They've left him alone in his cell.
He can't really be said to be lucid but he has very acute instincts for when there's someone and when he's alone - it's the last of his senses to depart him - and he's alone.
And then suddenly he isn't.
They've left him alone in his cell.
He can't really be said to be lucid but he has very acute instincts for when there's someone and when he's alone - it's the last of his senses to depart him - and he's alone.
And then suddenly he isn't.
Yeah, kobolds are pretty good at that.
"Were you planning to stick around for a while?" Rána asks when lunch starts to wind down.
"We can," one of them says.
"We've been spending a lot of time away this year anyway, they won't think it's strange."
"We know you're busy, though."
"We are, kind of," she acknowledges. "Tyelkormo?"
"Fine with me."
Cuddling resumes; they swap stories about things that've happened over the last year; Rána shows off how she can fly, and then some of the other magic. Eventually there's a lull, and Rána snuggles up to Tyelkormo and starts singing.
Pretty.
After a bit of hesitation, one of the kobolds tentatively joins them. When Rána's grin widens, the others do too, one by one.
They like you, she explains. Singing's more of a social thing for kobolds, we don't often sing with people who aren't tribemates or friends.
The kobolds don't have anything like that attention span; the singing trails off after most of an hour.
"If we're staying here for dinner somebody's going to have to go get it," one of them points out a little later.
"There'll be something made, but it'll take a while to get it, they can't teleport too close to the group."
"Mmhmm."
They debate who's going to go, and then work out what they'll be getting - each tribe has a few different dishes being prepared, plus various leftovers from lunch. Rána cares less about what she gets than about who's making it - she wants whatever her old tribe's head cook is preparing. (They're one of the ones who switched tribes, and aren't head cook in their new one, but that's still achievable enough.) She recommends a vegetable soup, for Tyelkormo: that tribe's cook does the most amazing things with spices, I'm sure you'll like it.
It is, and after dinner there's more singing.
After a while Rána stretches and says "okay, we should head back," and the other kobolds blink at her, surprised. "Maybe next year," she adds.
"...okay," one of them says, while a few of the others look at each other, worriedly.
"It's fine, guys," she addresses the worriers. "I've been too busy for it to bother me, anyway."
"All right." But they don't really seem to think it's all right, whatever it is.
So, like, with Quendi, you trust people will bring things up if they prefer to talk about them, and it's very rude to demand to be let in on things if someone isn't expressing a desire to share. But apparently kobolds think it's appallingly rude not to be aggressively intrusive at people, so - what's going on?
She makes a face that's about equal parts amused and grossed out. Thanks, but, skip it for this one.
She chuckles and hugs him and the others relax.
"Anything else before we go?"
One of the kobolds asks if there's a way for them to get in touch with her, and she sets that up, and that seems to be it.