"In most cases it is not important."

"We're not going to agree on that." She's not angry or frustrated about it at all, though.

"Yes, so I'm not sure why it keeps coming up."

"I expect he's going to be at least twenty minutes, if there's something else you'd like to be doing."

"Do you play chess?"

That gets him a smile. "I don't, but Luxuriant Tani does; I'll go get her."

She's back quickly with a younger woman and a heavy chess board with a drawer underneath for the pieces. "Blai, this is Luxuriant Tani; Tani, Select Blai."

    "Nice to meet you; what ruleset do you like?"

"I have a book of a bunch I haven't gotten the chance to try yet!" He pulls it out and picks one.

She's quite good at chess, and happy to play as many games as he has time for. Katrianne goes off to take care of some chores, in the meantime.

He has time until Raafi gets back to spirit him away to the next thing!

Raafi shows up again about half an hour later, still looking a bit pensive. He doesn't interrupt the game and won't stick around longer than it takes to see that Katrianne isn't in the room unless Blai speaks to him when he looks in.

Blai looks up but doesn't speak first.

He comes back a few minutes later with Katrianne. "Are you close to the end of the game?"

    "I think just a few more minutes," Tani reports.

"You haven't cornered me quite yet." He's losing this one though.

Tani just grins and moves her queen.

"Don't rush on our account, we'll be in the other office."

    "Sure, we'll come get you when we're done."

Blai loses but he makes her work for it.

She's a gracious winner. "Have they mentioned our weekly game night yet?" she asks as she puts away the pieces.

"It hasn't come up." There were instead jokes (probably!) about dungeons.

"Day after tomorrow, after dinner. You're welcome to come for dinner, too. We have all kinds of board games but at least two chess boards, and sometimes people will bring extra from home if they especially want to play."

"Thank you for letting me know."

"I hope you can make it, this was fun!" She has the pieces packed up and brings the board with her to knock on the next door down the hall. "We're all done, Kat!"

    "Send him in, please!"

She opens the door and gestures for him to go in.

In he goes.

This room is arranged similarly to the other one; Katrianne and Raafi are snuggled up on the bench again and Kat nods for Blai to take the chair.

"Kat told me that you're not sure if you're allowed to keep your history a secret but that you don't like to talk about it," Raafi says once the door is closed. "Is there anything else I should know about that? I'll keep you away from gnomes, of course."

"I think that about covers it unless you have more of your own questions about it."

"I'm assuming horrible things were done to you and required of you and if I need details for some reason you'll tell me. I've had enough of consorting with Evil to know better than to ask beyond that." (Kat pats his hand.)

"...I'm not sure what it is you would expect to happen to you if you did ask, are facts about my history going to be actively harmful to a gnome if one corners me?"