Spellsword

A Bottle

"Ah! There you are!"

Hearing his words, an intensity rushed through me. I suddenly felt the fatigue that I carried, having fruitlessly searched the docks, and then making quite the run up the hill that led to the city gates. There had been no familiar 'hoods' upon any docked ship. I wasn't quite sure if this was a comfort or a concern, and with a show of disinterest from Vittoria at the Empires trading point, it seemed obvious that Teldryn must be up in the city above. Though my head was heavy, my feet were fast, and yet still my mind had much enough time on route to imagine all sorts of scenarios in which Teldryn may have been discovered. I kept telling myself that the standing guard would not be so calm had an arrest been made, but I needed to see him for myself. I needed to know that he was safe and unnoticed. The posted guards had given me quite the blank look between them as I finally stopped to catch my breath, my hands resting upon my thighs as I stood in the shade of the gate wall. I had given them some offhand remark about 'everyone in a city is in a hurry to somewhere', before walking along toward the market. 

And that is where his voice met me. 

With intention not to shout his name, I simply called back; "There you are!"

Teldryn had just turned the corner of the market entrance, and was ducking beneath some low laying bunting. There was a bottle in his hands, which he lifted as I neared him.

"Can you believe this?" he said dryly, looking down his nose at a familiar drawing of a fire on its label, "Swits paid me with one bottle of wine for my troubles... guess they only pay the dragonborn himself in coin...."

The ache in my head revived itself at the very sight of the liquid sloshing around behind the green glass, "Oh... please don't show me that," I shuddered, lifting my fingers to my temple.

Teldryn curved his neck slightly with a grin, "Oh right... good stuff is this?" His teasing smile dropped so soon as it came, along with any wit he may have gathered up regarding my sore head from the night before, and a more serious look of his landed on the weapon across my shoulder. "Vee," he said plainly, "What is wrong?" 

As if by some unspoken que, the wind lifted a flurry of dust between us and licked up at a stone wall. There was a flutter of heavy paper, and it was then that the gaze we shared slid to meet the sound, and the likeness, of Teldryn staring back at us from what was becoming quite the infamous bounty. 

"Ah," Teldryn said, his hand seemingly of its own volition lifting to secure his red cloth about his lower face. 

"Tamlen said that some hooded men came by the Inn and..."

Teldryn peered over my shoulder as I spoke, his stance entirely more tense than it had been when he had first rounded the corner. "You mean... those men?"

I followed his gaze quickly, and sure enough, there stood two men in blue hoods, seemingly conversing with the guards whom I had just walked by. And, as sure, was the parchment they held in their hands, fluttering in their grip and currently being turned as to be better viewed in the midday light. 

"That can't be good," Teldryn almost whispered. 

The urgency finally returned to me. "We have to go, right now!"

"Okay, lets be off," Teldryn said quickly, turning on his heel. 

"Wait," I said, slightly perplexed for a moment.

"What's wrong? You looking to get a souvenir? Come on!" and with that Teldryn took my hand and began to lead us through the market, and to a large stone tower. "We aren't getting out the main way... but the ships folk bring their goods up through here directly from the dock... if we..."