As A Stranger Or A Friend?: The Swallow And The Drowned Sailor

Axtapor - 3 Sun's Dawn, 1246 A.D.

"Alright, alright, what do you make of that pair there?" Idhi asked, dabbing tears of joy from her eyes as she tried to steady her voice from her cackling just moments ago.

"'Em two?" I asked with a frown.

"No, no. The ones beside them. The pair of birds?" She asked quizzically as she took a sip of her spiced wine.

"Oh, aye. I see 'em." I said, locating the couple in question, "I 'cognize the woman."

"Do you?" She asked with some surprise, "From where?"

"Night 'fore last. She been holdin' a wee babe then, though." I replied, taking a swig of ale from my tankard.

"What do you think she did with it?" She pondered.

"Nay know." I replied with a shrug.

"Well, I say good riddance. Those perverted little milk-drinkers. Do they feel no shame suckling on their mothers like that?" She asked in a huff, fanning herself with a frown.

I simply watched her with an amused expression and took yet another drink of ale.

I'd committed to getting a few drinks in her to make her company more tolerable, and they'd certainly delivered. She was a completely different person now that she was slightly inebriated and was attracting plenty of attention on her own without any of our posturings from the previous nights. I gathered it was because she was smiling and laughing. From experience, I could say that is when a woman looked her best. And I had to admit; she was even beginning to appear alluring to me. But then I remembered her usual temper, and those rose-tinted lenses shattered immediately.

"'Haps she had to hide it. He be dark of hair and that babe been blonde. It nay be his." I responded as I gestured to them with my chin.

She gasped salaciously and grabbed my arm excitedly. "Then she's had an affair! Maybe she came in search of the baby's father that night!"

"Or she be lookin' to bed any man who'll have her. She came 'fter me when ye slapped me 'bout." I suggested with a chuckle.

"Ooh, then she's less innocent than she looks." She giggled, obscuring her mouth with her fan as a proper lady should.

"Oh aye, be the innocent ones ye must watch for." I replied as I watched the starling woman spin in the arms of her latest victim, "'Haps it be right that she be dressed as so."

"What do you mean?"

"Her mask." I took another drink of ale, "Starlin's be gluttons."

"Oh my. She is rather saucy then, isn't she?" She asked with a giggle.

"Aye, seems as so..."

Even in this darkness, I could see how tiny her waist was whenever her cloak swirled about her. It reminded me of Mariel's, but I wondered if I wasn't just trying to find her in places I knew she could not be.

"Don't tell me she's caught your eye, cousin." Idhi asked in a deflated tone.

"Belay yer yammerin'..." I muttered and cocked my head to one side, further observing this masked woman.

The firelight around us made it hard to tell what color hair she had, but it didn't seem all that dark. Perhaps she was indeed blonde if that baby was hers. She was quite small too. But if our guesses at her demeanor were true, then she wouldn't exactly be to my taste even if I was physically drawn to her. I supposed that was okay. I wasn't searching for love or anything long-lasting, just a casual dalliance, that's all. Besides, I couldn't put out of my mind the strangeness of our interaction from the other night; that alone could be enough for me to want to approach her.