"You put a great deal of faith in these villagers."

The sudden intrusion of Ambriel’s voice within his mind nearly caught Leif off guard. Reflexively, he had to keep from turning around and facing the bard as to not catch Coltham’s eye. However, he did frown slightly because he hadn’t noticed the pull from the wave stone until he reached down and settled his hand on his thigh. He could feel the draw of his mana being pulled away from him and sighed inwardly.

Of course, even his childlike mirth and his excitement in involving Coltham in his research had an underlying hand to something else. 

Leif tilted his head, pressing his mana into the stone as he slipped his fingers in the pouch. He kept his slumped posture as to feign sleep or idle watching, glancing off as he thought about Ambriel’s initial words when the two parted ways. "Without it, you would have difficulty finding your muse, wouldn't you?" He wasn’t sure what muse Ambriel was looking for exactly, but he determined that it must have been something worthwhile if he intended to do so alone and thought that even the one protecting his life would simply get in his way. 

"In your discipline, you've sworn to only write the truth and nothing less," Leif glanced over his shoulder then to see Ambriel peeking up at him from beneath his hair. Something flashed within his eyes, and Leif knew that he must have hit a nerve.  "So surely, you must have some faith in them if you were taking down the words of children to complete a tale in my honor."

He wondered what exactly was written in Ambriel’s book about him specifically. He could imagine that the bard had talked about a manner of things that he poked about him with. How inflexible he could be, and how intolerable he could speak of things. The list went on and he nearly rolled his eyes at the thought of it. When nothing was returned in words, Leif sank down in his seat again and observed the countryside.

He watched the trees warily, tensing when any of them bore fruit. The idea that Arus was watching them had crossed his mind and he lamented his hasty decision to bring Ambriel with him. No matter how charming the bard could be, nothing good would come of it if he were to be injured in a battle with a god. Still, he couldn’t have left him on his own lest Ambriel followed him anyway. 

Leif chewed on the inside of his cheek and drummed his fingers against the stone, until he heard Ambriel remark within their mental array,  "You're looking around too much, what has you on edge?"

He tensed up somewhat, thinking about removing his fingers from the stone until he realized that his thoughts had been shared without his knowing. Instead, he sank down and sighed, pursing his lips as he considered what to tell Ambriel in the bitter end. If he were to know that Arus was somewhere lingering, then perhaps he would have wanted to come into contact with the Goddess. 

And that would be troublesome within itself. 

Unbeknownst to his worries, Ambriel continued as if he were puzzling over something that interested him greatly, "You cleared the more traveled roads leading from the village throughout the early morning, yes? There shouldn't be anything monsters lingering about, and yet…"

As he edged upon the reason for Leif’s concern, Leif sighed inwardly. Hiding things from the bard was as difficult as trying to keep his thoughts to himself. It was Ambriel’s insistence on wanting to know him that it made it hard for him to have his secrets. But if his earlier confrontation with Coltham was any indication, Leif knew that he couldn’t keep his secrets to himself for long. They always tended to come up in the end, and at times without his permission. 

"Ambriel, during your travels have you ever come across a Primarch?"

The bard hummed within their mental array, then mused softly, "Aside from meetings with their followers, and the pressure I’ve felt  at a sacred site, I could not say. Why do you ask?"

Leif considered what he could tell him. The Primarch were beings of legend. Arus was not a simple being - She was an embodiment of nature itself. The fear that roiled in his gut at the idea of Coltham and Ambriel coming to harm through Arus’ influence lingered at the back of his mind and he pursed his lips at the thought. Yet, how could he expect either of them to be prepared if they didn’t know the dangers they were to face?

As he mulled it over, Coltham interjected his thoughts with a grumble,  “Oi, I know I said for ya t’ use yer lil thing and leave m’ be but whatever it’s doing is annoyin’ at best!” He waved his hand at his steer whose head was turning this way and that as if it were searching for something that they couldn’t see. “Look, yer even spookin’ my ox.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Leif chuckled, withdrawing his hand from his pocket entirely. He flashed a smile over his shoulder at Ambriel and shook his head.  “Let’s talk later, I’m getting a little dizzy and I could use some rest before we get there.”

With that he sank down in his seat, and tucked his chin to his chest, attempting to will away the world for a moment so that he could linger within the back of his mind. He wasn’t sure how much to divulge or how little to keep to himself, but he knew that it was important to take everything within consideration. Ambriel was a scholar, and Coltham was a skeptic. Either of them knowing something like this would warrant something untoward coming about.

I shouldn’t risk it.

In the midst of the darkness behind his lids, Leif could hear rustling and Ambriel offering in a soft tone,  “Then, why don’t I play something?”

“Y’shouldn’t,” Coltham said.

“Why is that?” 

“Cause silence is golden,” Coltham sniped.

Ambriel gasped, “Ah, so do you have the lucre to pay my silence? It is in this here chest?”

While the two of them bickered, Leif allowed himself to drift off into the expanse of his mind. He could imagine Ambriel looking at him and wondering what was going through his head. If the bard had it his way, he might have tinkered with his invention to make it so that he could read Leif’s naked thoughts. The thought was disconcerting at worst, and strangely soft at best.

"I may not look it much, but I am a mercenary," Leif said, ignoring the young man scrunching his nose at him or the disbelief in his eyes as he swept a cursory look over Leif's person.

"You're a mercenary without a weapon…?" The young man hedged, shifting his body away slightly as if he would make to bolt. 

Leif snorted, "Well, I can't rightly carry one with me in the open."

Or tell someone that I'm carrying one at all.

"Is this job dangerous enough that I'd need one?" Leif asked, coaxing the threads of anemo he'd grasped from the zephyr's departure to gather in the palm of his hand. While the haggard youth seemed to weigh his question seriously, his grip on the parchment loosened. Leif curled his forefinger and middle, springing the ball of kneaded anemo to burst into a brisk updraft. The parchment escaped the young man's hands as he loosed a startled ack and reached out to grab it. 

Leif lifted his hand and snatched it out of the air by one side, scanning the slanted messy scrawl. A penciled sketch of a garnished bouquet of long, spindly stocks topped with a bulbous bell-like petals tied together neatly at their base with twine was etched into the page. His gaze swept over the requirements and the large, curving signature shimmering as though the ink was still wet. 

"Alditha Ryfar," Leif read aloud, not missing the way the young man froze at the name. He tipped his head to one side and turned the parchment so they could both see the blossoms, tapping against the shimmering ink. "Is that you?" 

"N-No," the young man muttered, studying him for a moment with narrowed brown eyes. Then, he sighed. "My name is Vidrid Caldawen, sir…" 

"I see," Leif turned the parchment over and handed it back to him, then jutted a thumb over his shoulder with a jerk of the head. "Head to the Steins and find Marris, tell her that Leif's gonna be takin' this on. We'll sign the Party Agreement and all later—" 

"W-Wait a moment, Sir Leif," Vidrid shouted, clamping his hands over his mouth when Leif lapsed into silence.  

They stared at one another for a moment, onlookers returning to their devices once the spectacle of two young men shouting at one another came to a halt. Leif sighed after a moment passed, and asked, "What? Is that not enough to balance the scales?"

"N-No," Vidrid stuttered as he lowered his hands, blanching somewhat as he hastily corrected, "Well yes you're doing me a service by taking on this job. But I haven't told you anything of merit yet, and I hadn't been watching where I stepped so.. so.. if there's anything I can do for you—" 

"Well, you'll be compensating me, right?" With how quickly Vidrid nodded, Leif almost felt guilty for scaring him. "That's more than enough."

Vidrid trembled, but he refused to look away from Leif or take the paper back. Leif rubbed the back of his neck, and sighed internally.

Why do I always run into the strong-minded types?