"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Magnhild why are you here?"

"He told me you died so I came here to rub the fact that you died before I did in your face."

"Hard to die when you're locked up in some musty library in a floating city playing page for some old sage who can't get off his chair instead of doing anything meaningful with your life," she snaps right back.

"She's fine," sighs Magnhild to Vallynn. "I don't know why I bothered."

"It's because you like her." He's not going to mention that she was looking awful and wanting to give up just a minute ago. Vallynn isn't sure what happened between these two but they're clearly important to each other.

"Guess I must still have a little scrap of affection for her buried somewhere."

"Could not be me."

He stands up. "I'm gonna leave the two of you to it."

"Oh, please don't leave me alone with her, I'll kill her or myself."

"You said you wanted company and I just remembered I have an urgent appointment somewhere that's not here so I guess it'll have to be her."

"Such a dick."

"Oh, stop being such a bitch to a guy who cares about you, you're gonna push everyone away like that."

"You're one to talk—"

He shuts the door behind himself, grinning a bit.

"Oh I thought I heard some familiar voices."

"Odin's sagging ballsack where the fuck did you come from?"

"I was right here," he says, stepping out of a slightly shaded area that was nowhere near dark though to have been enough to hide him.

He looks somewhat different than what Vallynn remembers. His face is a little bit sharper and more angular than before, and he seems to have put on some muscle, which his dark purple sleeveless leather jerkin and skintight (if not as tight as Vallynn's) trousers highlight. There's a dagger the size of his forearm attached to each side of his belt plus a third dagger sheathed by his right calf, and he's wearing fingerless leather gloves and a pair of metal earrings with a clear stone of some kind hanging from the left one.

"Fucking Hel, man, have you been hanging out with Alph a lot?"

"How should I know? It's not like either of us would notice the other if we did."

"Yes, yes, har de har har. Come on, if you're going to show up out of nowhere to scare the shit out of me you may as well follow me." He starts making his way out.

"Where we going?"

"The bar. I need a drink."

"The bar? I knew Geffen was a small city but I didn't realise it was that small."

He rolls his eyes. "The bar that I usually go to when I want to get drunk, how about?"