any at all.

Indeed, a long since forgotten drinking glass sits with its face to the window in shame. An imprint of a virgin kiss once savored is all that keeps its blood of spirits warm, scorned in favor for a lover in paper, ink and a decanter. The she-elf nursed that glass and a shot of wine for hours earlier, but it wasn't the same as when she drank with the Hand. It was revolting now.

Precariously does the aloft bottle, over half empty, lower until its wider end is even with the desk. Until it is even with the letter she'd written so long ago now. Eyes of liquid gold clip the dune dry contents in their peripheral, but pupils remain all-too-focused on the sole hand what refuses to leave the carafe's throat.

I find it foul when I drink by myself, so I'll yet preserve the rest of the wine. I hope we can share again soon. I long for this, hond ebrath, if you are of agreement.

She pries her digits away and allows the bottle a merciful gasp for air, nearly knocked off its feet when the winds of recoil sweep past. That spark of vitality that yet survives colors her face in warm, legitimate smile, as it would any god with an appreciation for life. As it would any woman who enjoyed a social drink and the jollity that came with it.

Lasvi sets to rolling and binding the note for delivery at her most eager convenience.