Welcome to Gaia! ::

He was tired and his right side and left leg were filled with a constant, flaring, stabbing pain. In spite of this he felt... incredible, actually. This was only the second time he had walked a significant distance without leaning on somebody's arm as well as the cane he was using today. It was an ugly thing - some old man's prop, plain wood with a plain crook grip - but it worked and that he supposed would suffice for now at least.

Berath was behind him, occasionally taking a step forward as he made his painstaking way through Trine's grounds. The first time he'd been up and walking alone like this he had gone to find Aleck; now he was going to see the lad's mother. Amazing that, having both of them together in the same place and time. With flushed cheeks from exertion, the rest of his face a bit pale from pain Bereck smiled. Life was not perfect. He worried about his relationship with Alina, and he worried about Aleck in general - his son still didn't seem quite like himself - but things would get better. He had hope, and even expectation of the above.

Regardless of a hopeful heart, he had a very sore leg. Luckily he was now outside the crafters' building, leaving Berath behind with a brief caress to her muzzle. Inside he drew some odd looks; this was probably less to do with his frail appearance, and more to do with the faire of firelizards that was following him with a wicker basket clasped in their claws.

Close now, and thoroughly relieved of this fact, Bereck stopped outside a certain door and knocked.

Master Starcrafter Alina.

He did hope she would be surprised.

Bereck smiled; leaning heavily on his cane with his right hand he reached out with the left to wrap about her waist and tug her close for a brief chaste kiss on the lips. "Yes, yes, yes, and yes. May I come in?" The smile quirked up at once corner and one now fully red eyebrow raised. "You have ink on your nose."

"I started at the infirmary," Bereck replied with a snort, moving stiffly and painstakingly into the office. His smile flickered to a grimace for a moment before sliding back into the positive expression; at the same moment he gave a small nod. "I do need to sit down. It must have taken half an hour to get here, but the point is that I did it and I'm glad to see you. Glad to brighten your day too; what is it this Nesa has done then?" They had often grumbled and snarked about awful apprentices back when they had been senior journeypeople; he suspected that the pattern was about to reassert itself.

"Oh!"

Bereck's brows rose abruptly and he jerked his head over his shoulder just as the flitts fluttered in with the basket, demonstrating synchronised flying any wing would be jealous of. "I brought us something to eat. Hungry?"

Chair.

Bereck moved awkwardly over and collapsed gratefully into it. Tired. Pain. For a few moments he allowed his eyes to close, his body just soaking up relief at the fact that he wasn't asking anything of it anymore.

Eventually he looked around for Alina again, and found her on the floor. Eyebrows rose again. "Are you comfortable down there? Mmh. I tell them off anyway, regardless of whether or not they cry about it. I'm sorry about your document."

A vague wave of his hand and a touch of his mind made the firelizards set the basket down in front of Alina; Bereck made another gesture, this time at the basket itself as the flitts dispersed; most of them disappeared between but the crimson, green and silver landed up on the back of the chair he occupied. "Go on," the healer elaborated, "open it. There's bread, cheese, cured meat, fruit and a bottle of wine. Oh, glasses and plates, and knives various as well."

"I'm accustomed enough to looking up at you." Bereck gave a little grin, and a slight sly narrow of his eyes. "I didn't think it was all that sneaky... and who I bribed is immaterial." He owed a favour or two, but nothing that he couldn't pay back easily once he was up to flying; they had asked less of him than they might otherwise have he suspected, because he still looked rather pitiable. At last, it had an advantage.

"I think it might be easier to cut things up on your desk," Bereck observed, brushing a hand down Alina's arm. "Loathe though I am to ask you to get up again just as you've sat down for the second time with me?..." Better her than him, were the unspoken words. He was tired, very tired from the walk over. He still felt good though, and it showed in the set of his mouth and the expression in his bright eyes even if his body did slump in the chair and his complexion was rather off. Rest would sort that out though, rest and food.

"Humm." Bereck frowned thoughtfully as he realised that he had in fact not had anything alcoholic since before the revolution, that he was much lighter than he had been then, and also that he was still somewhat frail in general. "Half a glass I think," he said after a moment or two, "I can always have more, if it seems like a sane idea. Thank you." She looked tired, yawned as he took the plate from her. Bereck gave a sympathetic smile. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather get some sleep? Before you say it that's not a sneaky insinuation about anything... you look tired, that's all."

Bereck accepted the wine with a shake of his head; he had been about to comment about her awfulness when she commented on his hair. "Oh, it does?" his free hand came up to touch the brightly coloured, neatly cut and smoothed strands and a little smile curved his lips upward. "Well, I'm glad you approve," he added after a short pause, sounding pleased but slightly put off balance.

"Anyway, that was a perfectly innocent suggestion, it's you who made it awful." Now he was on familiar ground again; Bereck regarded Alina over the tops of his glasses before nudging them back up his nose. "With the information about the lock in mind however I'll make sure I'm on my best behaviour. I wouldn't want to scar one of your apprentices by letting her walk in to see you with some strange man's hand on your rear." Regardless of how nice a rear it still was, in his admittedly biased opinion.

"In any case," Bereck raised his eyebrows and his glass; "Good health?"

Their glasses clinked together with a merry sound... the ones in their hands that was. "And hair then," Bereck agreed with another little smile as he took a sip of the wine. It was rather good actually; rich, fruity, full. There were probably wafts of woodsmoke, hints of spice-bark and notes of asparagus or some such that he ought to be picking up on but he'd never developed that much of a refined palette and frankly suspected the whole thing of being fudged at best and a pack of lies designed to make people pay more for a bottle at worst.

As he lowered his glass Bereck was still smiling slightly, and he reached up to take Alina's hand. "If I were to comment on you not looking you did twenty years ago I would be a hypocrite. I would be rather worried if you did still look like that to be honest; I would be left to conclude that either you'd Timed it forward somehow or weren't human. Neither of those are all that reassuring... and you look fine to me as you are, if I didn't already say so." Maybe that hadn't been the most elegantly phrased reassurance/compliment ever, but there were a number of good reasons that he had not become a Harper and a lack of naturally pretty turns of phrase was one of them.