“Are we sure this is wise?”
Jarl secures the door after Maria’s departure, wanting to make certain the devout woman stays in the dark, before turning back to the two miscreants on Mariti’s guest bed; specifically the one questioning him, Manus. “Not entirely,” he admits, perplexed frown firmly in place. “But this kidnapper… this Red…” He pauses here, frustratedly trying to figure out what he’s feeling and how to say it. “I don’t understand him,” he settles.
Slowly, Manus nods, “You’re hoping to find out more about him by tracing his steps.”
Jarl nods back, “And why he wants another daemon to make a deal with.”
(Áesta remains silent.)
~
“Glad to see you are alright, Manus.”
The recovering magician giggles and coos at the apothecary, “Aww~ Were you worried about me, Hɔney~?” From kilometers away, Hagen rolls his eyes and Jarl has to fight the urge to do so himself; Áesta only sniggers.
“He’s almost ready to head out.”
“Sehr gut.” The normally stoic man cracks a smile for his witchy half and Jarl allows Witch Doctor a moment, watching the no longer pale mage beam at the younger man, before pushing forward.
“We’re taking a small detour, though.”
“Was?”
~
Explaining their his reasoning for the boat ride had
gone about as well as one could expect.
“We have a set path!” Hagen had exclaimed, appearing a mix of horrified and surprised. Jarl can’t blame him: if anyone else had suggested they do this, he’d probably have ordered their head on a platter for it; after all, it really does seem like a horrible waste of time. However, Jarl can not shake the feeling that it is important.
“Yes, we do! But we need to trace THEIRS! It’ll give us information!”
“We’ll get all the information we’ll need at Bailecastle!”
“Not if we want to be PREPARED!!!”
~
Hagen had had a good point.
Chances are, they WOULD have all the information—probably in droves, too—at the cave Jasey’s trapped in. In fact, they’ll probably end up finding plenty of illuminating details along the path they’ve already set.
But Jarl can’t help but feel his point is right too: there’s something unerringly wrong about this kidnapping—and the kidnapper—and Jarl is determined to find out WHAT, exactly, these things are.
Preferably BEFORE they dive in too deeply.
~
Once they’ve managed to convince Hagen that gathering more information on the kidnapper is for the best, Shantown’s priest and mage agree that they need to thank certain people before they pack up and leave.
For Jarl, this is mostly Maria. She’s the one that truly helped him take care of Manus while he was sick and Jarl badly needed to smooth things over with Áesta before things were horribly irreversible with him. (something that would have been gravely problematic as he is still scheduled to be their bait—
never mind the more important fact that it would have been a good friend lost)
Never mind the fact that she had seen Jasey and took the time to tell him of it.
For Manus, though…
~
Áesta heads back to the Wet Wagon.
He mentions something about a glen as he leaves, bright smile ricocheting off the glittering expanse of snow that accumulated on the ground while they were holed up inside Mariti’s vicar. Jarl’s not sure what he means (even if there IS a glen nearby it’s probably buried in frozen water by now—then again, Áesta doesn’t freeze), but he lets the daemon go.
They’re still inside of a priest’s home until they head out, after all.
And Áesta has very good reason to hate this particular one.
~
While Áesta’s safe at the bar, Jarl and Manus work on getting the mage’s strength back: by cooking.
Deciding that food for the road (or boat, in this case) had been helpful before and might be again, soon, Manus and Jarl gather the emptied containers they were given by Sheryl and Dory and begin loading them up with more stew—this time, Jarl’s. Manus helps, of course, but the priest assigns him littler and simpler things, not wanting the recovering magician to overwork himself so soon (he was just nearly hypothermic, after all).
They talk a lot as they do this.
Most of their conversation is about Áesta and Maria, of how Jarl thinks—based on how he interacts with her—he might actually get along with Sophie (assuming they “either don’t tell her he’s a daemon first or regale her with all the ways he helped us get Jasey back before sharing that bomb with her…”). The rest…
“What happened between you and Mariti, by the by? Áesta wouldn’t tell me.”
Jarl frowns. He taste-tests a chunk of meat from his stew—perfect—before replying, having needed to think. “He explained to me why, exactly, Áesta hates crucifixes.”
Manus blinks, clearly surprised (and Jarl suddenly wonders if he knew the exact reason before, too, or now; or if he just knows that it’s a truth and not exactly why), “And? Why does it seem like you two broke up?”
Shantown’s priests snorts (at the idea of him and Mariti dating [which is all kinds of gross, actually]) before answering: “Because he’s a heretic and deserves the punishment Áesta gave him.”
(In fact, Jarl thinks even God would approve.)
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