#eamon 001

Efrain made his way through the dusty, moldering stacks without any real hurry. His mind was still entrenched in thoughts of lycanthropy, mutation reversal, and the application and experimental use of geas and similar modes of mind control. He’d already poured through his and Eobald’s collections on the subject, but he still felt as though there were gaping holes in his information. Small, strange libraries such as this one had helped him in the past, but still he came up without any new insights. People didn’t tend to study the curse beyond cures for it, but he needed more. His pursuit had lasted all night and now a headache pulsed behind his eyes as the lack of sleep caught up with him. 

As he pondered, he re-shelved the tomes he’d read. The librarian was decrepit and looked more of a wretched corpse than a living being and he felt cruel leaving the thick, heavy books for her to put away. He slid another into its place, the darker patch of wood that shown through the layer of dust from where he’d dragged it from the shelf hours prior betrayed its resting place. With one left, he turned to cut through the narrow through-way between the tall shelves and turned directly into another patron. 

Efrain grunted with the impact and took a step back, scrambling to not drop the tome. “Apologies—” he began, voice rough with disuse, before meeting the eyes of his victim. “Ah, Professor Cleartide, correct?”

The sight of The Velvet Curtain should have brought a sense of relief to Thalra, like a childhood home did for anyone else. That is what she’d always felt over the years when she’d visited the brothel Jelxi owned and operated out of, where Thalra had gotten her start and where Jelxi had given her the tools she needed to survive in a city like Myrefall. But today, and a number of days prior, all Thalra felt at the sight of the brothel was a roiling sense of dread in her stomach. She watched from across the street as the chimney stack bellowed smoke and lights flickered and danced across the windows as they did at all hours of the night and day. Jelxi surely knew already that Thalra had returned to Myrefall, and she would no doubt want to speak to Thalra. But that was the part that made Thalra nervous.

There were very few people in Thalra’s life that she found it difficult to lie to and Jelxi had always been one of them from the moment she’d met the woman. There was nothing Thalra could hide from her scrutinizing gaze. The idea of it falling on her now, when she was so torn apart, her nerves raw and exposed to the world, it made it nearly impossible to get any closer to the brothel.

After a few more minutes just standing there in the shadows with her cloak drawn over her head, Thalra turned and started to walk away. Except she found the way suddenly blocked by someone walking down the street from the way she’d come. For a moment, she didn’t recognize him. It had been decades since she’d seen Eamon and that had been when he’d been a much younger man. The faint traces of wrinkles that lined his mouth and eyes were somehow the thing that surprised her most. It was always odd to see just how quickly the shorter-lived races aged.

“Eamon,” she said, blinking and taking a step back so that she wasn’t so close to running right into his chest. Thalra took her hood down so that he could see it was her. “It is you, isn’t it? It’s been so long. What are you doing back in Myrefall?”