It's well past the worst depths of winter, even here on the north edge of the Worldwound- the temperature ekes its way above freezing occasionally, the days are only short and not miserably short, last night's snowstorm wasn't quite a blizzard. It is, nonetheless, fairly surprising when the patrol on their way to Fort #11 spots three figures in the distance trudging towards them from the north.
"Huh. My evils mainly left someone afterwards pissed at me and alive." Well, by individual instance the sex definitely outnumbers the active harms, but still.
"I guess some people go in for that kind in Cheliax, but if you're smart you don't go with ones that leave someone pissed off, alive, and able to do anything about it."
"Oh, and you mustn't have the- um, church stories but not in services? -a man cheats a dairymaid, she tells her sister, she tells her mistress, she tells her husband, he picks a different supplier, and the first man is ruined, yet never learns he lost that purchase?"
"Well, yes, I must apologize- I know the churches are different so the teachings are different, I meant- I don't know the Taldane-" She sighs and scrubs a hand across her face, marshalling her sentences. "That one in specific is a, a song for taverns actually, it's as much Calistrian as Abadaran. ...I learned several more verses after I had left my father's house."
And Txell can get a giggle from her in return. "It's in Osiriani, I don't know that I can translate the puns, but I can sing enough to teach it and tell you what it means?"
Then Khalida can teach her the chorus, which has a catchy little tune, and gloss the lyrics as
And the word goes around and around the town,
And the word goes around and around,
He thought no one should know,
But he didn't know who knew
Because the word goes around and around
"And then if you wish time before the next verse, you can repeat 'and around' as you like, that's the part which means 'and around', and-" she glances at Txell's squad and lowers her voice a little, leaning in, "if you're not in mixed company you say 'tale' instead, that also means 'news' but it means technically 'mouth'."