#constantine firespark

"… What are you doing?" Calia asks one cold day, when she sees Jespar in the Chronicum, sitting on the floor in the hallway just before Lexil's desk. He's… fiddling with a fishing pole, adding something at its end.

"Shh, you'll ruin it," Jespar shushes her, his tongue lightly pulled out to the side as he focuses on tying something to the end of the pole, with some red ribbon. Though Calia usually wouldn't care… this did intrigue her. So, she watches on, wondering what the mercenary is doing.

"There. Now, tell me when Firespark is in front of Merrayil's desk." He says, looking up to her with a mischievous glimmer in his eye. Mistletoe? What a strange little man, this Jespar.

Calia can't help but oblige, and walks calmly to a bookshelf, pretending to look through it while keeping an eye on the door. It takes a while, but soon, Constantine walks out, grumbling while patting dust out of his robes. He lets out a few swears, a few more for good measure, before sharply walking to Lexil, slamming his hands down, and grumbling even more about whatever just happened in his study. There's a tiny nod from her, and Jespar springs into action, grinning - was he too old to pull this? yes. was this unusual for him? also yes. was this about to be fun? definitely. And hey, it gave him an excuse to turn down jobs from the Sun Temple in the future, if he had better things to do, or even haggle his pay. "Ah, my apologies, I'm banned from the Chronicum, you'll have to hire someone else for this." "Oh, I would, but… you know how Firespark feels about me. But for a price, I'm willing to put up with him."

"What the-" Constantine stops in his long-winded grumbling and grunting and groaning, the mistletoe hanging right in front of his face.

Jespar recites his last rites. He knows it's over for him, that it's oh so over for him. That tomorrow, there'll be a little tombstone put up for him. Maybe Calia will stop by, drop a flower or call him an idiot, or both. This was nice, while it lasted, this whole living thing. Not quite living, more like surviving, for him at least, but it was… nice.

Jespar swears his ear has been ripped off, and that Calia is saying that it's still there just to be nice to him. He's never seen Constantine do something as… energetic. Lunging at him, picking him up from the ground by the ear, yelling swears and insults he's never heard before, feeling like a little boy getting the scolding of a lifetime, rather than the hardened (yet somewhat jovial) mercenary that he is.

"It's torn-"

"It's still there." Calia cuts him off, putting a bag of ice over his ear.

VYNTOBER 2020

Day 20: The Relict

@vyntober

Just two friends seeing Nehrim for the last time.