Faila's page

The tiny flying reptile is a little confused at Hel's explanation, but Cole's clarification puts everything in place. "Oh. Okay, that makes more sense." She goes on with her commentary about flying spies and wondering where Nopsca is, and leaves the two when it comes time.

Hel, discovering that the women who will share conversation with her have little more to offer than what someone's goat or child did to someone else's wash-line last week, will excuse herself after a couple of hours and go upstairs. A glance along the hall, and she opens the door to the room she shares with Cole -- James, rather. For a moment she stands there and scans the room, but she doesn't have an infallable memory, just a very good one. Well, maybe that's something she can work on.

Closing the door behind her, she crosses to the window, opening it and, with her hands on the sill, leans out a little into the night, inhaling the river-moist air. Mildly dark-adapted though her eyes may be, she wouldn't really need them were she standing on the street; the front of the inn is around the corner, but torches light both its street-side lengths, advertising which it likely doesn't need, guidance which it can afford to provide. A long few seconds' look around, and she retreats back into the room, confident that though the old watch-tower and the road to Balentyne are in view for her, the inside of her room is, for the most part, not.

A few minutes later, Faila swoops through the window at full speed, backwinging to a halt almost perfectly on one of the bed's footboard posts. Looking around, she comments in a quiet tone, "Nice place. Got any food?"

Hel turns at the sound of her familiar's wings, an expression of pleasure springing to her face at the competence shown at the pterosaur's landing. "I can find something," she states. "Any movement?"

"Not that I saw," replies Faila, snapping up the tidbits Hel produces.

"All right," muses Hel. "Hm. Keep on it," she decides after several more minutes of feeding the flying lizard. "Flap around inside the walls, see what you can see; you can describe it tomorrow night. For now, we'll have you sleep with the other two; I can't keep tidbits of raw meat in my room without being strange."

"That explains the fruit," observes Faila.

"Indeed," Hel says drily. "All right. Shoo, bat."

"Huh?"

Hel smiles, turning to open up her chest and retrieve the 'iron crown' previously worn by the late Demlin. "I admit it's not something pretty to wear," she temporizes, "but it's useful." Crouching down at the end of the bed, she carefully emplaces the crown 'on' the reptile's head, biting her lower lip as it shrinks in her hands and is soon emplaced. "Think of what you wish your seeming to be, and as that you'll appear. For now, be a bat; you can be a raven or whatever later. Use your judgement."

If Faila could frown, she would, but a few moments later, she slowly shifts in appearance from reptile to bat. "Hm. All right."

"Now go," says Hel. "Keep an eye out. Return to the other pair when you must sleep, but otherwise keep watch for us. Oh!!" She holds up a finger, wagging it. "If you have to return to us in view of others, use a raven and find this man." She concentrates, and for a moment 'Bill Cross' is there crouched down at the foot of the bed. "Master Bill Cross -- now publically known as a wizard." The appearance returns to her previous, and she gives Faila a look.

For her part, Faila sniffs, then shifts into a bat. "So why --"

"Out! Out!!" Hel waves her hand at the 'bat', which hops off the foot of the bed, flaps a bit, then darts back out the window with Hel 'chasing' it.

As her mistress swears a mild oath to Mitra about bats and closes the shutters behind her, Faila flaps into the night, considering the snooping she might do around Balentyne.