Welcome to Gaia! ::

Lithian blinked, watching as Casseth darted in and unceremoniously shed his luggage with a thunk before flopping onto the bed. He chuckled at the comment — a sentiment he could more than agree with — and let his eyes flick down Casseth’s prone form in the process. When he caught his attention lingering on the fit of Cas’ pants, however, and the way they framed the shapely rise of his posterior, he jerked his gaze away, face burning.

“I—” He cleared his throat, keeping his eyes on anything but Casseth, “—couldn’t agree more.” After setting his own things down gently at the foot of the bed opposite Casseth’s, Lithian hesitated only a moment before ignoring the pre-existing heat in his cheeks and starting to strip out of some of his wet clothes. He unlaced his boots and toed them off, tucking them beside his other belongings before working off his gloves, tunic top, and belt of vials. “At least we should sleep well tonight?”

Curbing the urge to glance sidelong as he said it — not yet trusting himself to look Casseth’s way — Lithian glanced to their single window instead and approached it. Tying the the heavy brown curtains off to either side, he distracted himself with the nighttime view, absorbing the details of the streets below.

“Hopefully we can get started early and make progress tomorrow. It will be convenient if your family has made a name for itself…perhaps someone will know of them.” Finally, he let himself glance over to Cas. “Casseth,” he began, hesitant, “…have you ever—?” Before he could finish, though, he cut himself off, frowning, and shook his head. “Mm…never mind.” More than a bit exhausted himself, he laid down on his own bed and worked hard not to let the stiff, straw mattress or cheap sheets bother him. "We should sleep, anyway."

Lithian flushed, shaking his head. "It's silly anyway."

Cheeks warming further, Lithian frowned and rolled onto his stomach. For several long moments he squirmed, repositioning himself multiple times; whether because he was genuinely incapable of getting comfortable or as a ploy to avoid answering the question, even he couldn’t be fully sure. Eventually, though, he sighed, consenting to lie still and pluck at the corner of his pillowcase.

“Have you ever…been…interested in someone. Like, a girl,” he clarified, since that seemed to be the pervasive assumption everyone made anyway. “But…you know it’s impossible? For whatever reason it just…” He pursed his lips, finding a loose thread and plucking at it relentlessly until it started to unravel from the pillow. “It can’t happen and you know it.” Letting himself flop forward until his face was half buried in the pillow, he added, barely audible, “I told you it was stupid…”

Despite his best efforts to play the query off ‘casually’, however, all Lithian could hear as he kept his face in the pillow was the pounding thud, thud, thud of his own pulse, and he was eternally grateful that Casseth couldn’t see the burning in his face.

Lithian scoffed, lifting his head from the pillow to purse his lips and shoot Casseth a ‘look’. “Whoever her parents were, they were blind. Their daughter would have been lucky to have you, and I’m sure whoever she mates won’t be half the man you could have for her. Our world may have a twisted view of a lot of things, but that doesn’t make things impossible for you…” Lithian frowned as he rolled back onto his back, turning his narrowed gaze towards the ceiling. “Or, it shouldn’t…”

He shut his eyes, expression pinched.

“You deserve better than to think things above you. You’re a better person than anyone understands…”

Lithian felt a small revival of heat in his cheeks at Casseth’s final ‘thank you’, but as he shifted again against the straw cot, trying to find a position comfortable enough for sleep, all he said aloud was: “Goodnight, Casseth. And thank you for listening.”

Eventually, by no small miracle, Lithian did manage to sleep, and the night passed without further incident. As per his habit, Lithian rose early the next morning, and after stretching his body — muscles stiff from the strange mattress — brushing and re-braiding his hair, and re-dressing, he eyed Casseth’s sleeping form only once before smiling and slipping out the door. Dawn was barely a sliver of light in the sky yet, and Lithian knew Casseth’s habits well enough to guess that his friend would not appreciate being woken before the sun was even visible in the sky.

Lithian, though, loved the early morning. The brisk, dewy air on his skin; the soft babble of just the few early risers, or very-very late night lingerers in the streets, and the smell of a fresh day. Of course, in a port town a ‘fresh’ day smelled a good bit like fish and a little like the alcohol of said lingering drunkards who had yet to make their way to sleep, but Lithian didn’t mind it much. It was a different scene than in the bright of day, and that, he appreciated.

By the time he found a suitable stall for purchasing a morning meal, dawn was a sliver of yellow on the far horizon. He bought two coccoli fruits — hard, meaty green shells with two small stoppered drill holes put in place so that the buyer could remove them and drink from the rich fruit juice inside — and two timilii wraps: fresh, edible green timilii leaves wrapped around steamed brown and black grains, seasoned, and mixed with grilled strips of dalak meat. On his way back, a newly-opening sweet stand also managed to catch his eye, and by the time Lithian made it back into the inn, he had additional wrapped package of doughy sweet rolls, sticky with caramelized sugar and sprinkled with fresh nuts.

Placing his breakfast arrangement on the miniature bed table between their two cots, Lithian moved over and touched Casseth’s shoulder. “Casseth…the sun is up. We should get started early if we want to make this visit fast…I brought breakfast?”

Lithian chuckled. Unstoppering one of the coccoli fruits, he moved back to sit, perched at the edge of his own cot as he sipped its juices and watched Casseth devour one of the sweet rolls despite his grogginess. Although Lithian’s morning experiences with his friend were few and far between, what little experience he had with them had made it clear that Casseth did not appreciate the morning sun in the way he did, but thankfully his equally ravenous and reliable appetite seemed to have won out this round.

“It’s just past sun up,” Lithian answered, setting down his drink and propping it up so that it didn’t roll off the small table. “I was up a half toll or so ago. Perhaps a full toll, though I doubt it — the market was open early and I had little trouble finding food. As for where to start…”

Lithian reached for one of the wraps, still warm and steaming. He plucked back the tamilii leaf slightly and nibbled, shrugging as he did so.

After swallowing the bit, he said, “I thought we might ask around? Even if no one knows, they can likely point us towards a town farther inland with more communication…if we’re fortunate we can hitch a caravan to the next nearest source of commerce and hope there’s someone who knows. Innkeepers, healers — businesses that cater to everyone at some point — that would be, I think, where we’d have the highest chances of finding someone familiar with your family name. You can mention your father, too. Depending on how much time he spent on the continent as a child, he was bound to know people, have friends, and even older folk who knew of him.”

Taking another, larger bite, Lithian glanced to Casseth before setting his food aside again.

“Perhaps our best route would simply be to head to the capital…if the Sanctuary is anything like the Citadel is for dovaa on the Plane, then he’s bound to have visited the city at least once simply to turn in his orbs. Not to mention, being as large as it is, there’s a high chance he even lived there at some point…unless you know otherwise? Do you not have any idea where your father grew up?”

Additional rolls.