Snort. "No. It was a mistake."

"What, did you trip and fall?"

"I went after a bounty that was too hard for me and got trapped in an underwater cave after I'd gotten a chunk of me bitten off."

"Oh. That's worse. Am I allowed to make fun of you?"

"You are."

"That's so dumb, were you that eager to prove yourself?"

"No, I—" He pauses, then shakes his head. "Maybe a little." In hindsight it's obvious that "it would be really cool if he took down a rank 2 bounty at rank 1" was nonzero motivating.

"And you didn't even complete the bounty?"

"We did not."

'We', is that so? There's something Vallynn isn't saying, here. But he won't push. "Maybe next time you'll be smarter."

"I know I will. For one, I'm going to have an actual party."

Which rather narrows the meaning of the word 'we' before. He guesses… "Is Astrid alright?"

He sighs. "Not very, but I think I did the right thing when I called Magnhild over."

"Called her over? From where?"

"Oh, right, she left Geffen to go to Juno to study to be a sage."

"On her own? Without Astrid?"

"...you'd have expected Astrid to come with?"

"The two of them are thick as thieves. I wouldn't be surprised to hear they were dating though I think that's not quite what's going on there."

"Huh. Well, it did seem like they'd had some kind of falling out, but Astrid perked right up once Magnhild showed up."

"I see. So, what else have you been up to other than acting like a fifteen year old?"

"Oh, fuck off."

"...so now I've got a few new spells I've been intermittently working on."

"So about that elven ancestry…"

"I just find it really intuitive!"

"And you know who else used to find this kind of thing really intuitive?"