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Lithian chuckled. "I'm fine," he said, eyes alight with good humor, and — despite Casseth's offer of a hand up — he pushed back off of the pillar instead of taking it. After letting himself sink for a moment, he somersaulted backwards beneath the water, twisting himself easily around full circle before circling the pillar and coming back up to spurt water in Casseth's direction. "I'm half fish, remember?” he teased, quoting something his siblings had often accused him of. “Besides..." His smile turned wholly playful as he paddled idly. "Don't you need me to get you something?"

Without waiting for Cas to respond — Lithian figured his friend, despite his playful nature, was more than a little insecure about his fear of water and didn't need extra goading — Lithian dove. In tune with his element, Lithian never needed to truly 'breathe' per say once beneath the water. His magic absorbed the necessary oxygen out of the ocean itself naturally and provided it to his lungs. In any case, the water wasn't particularly deep here, and that made the task even easier. He located Casseth's ax without trouble, and though nominally it would have been near impossible to lift with swimming alone, a little manipulation of the current, and Lithian was moving up again swiftly with it in hand.

It was heavy, however, and as soon as he broke the surface, Lithian had to use an extra splash of magic to help him hoist the thing onto Casseth's pillar. "There, oh, fierce barbarian prince. Your fish has successfully returned your precious weapon. Do I win a consolation prize for my heroic efforts?" Elbows propped on the pillar again, he placed his fingers beneath his chin in a mock coy gesture, batting his lashes for dramatic emphasis.

Lithian blinked, openly surprised as Casseth crouched and reached out to grip his shoulders. Immediately on contact, his cheeks began to warm, and at the word choice of ‘my little fish’, the effect multiplied triple-fold. Before he could open his mouth, however, Casseth finished his sentence with a shove, and Lithian yelped, the tail end of his sound dissolving into a muddled mass of underwater bubbles as he sank back beneath the surface.

Part of Lith, though, was almost thankful. At least the water gave him a chance to mask the fact that his face had probably changed through several shades of deep, burning red-brown, and if he’d tried to respond to Casseth at that moment he likely would have sputtered over his words anyway. Flushing, if possible, even more hotly at the thought, Lithian huffed beneath the surface of the waves, and glanced up, watching Casseth hop from pillar to pillar and move towards the ship.

Why did his body react that way to Casseth?

It wasn’t fair.

He allowed himself only a moment longer, though, before Lithian stamped his embarrassed — and, perhaps privately pleased — bubbling emotions and frustrations down and out of his mind. They did need to get back to the ship, after all. There was work to be done. That in mind, Lithian splayed his fingers, reaching out to his magic like gathering tendrils of energy in his palms. Then, with a quick pinch and pivot, he spiralled upwards, lifting his body with a reverse water spout and rising up, just above the deck of the ship, and then over.

He landed with a watery splash on the ship’s deck, soaking everything in a fifteen foot radius and earning himself several sharp yelps in the process. Glancing back towards Casseth, he grinned. "Maybe the dragons were the welcoming committee? 'Welcome to Soudul, we hope you enjoy your stay...'?"

Lithian was still wringing his clothes out by the time they made it off the ship and onto the dock. He carted his luggage — which always seemed to a significantly more substantial load than Casseth’s — on his back, twisting the long sleeves of his tunic as they walked and leaving a train of dripping ocean water behind him.

“So,” he said, moving from his tunic sleeves to his hair and wringing his long braids mercilessly, “…where to? Do you want to look for an inn first and start asking around in the morning, or…?” Before he finished that sentence, Lith’s stomach rumbled noisily enough to be audible by both himself and likely Casseth as well, and he flushed. “Perhaps a bite to eat, and then a good sleep? I’m sure you’re eager to get started, but…” His eyes flicked to the rising moon, the stars already coming out in a full scatter that reflected over the ocean like a sea of lighting bugs. “It is late, and after that battle…I am fairly tired…”

Fortunately it wasn’t nearly late enough yet for the street vendors to have closed down — still early night, after all — and the crowds along the docks bustled with life. Scents of all sorts wafted through the air, thankfully not just those of fish, bells chimed, and shopkeepers called out their products.

Stifling a yawn, Lithian glanced to his friend and smiled. “Lead on, master barbarian.”

Lithian flushed at the question. “I…have, actually. Once.”

He eyed the open stalls as he spoke, and gravitated towards one that looked to be selling garghon egg-wraps — the egg cracked and fried into an almost pancake-esque shape and then doused in a sprinkle of oil and filled with meat and various local vegetable chunks. The locals, if he remembered correctly, called them ‘kadikas’.

Aloud, he said only, “These are good,” and moved over to purchase two. As he handed Casseth one and started back down the street, he continued: “I was last here when my youngest sister, Iwana…got herself into some trouble. I came here to help her make her way home. I can’t say it was a terribly pleasant experience. The continent as a whole unnerves me to an extent, but…” Lithian shrugged, “…to some people, it’s home? And food isn’t something they’re lacking in, that we can be grateful for.”

He glanced to Casseth. “If you don’t like that or if you’d like something else, there’s plenty of variety. Burhyka is also good — sweeter, but good, and phorras are a bit like…boats of thinly baked bread filled with a greenery I didn’t ask about and some thick, rich cheeses? I enjoyed it…”

Lithian waved his hand immediately at Casseth’s objection. “Don’t worry about it. I can front the cost — we only need one room, anyway.” Despite Casseth’s lingering uneasiness, Lithian moved in with confidence. Before he could so much as open his mouth, however, the woman behind the counter clicked her tongue, rapping something to the desk in front of her.

“No, hybrids,” she snapped with the voice of someone scolding a poorly trained animal. “Out. What do you take this place for, a barn? You’re getting the carpet wet…” Her voice lowered to a bitter murmur. “Uncultured little…you’d think they’d learn…”

Lithian, for his part, felt his cheeks heat. An entirely different sort of heat than that which Casseth brought about: surprise, frustration, anger, embarrassment, and raw insult. Casseth hadn’t even stepped in yet when she’d said it, meaning the comment could only have been directed at him. When he didn’t withdraw immediately, her tapered, dark mauve eyebrows climbed ever higher up her already wide forehead.

“Are you deaf, boy? Should I sing it to you in a nursery rhyme?”

Lithian felt his shoulders bunch, fingers itching to clench. “I,” he started in a quick, clipped voice, “am Lithian Bhardvaris, the fourth son and sixth child in a line of seven born to Ahtti’sha and Nevhin Bhardvaris, two pureblood dovaa of rank on the Celestial Plane, and if you have something to say to me, you will address me by—”

Lithian opened his mouth, myriad emotions tangling into each other just beneath the surface of his skin and a thousand comments weighing against the tip of his tongue. Before he spoke, though, he let not only Cas’ words, but everything about his friend in that moment sink in: his tone, stance, expression. The resigned nature of it all. And like a brick that often hit him when in Casseth’s company, re-enforcement of the notion that Cas was used to this — so, painfully used to this — hit Lithian hard, and something in his stance broke down, his shoulders sagging.

He had been so insulted to be ‘accused’ of being hybrid. But Casseth, the best friend he had in this world, was one. What did it say about Lithian, that he still considered the word an insult? Not only an insult, but something to get furious over, when anger was not even his typical recourse?

Swallowing his pride, Lithian nodded, and stepped out of the inn without another word. Even as they searched for a more suitable location, however, the question itched at him, lingering heavily in the back of his mind. Why — how — did he still consider the word ‘hybrid’ a slur worthy of so much personal fury? Was he still, beneath it all, a perpetrator on some level of the prejudices Casseth faced every day? And if so…

…how could Casseth bear his company?

Lithian flushed at Casseth’s commentary, half-smiling at the gentle nudging, but then frowned again at the final apology. “Casseth…you have nothing to apologize for. I…”

Frown deepening, Lithian plucked at the hem of his shirt sleeve. After thinking for a long moment, he shook his head, dismissing the mental commentary buzzing between his ears.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” he repeated. “I should have anticipated it here, anyway, shouldn’t I? Nearly every person on the street is either oblivionite or an oblivionite hybrid, and if you run with that assumption, I do look like an oblivionite hybrid.” He glanced Casseth’s way, and gave another fraction of a smile. “At least we match?” he teased. “Here, we’re on the same footing…” He thumbed over the ridges of one of his horns, genuinely abashed. “I don’t know why I got so angry. I shouldn’t have…it isn’t an insult to be what you are. Perhaps it will be good for me, to get a taste of what you live every day…and how can I complain?”

Eyes landing on another tavern sign — not as nice, perhaps, but suitable — Lithian nodded his head towards it.

“Let’s see if this place will give us a bed?”

Lithian’s brow furrowed at Casseth’s comment, and he opened his mouth to object, but after a pause, only a sigh passed from between his lips. Instead, of conceding, however, he reached out, gripping Casseth’s wrist and guiding him — gently but insistently all the same — into the inn with him. “It was me who the last woman had an issue with first, and if someone is going to have a problem with either of us, they can say it to us together.”

That said, Lithian approached the front desk, Casseth still in tow, and pinned the man behind the counter with a look that dared him to comment. When the person in front of them cleared out, Lithian stepped up.

“We need one room for the night. Anywhere you have open will do. You can put the tab under ‘Bhardvaris’ — I’ll pay in full.”

The man’s attention flicked from Lithian, to Casseth, to their entwined hands, and then to the scroll beneath his fingers as he whetted a quil. “One bed?” he asked, his tone as casual as someone inquiring about the weather. Bored, even.

Lithian blinked and, partly thanks to the man’s apathy, his meaning took a long moment to sink in. When it did, however, Lithian’s cheeks immediately staged a light show. Dropping Casseth’s wrist like hot metal, he jerked his fingers back and rapidly shook his head.

“No, no, we—” He cleared his throat, frowning and willing his pulse to calm back down as he swallowed. “We’re not…no. Two beds. Please.”

“Fifty copper pieces for the night,” the innkeeper said, absolutely unresponsive to Lithian’s embarrassment as he flicked around a worn sheet of parchment. “Sign.”

“I—” Lithian clapped his lips shut, and nodded, scrawling his signature onto the piece and then drawing out the mentioned fee. Immediately after taking it up, the innkeeper clapped a key onto the table and pushed it towards him.

“Up the stairs, third door on your right.”

“Thank…” Lithian cleared his overly dry throat. “Thank you.”

“Disturb the other guests and you’ll be kicked out without a refund.”

“We understand, sir,” Lithian said with another nod and a hurried half-bow, eager to back away as soon as possible.