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Darcy is, once more, surprised by the spirit. She certainly hadn't expected him to go out of his way merely to indulge her own ever-insatiable curiosity. Although, she supposes, the other woman seemed to have a bone to pick with him as well.

The distortion that passes through him is fast, no more than a blink and she may have missed it, but it's enough to give her pause as she watches him. Sometimes, she thinks, it's easy to forget that this form is not the spirit's true one. Her gaze on him sharpens minutely, and she gives a quick nod.

"Of course," she is not unable to fully suppress her own concern, even if he is a spirit who she knows very little about. A creature in pain called to her other senses, and she finds it difficult to ignore. Still, she is not certain, yet, what to think of him. So much mystery surrounds him, after all. Especially concerning his motives with the Queen.

When they do reach the tree, she stills, and glances up at him as the other woman approaches as well. "...I suppose, then, my own curiosity gets the better of me, and I must ask, Llyr, why is it that you've decided, supposedly, to help us? Is it related to the old tales surrounding the Ward Tree? Not all of us are such a dumb and blind lot. Our peace has been disturbed and I worry, sometimes, about the things in the wind." Her bright green eyes suddenly seem overcast as she glances down, troubled, no doubt, by her own thoughts.

((Sorry if this is a bit long @@ ))

"Oh, aye. I've heard tha'. An' I've heard plenty more," Soibhan said, and perhaps it was a little unkind sounding. She'd heard the tales of spirits binding humans to contracts simply by rearranging their words just so. There was no such thing as a benevolent spirit if she were to believe all the stories she'd heard.

"Wha' are yer interests then, Llyr of Autumn?" she finally asked, knowing full well that she might never get an adequate response. And even if she did, would it honestly be something she wanted to hear?

She hadn't really been expecting any sort of comfort. The recent events this past year have been far too strange to mean anything good. As for what, exactly, it all meant Darcy isn't sure. Yet she, too, has heard all manner of tales about spirits. No doubt some of them were true, and others, perhaps, merely a shade of truth. She'd rather judge for herself, but that is difficult when Llyr insists upon being so cagey. She can certainly sympathize with the other woman's own sense of unease.

"They say... the Ward Tree was created in order to help the humans during the last Great War. That the guardians were sent to help us. Now we have another war approaching, and winter is coming soon," she looks out toward the darkening clouds of the storm, her young face solemn. "Now the guardians are waking again, and sinister eyes glow in the forest. What will you do when the Wolves come, Llyr of Autumn? Will you fight?"

Rose had been trying to figure out how to gracefully invite herself along, but at the sight of the obviously drunk stranger and his wee adorable fawn, she gathered her courage and stepped forward, pretending not to notice her governess' frantic fluttering as the doughty woman attempted to summon her charge away from this unsavory character. Bending down, she extended the back of her hand towards the fawn with a friendly smile. "Oh, she's adorable! What's her name?"

Glastyn's tail flicked excitedly behind him as the girl approached. The fawn stepped closer to Rose and eagerly shoved a wet snout under her hand and into her palm, as though he were trying to make her pet him.

Renaud, his arm still firmly about Llyr's rigid shoulders, called toward Rose. "Check the plumbing, my dear, and if you still think Glastyn there is a girl, you've had more to drink than I!" He chuckled, and then returned his attention to the violet-eyed spirit as Llyr regained himself.

"The usual way, eh? Is there an unusual way to go about acquiring such eyes, then?" he laughed. The question was only a partial jest. "Ah, a drinking man! We'll get along well, then." Renaud reached back into his coat with his free arm; fished-out the golden flask; and happily offered it with a shake to Llyr's shoulders. "It is a fine, spiced rum. Just enough kick to open the senses and make a man of any wee lass." He winked back at Rose. Evidently the drink had magical, gender-shifting properties.

Rose's eyes went a bit wide at the purple-clad stranger's address, and while her blush was inescapable it wasn't immediately clear whether it was a result of what he was saying or her mistake over the fawn's gender.

She scritched long, elegantly manicured fingers through Glastyn's soft fur, and her blush faded as her grin widened, distracted from her embarrassment by the adorable creature . "I'm sorry, sweetheart. What a cute little boy you are!" She giggled again as the gray horse's muzzle came between her and the fawn as he sniffed curiously, and she held out her hand for him to sniff, too. "Well, hello to you too!"

"Alas, not without the aid of a glamour," Llyr answered, accepting Renaud's flask and enduring the accompanying shake with a discreet air of suffering. He held the flask up and looked at it for a moment as if he had never seen such a thing in his entire life—which perhaps he hadn't—and then gave it a cautious sniff. He followed up this strange performance by tipping the flask to one side and allowing a drop of rum to splash across his fingers.

"Forgive me for taking the precaution," he said, "but several weeks ago a guard put flakes of iron in my wine, to see if anything would happen." Apparently satisfied by the drink's legitimacy he took a long, dispassionate swallow, and his expression didn't betray his thoughts on the taste if he had any.

"May I?" he inquired of Renaud when he was finished, before offering the flask in turn to Soibhan.

Soibhan stared at the wee lass basically shaking her finger at the flamboyant drunk twice or more her size and decided right then and there that she liked this Livy. Without waiting for Renaud to answer the spirit, she leaned down and grabbed the ornate flask, feeling its heft. It was an atrociously gaudy thing. What was the purpose of flair when all the thing did was carry a liquid that made people into giddy idiots?

She took a long pull, shivering as the strong spicy drink warmed her all the way down. It had been ages since she'd had rum. Not since Northport had she had a drop of it.

"Ahhhhhh, awful, tasty drink tha' is."