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Autumn has come to Palisade, and with it the rumors: a young girl, torn apart in Heathwold. As Talbot has come to understand it, wolves were heard in the night, and on that following morning, the girl was nowhere to be found. Only her torn nightgown remained, that and a flight of rooks with curiously bloodstained beaks and feathers.

That in and of itself is dire news. What is even more chilling are the tracks leading away from the corpse: the size of dinner-plates.

Talbot, head down against the sudden blustery Autumn chill in the air, tugs the collar of his cloak farther up against his ears and scowls. The wolves are the very last thing he wants to hear about, but it is all anyone speaks of. He walks down a street that is curiously deserted for dusk on a weekend; the good people of Palisade have taken to their homes earlier than is usual, shutting their curtains and locking their doors to protect themselves about the threat that may have come out of Heathwold.

In the silent streets, his cloak pops and snaps behind him in the wind, and from far off, distantly, a dog barks. It makes a single icy finger trail down the back of his neck and down his spine.

His poor mood continues until he enters an apartment building and scales three flights of stairs up to a certain room; it continues as he waits for the occupant to dressed (and he will never be dressed well enough, not to Talbot's ideas of decency), but then he does warm somewhat when he and Elias emerge back out onto the street.

They walk to a tavern of which both men are intimately familiar. This is where they met, where Talbot's crew, fresh on shore leave and with enough rum in their systems to give them ample courage, dared their captain to step into the boxing ring. Talbot can even now remember the smell of straw and blood and sweat in the basement, of the flickering yellow lights and the gleam of so many white teeth as the others leered at the combatants.

He thinks of it now as he sits across from Elias, looking down into his brandy; the dim light in the tavern turns his face into a map of harsh planes and angles. For a few weeks now, he has been -- .. harsher. It is hard to explain. He has also drunk more brandy than is entirely seemly. "What do you think about the girl killed?" He lifts dark eyes to Elias. His voice is by necessity quiet, drowned out by the murmur of other voices.

"Hmp," Talbot says, mulling over Elias's casually confident reply the way some people mull over a mouthful of wine.

His guardian, who normally shadows him, is conspicuously absent; he has not mentioned Cesambre in days. The doe herself at first sheltered in his flat to escape the autumn chill, but sensing something in Talbot himself, she is now gone. Where he cannot say. Perhaps in the woods that circle Palisade, or one of the parks. He can sense her dully in the back of his mind, but alcohol has done a fine job of dimming that sense to nigh-incoherence.

"I doubt sincerely it was a bear. They don't fight unless provoked. They wouldn't attack a young girl." His tone is dark -- as it should be.

A moment later he sits back in his chair with a gusty breath out and regards Elias almost lazily. There is still a certain harshness in his face, but he caught that attempt at perhaps saying something serious. "Are you all right?"

Talbot licks his lips, startled by Elias's comment. His lips taste of brandy. He has been drinking brandy not just with every meal (and Talbot eats well all the time, an affectation left over from years as a captain), but all the time now. It is a vast improvement over his usual moods as of late, he thinks, to be drunk all the time. He sets his glass down carefully, pulls his hand back just as carefully, and lets it rest on the table.

And then he grins. The expression would be striking on a man of Talbot's features, with his sharp cheekbones and thick brows, but in this instance it is more of a rictus. The chuckle he gives is rich, like honey: "I am no bear expert," he says, by way of deflection. "And --" and here he pauses, and his eyes go slightly wide, "--I am not sure of all of this Warden talk. I suppose you have not heard what Maeve has had to say. It aligns with what is happening. It is worrisome."

By the end of it he is speaking with considerable verve, even though his voice has not changed in volume or tone.

Elias has hit the nail on the head with alarming precision. It may be interesting to watch the emotions play over Talbot's face: consternation, and then indignation (a look his face is well suited to, it turns him sublime) and then something approaching despair. He slumps in his chair, selfconsciously running a hand over his face, over its stubble, and then looks to either side to see just who might have spied his reaction.

The poor man with his sidelong glances gets another dark look before Talbot turns back to Elias.

"Am I all right?" Another one of those smiles; this one is almost demure, but -- odd. "I'm uncertain. I have a guardian," and here he waves hand in a bitter summation of all he has said. "I am not alright. I shouldn't have a guardian, I'm a navy captain, I cannot shuck my duties." He shrugs one broad shoulder. "There's only one of me."

"I received a letter in the post yesterday," he says, sitting back in his chair and swirling the last of the brandy around in his glass, watching it catch the light. Eventually he sits it down on the table to look for something concealed in one of the pockets inside of his cloak: a letter, sealed with an important-looking blob of wax. Or one that would have been sealed, had it not been cracked and ruined to oblivion by Talbot opening, closing, re-opening and re-reading the letter multiple times. "I ship out to Nipoor in six weeks."

And then, startled, he glances up to Elias, this time his expression not guarded, not masked -- and blinks. "You would look after Cesambre?" He wonders how that would go.

"I shall endeavor to avoid s**t getting flung at me," Talbot says, his tone arch. He folds the letter up and tucks it back into some hidden pocket in his cloak; he had them specifically sewn into the lining, and they have come in handy. The thought comes and goes that he might have had one made that is bottle sized. "I'm not sure that Cesambre dislikes you, Elias; I think it is just because I'm her Chosen, and she prefers me."

It is a shoddy argument and he knows it, and he spreads his hands, hoping that Elias won't interject -- "But she would understand and appreciate the thought, all the same. I don't know if the bond works that far." He settles back in the chair and regards Elias with a hooded expression, thinking. "But with the rumors of the wolves -- I'm not sure what will happen. One girl has been murdered already, wolves or bears aside."

There is that, at least; he has arrived at the conclusion that he cannot possibly bring Cesambre to Nipoor -- she is too needed here, and Talbot understands duty as no other -- but he is also beginning to understand the danger that a nebulous concept can represent. He flexes his long, elegant hands as if cold.

"In the park, most likely," comes the entirely too flippant answer. When Talbot looks up, he pauses, for a moment -- looks like he's about to vomit -- and then scrubs a hand over his face. "I'm not exactly sure where she is. I know she's all right; I just don't know where she is."

His gaze goes distant for a moment; maybe he seeks to feel out where she is through their connection. A moment later he looks equal parts disgusted and relieved, as he can feel her perk with interest and then turn her steps back towards the city.