#jabletown

The beautiful nymph turned her face to him. Like a crescendo, like the witness of the sunrise, warm anticipation suffused his body. His lungs filled with the air of wakeness, perhaps for the first time.

 Everywhere her skin glowed from within, pink and golden and orange rays of sunlight pulsing inside her. Her brightness almost obscured her, except he knew with more than sight the inexplicable familiarity of her face, the curve of her cheek, the bow of her smile, her eyes like the sky. He knew her the way all creatures know the sun, and long for the life that begins in it. He was instantly stricken, bereft at the thought of her turning her benevolence away from him.

 “O glorious Dawn, I am merely a lowly satyr, unworthy of a nymph such as yourself. But if you bestow upon me your favor for but a night I will laud your beauty with song for the rest of my pitiful days.”

 The cascading mane of heavenly light around her face fluttered delicately as her perfect lips formed a small frown. Fina­lly she deigned to speak to him and said: “Umm… what?”

 “Please, I beg of you. Bless me with your presence here a while.” He scrambled about himself. Surely he had an instrument to woo her with. There was a reeded flute of some kind by his hooves and he snatched it up.

 For a moment she turned away and began some kind of nymph speech to a being behind her he had not even noticed. Some kind of large tree sprite covered in leaves and twigs.

 “Wait, O nymph,” he called. “If you must bid me adieu, make it aubade. Let me ply you poetry and song in honor of your beauty.”

 There was a long silence from the nymph of sunrise, only hearing the planetary rush of the sunlight emanating from her. She gracefully kneeled on the ground next to him, saturating both him and the meadow grass with her luminous kindness.

 Thus she spake: “Okay. So, tell me again about the satyr thing.”

 He looked down at his simple hooves and thick goaty pelt and thought it was pretty self-explanatory. “I am but reveler. A simple wayfarer in this realm.” The words sounded familiar in an untrustworthy, douche-y way, but he discarded the feeling. “You honor me with your polity but I’m more than just lusty satyr. I will make music for you befitting a legend. If you allow me, I can win your attention.”

 Off her fathomless smile, he started to pour his longing for her bright goodness into music. He needed to build something for her. Traditional notes of love odes and the ribaldries of the satyrs merged in his music, and as he was only beginning to isolate a theme unique power of her beauty, she laughed a ringing musical laugh, appropriate for a nymph. A strange elixir of fear and yearning coursed through him as her gentle hand brought his instrument away from him. As he considered that his longing might destroy him here, she smiled deeper, a smile to get lost in, and he did.

 The rosy tips of her fingers caressed the side of his face and when he opened his eyes, Pike finished casting her restoration spell.

 Scanlan blinked a few times. He had to reorient himself to feeling the reality around him. He was leaning against a tree, sitting on the ground. Although it was feywild ground so the grass was lush and purple, and the tree was abnormally warm. But it was real.

 And Pike was kneeling next to him in the grass that nearly came up to their chests. A white ringlet of hair was fallen loose from her fun buns, curling up from the humidity. Her slightly dirt streaked breast plate clanked slightly against her pauldron as she reached out again to touch his chin. And when she smiled the skin around her scar wrinkled.

 She was extremely real. Extremely beautiful, just not in a glowing, embodiment of heavenly light sort of way.

 Not at that moment at least.

 He quickly double checked—no more goat legs. He wasn’t totally sure how to feel about that.

 “I hate the Feywild,” he said.

 Pike threw her head in laughter, and Scanlan felt a little more of that warmth in his chest.

“Did you really think I was a nymph? That’s hilarious!”

 Scanlan didn’t totally know how to feel about that either. She did a good enough job making him feel all twitterpated without being a mysterious fey seductress. Maybe it was just that the sunbeams of goodness and light were just subtextual.

 Keyleth stepped forward from where the giant tree sprite had been standing, still covered in leaves and twigs though, and said, “Aren’t charms kind of your magical specialty, Scanlan?”

 He groaned. “I keep forgetting to learn how countercharm works.”

 “Did you look like Garmelie as a satyr?” Pike asked.

 Scanlan grimaced. “Please don’t ruin this for me. Was my playing at least good?”

 “It was nice!” Keyleth said gamefully. Which was nice to hear even though he didn’t really care what Keyleth thought about his music. He looked right at Pike and she hummed something softly, but smiled and nodded.

 Pike stood up with armor clunking and wheezing greaves, and then helped Scanlan up to his feet. “Maybe later you can use Seeming and show me what was going on in your head, O satyr.”

 “Oh, seeming? You’d like to experience my seeming, Pike?”

 She elbowed him in the ribs but let out a little snort-giggle and her ears went a little pink. “Maybe if you’ve got anything left before we get out of here.”

It was game night. Tonight it was Boggle

Nott liked to shake the box extra long and loud, smirking a bit because she knew it annoyed Fjord. After putting it down, she tapped the side a few times to make the last couple letters settle into place. Once the timer was flipped over she began scribbling furiously on her sheet of paper. She even tried to peek at Fjord’s sheet to cheat so he couldn’t get as many words.

He was ready for the cheating and made sure to make it clear he was purposefully blocking Nott’s view of his paper. His elbow bumped her arm ‘accidentally’ while he held in place to keep out prying eyes.

She was still writing, even after time ran out. “I am finishing my word!” She twisted violently away from Fjord as he tried to take her pencil away from her. This of course did not work out well at all. Her pencil tore through the paper and the lead broke off at the end. “Now look what you made me do!” She glared reproachfully at him.

Despite having daggers being glared at him, Fjord snickered and held up his hands in surrender.

Nott bent the pencil back and flipped it at his face. “Keep laughing, see what happens.” There was no malice in her words, an amused grin on her face.

The pencil got him on the cheek, then fell to the floor harmlessly. “Your just mad because you know I am going to win after we tally up this last round.”

“In your dreams!” She settled back down, snatching up her pencil indignantly.

They compared words and ended up having a tied score.

“Too bad you broke your pencil and can’t write any more words down, looks like I win.” Fjord looked at Nott smugly.

“I will stab this in your eye!” She stood up, holding the pencil threateningly at him.

He leaned closer, calling her bluff.

With a huff, Nott threw the pencil onto the ground. “I hate you.” She turned her back on him, arms crossed.

“You and I both know that isn’t true.” Fjord wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his lap. “We’ll call it a tie then.”