#canthar

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“Oh, hey; you’re back!”

The night air is cold and sharp as the sky turns to morning - Lan can feel it over every inch of her skin. She fights the urge to pull together the dark travel cloak that doesn’t lie over her shoulders. It’s dirty, messy, covered in - her voice is calm, smooth: “I hope you didn’t have any trouble, managing things on your own for so long.”

Canthar’s eyes blink off-kilter. He’s moving awkwardly - slowly, they all move so slowly - thanks to his loss of limb. He manages to get around the painstakingly-shined surface of the bar and he leans against it, taking a moment to cross his arms before he realizes that he has… no arms to cross. He curses. “Arcarax helped out. I have no idea what any of these drinks are, Lan, I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” Lan offers. It feels like she’s speaking in slow motion. “I don’t ask you to watch things because you can tend bar - I simply don’t want things broken.”

“Well, nothing got broken,” Canthar points out. Broken, broken, they lie broken on the ground at my feet, eyes wide with terror and covered in - “Rafad tried singing, which was…” his nose wrinkles, “a thing. Arcarax handled most of it, really; I just sat and studied. What’s a Suramar Sunset? Arcarax didn’t know how to make one.”

“It’s a complicated drink,” Lan tells him. “Layered arcwine and phoenix liquor, with a few other ingredients. If they’re not layered properly-” The clothing they wore, all the layers to keep in the heat, didn’t keep me out, didn’t stop me from tearing them apart, ripping them to shreds, tearing away all the layers-

“Lan?”

Lan blinks at Canthar’s voice. She shakes her head, just a minuscule gesture. “Sorry - anyway; it looks rather lovely in the glass, but once mixed it turns a beautiful golden-orange hue. The arcwine crystallizes some of the drink into red droplets-” red droplets, it's raining red, red red red red haha just the way I like it, just the way I want it, red raining down all around while they scream and -“like the leaves on the trees there. Or so I hear. I’ve never been to Suramar.”

Canthar tilts his head. The gesture almost puts him off balance. “Sounds neat. Kinda wish I could drink it, honestly.” If he noticed her pause as anything strange he doesn’t say it, Light bless him. Perhaps by now he knows better.

“I’ll tell Arcarax how to make it,” Lan promises. “I owe you both for handling the inn while I was away.”

Canthar reaches up to scratch one of his ears but he curses again as his stump falls to his side. Lan frowns; the phantom pain must be bothering him more and more now that he’s up and about. “Yeah, sure; you’ve got a lot on your hands as it is, Lan.”

My hands are filled with gore as I tear away at my prey, my hands drip with red, drip with their lives, their lives on my hands…

“Still,” Lan sighs. “I do owe you. I shall find some way of repaying you of these favors, dear one.”

“Maybe help me make those shadow hands of yours?” Canthar asks. “I’ve been trying but I think I’m missing something - they all break apart as soon as I try to grip anything.” Shadows grab the ones that are fleeing, drag them to me by their throat, they scream and scream and then all are silent, blessedly silent…

Lan nods. “There is a trick, yes; I will teach it to you.”

Canthar grins, better than he could have before when his jaw was metal, not shadow-made. His eagerness fills Lan with a warm, proud feeling. “Alright; I look forward to it. I’ll see you later, Lan.”

He slides away from the bar and wobbles across the inn. Lan watches him go - he moves so carefully, watching his feet, his half-arm raised to balance himself, though Lan guesses he doesn’t notice. He pauses, just for a moment, to look at Lan before heading up the ramp.

“Hey, Lan?” he asks.

“Yes?”

“I’m glad you’re back all right,” Canthar says. “If you need anything you know where I am.”

“That’s my line, dear one,” Lan counters. “But thank you.”

Canthar nods at her, almost putting himself head-over-ass. He rights himself and heads up the ramp, leaving Lan alone in the inn and its silence. Silence, silence, in the end all is silent. No one left to know what happened, nothing but the worst bits left to tell a story. A monster was here.