Arlyn sat close to the balcony on the roof of The Widows Walk, a glass of merlot sat next to a fish and pasta dish that had been picked through. The inventor had her right elbow placed on the arm of her chair resting the side of her jaw in the palm of her hand. Her legs crossed in a rather unlady like manner, left foot on top of right knee, she starred out across the bay. Dressed in her usual attire of flats, pants, corset and riding jacket it wasn't a scandalous pose, but women cross their legs at their ankles. Taking the glass by the stem with her left hand the galdor gently swished the wine inside of the bowl before taking a small sip, realizing she'd finally finished off the glass as she tipped her head back.

Just like a lady Arlyn thought, drinking wine like cheap beer, legs crossed like a man, what would father think? She sniggered slightly as she motioned for a refill, spinning the glass overhead in delicate circles. She'd come here to take over and remake the Bad Brothers into a (some what) respectable group, which wasn't going to be easy, though it had never been said that Arlyn liked easy.

Noticing the waiter coming out of the wings with a rather incredulous look, the galdor sat her glass on the table next her plate. She continued to watch the harbor as the human poured another glassful. The blond inventor turns back to watch the wave with a small wave of dismissal from her left hand. Jesse and Cadence said that the sunset here was supposedly amazing Arlyn reached forward and grabbed the flute with her left hand, swirled the wine, and took a sip. Picking up the the fork she speared a piece of fish and brought it to her lips. Taking the morsel of food off the fork she places the utensil back onto her plate.

Distractedly the inventor began to trace lines of equations out onto the table cloth, going over currents, volts, ohms and amps. It came down to being able to utilize electricity, practically, without the mona. Several years had been devoted to this train of thought and little had been achieved on her end. Not that she'd given up on utilizing it and making something work, but she'd had her setbacks.

Reach for and grabbing the glass of wine again, Arlyn watches the horizon. Should either leave or ask for a room. The inventor thought as she swirled and sipped. Should look into purchasing a home here as well, preferably one with a cellar I can convert into a workshop. Taking another sip Arlyn's mind wandered off into a tangent of plans and designs.

Distracted as she was -- and quiet as he was -- Arlyn might not notice the dark shape sinking leaning in from the next table over.

Reese was wearing grey on grey, dark hair tugged back into a loose tail down the back of his neck, boots soft and worn in a comfortable way, broad hands laced against his stomach. The drink in front of him wasn't wine but beer, and not fish but proper meat: simpler tastes, perhaps, or perhaps because it was less expensive, or perhaps some combination of the pair. In any case, he wasn't wining and dining so much as filling up, alone on the Widow's Walk.

But maybe not alone for long. He was tipped sideways in his chair, chin tipped up just enough to peer over her tattooed shoulder at the mess of marks and lines, icy eyes on the diagrams and shapes on the table in front of her...and maybe a bit at the scrolling lines against her skin.

His own tattoos were hidden beneath the shape of his shirt: in the dimming light and out of the corner of her eye, Reese might have passed as human, with those shoulders, or golly, with the slant of his eyes, or the wick he really was mixed up in the combination. Only the shape and force of his field gave him away. It also might have given away his glimmer of amused curiosity.

Arlyn felt the presence behind her around half way through her formula. Deciding it wasn't anything worth noticing, she'd continued. Picking up her wine glass she swirled and sipped. Holding up the glass as she slowly swirled the liquid inside, she checked the reflection to see Reese looking over her shoulder. Though she felt quiet certain the man behind her was spending just as much time looking at her shoulder.

Bringing the cup back down, she spoke up. "When spying it would be best to suck in one's field like your gut when a lady walks by." She spoke nonchalantly as she wiped the formulas away with her free hand as the blond inventor continued to stare out to sea. "It's also rude to allow a lady to sit unaccompanied in such a fine dining establishment." Using her right foot she kicked out the second chair a couple inches, eyes focused on the sea.

Grabbing her wine flute, Arlyn followed her routine of swirl and sip, waiting to see of Reece would actual be bold enough to sit across from her.

Turned away, as she was, his expression of careful bafflement would go unobserved; she might also miss the slow way he looked around the balcony, as if searching for someone or something, his fingers shifting against the smooth shape of his own drink. It meant she was left with a long, lingering moment of silence, something still, before Reese shifted to drop down into the offered chair. His expression was tinged with amusement as he set the cold mug down on the table in front of him.

"...sorry, I didn't realize that I was in the presence of a Lady." His tone was certainly bold; shameless, in fact, and easily mocking, with a flick of eyes to the cut of her corset and then up to the tattoos winding against her skin. Without actually saying anything out of line, his tone gave across the impression of insult.

He kicked his legs out under the table, reached out to nab the rest of his food.

While the silence gave her pause, the inventor wasn't really worried. He'll either sit across from me or he'll be a little girl and hide. Either way things will work out. When Reese finally made the choice to have a seat her mind had already wandered back to diagrams and how to make something spin with electricity. Reese's words brought her back down to the table, though she only half heard them.

"I'll forgive you the indiscretion this time, if only for the fact this is our first meeting." Arlyn replies, pointedly ignoring the jab as she continued to stare off into space. Reaching forward to grab her wines flute again, she swirled the liquid and took another sip. Great, I've got a companion. The inventor thought as she let the wines flavor flow over her palette. Now how do I make him disappear? Or better yet, make use of him? I'm going to need allies in this town.

After several minutes of the inventor holding her private thoughts, she finally turned her gaze to Reese. Golden eyes cold and disinterested. "People have referred to me as Winterspark. What do those who know you call you?"

He laughed at her, this time -- genuinely laughed at her, not just the quiet glimmer of amusement behind his eyes. Good gods, how long had this girl been in Old Rose? No one had beaten the fancy language out of her yet, so he observed it couldn't have been long. That tone was like asking to be robbed.

Well. He might just be willing to oblige.

"You mean the people who can get past my 'indiscretion'?" There was still humor behind his tone, as he stretched his legs out and leaned back in the chair. She might have been a golly, but he wasn't afraid of her. He'd ripped off gollies in his day. They had nice things.

He shifted his glass against the tabletop. "Hardly matters what my brunnos call me. Let's go with Ibis. Has a nice ring, ne? Maybe not so fancy as Winterspark..."

Arlyn's outward expression showed no reaction to the wicks laughter, though her field flickered in irritation for a moment. "Well we can't all be blessed with a childhood spent cloistered with a bunch of ninnies who only think of inconsequential things. Though I'm sure we could think of something you'd find more grandiose than Ibis." The blond inventor responded to his taunt about the name she'd been using. An idea seemed to flash through her eyes like lightning. "I know, I'll call you Starfly. Since you seem so sweet." Arlyn turned to look at the waiter and called him over. Finally relinquishing her right arms position as a chin rest Arlyn leaned over and whispered into the young waiters ear. With a nod the young man scurried off.

"You'd have to have some redeeming qualities if you haven't stabbed and left in an alley yet." The galdori eyes seemed to look through the wick as if he was nothing more than a raw piece of data that needed to be disseminated and cataloged. Folding her hands into her lap the inventor continued her little speech. "Since this place is a den of thieves and murders, wicks being notorious thieves, odds are you're one of those. Since you're obviously not dead in an alley, you're pretty good at what ever illegal activity you perform. Your clothes also speak of a shadier profession. Every wick I've known has worn garish clothing as a way to draw attention, so when a wick chooses to not wear such bright clothing it stands out." Arlyn's eyes and tone through out her tirade are flat and emotionless, as if she's reciting facts from a book.

"It just so happens that my latest endeavor requires some illicit skills. At this moment I'd be willing to hire your services for three concords a month. If you can prove yourself to be trustworthy and," the right corner of the inventors lip gave a slight curl, almost as if she was smiling at the word, "obedient, I'd consider paying you four or five. When my endeavor pays off I'll keep you well paid and in a position of power." At that moment the waiter returned with a bottle of wine, two wine glasses, and a rather girly looking drink with a cherry floating on top. The bottle and glasses were placed to Arlyn's left hand side while the Starfly was placed in front of Reece.

"I remember my friends and make sure they're taken care of. I also follow a ten to one rule should you choose to cross me." The words are spoken with cold confidence, as if the galdori knew it was only a matter of time before Reese said yes. Grabbing the wine glass she'd been working on, the blond brought it to her lips and drained it in a swallow. Placing it back down on to the table her gold eyes looked right into the wicks frozen blue orbs.

(( Thanks for editing. (: By the by, watch out for your tenses, you slide into present sometimes! ))

There was a breath, a pause, and cold eyes went even colder. The look of genuine surprise and outrage on his expression was slow, creeping in a way that felt real, that went along with the way his arms folded over his chest. Either she'd offended, and offended horribly, or Reese was an excellent actor.

"What I just heard come out of your mouth is the following," He spoke slowly, lazily, but with a sharp and dangerous edge behind it. This was not going to be pretty, nor was it going to be nice, and the tone matched the cold dislike on his face.

"All wicks are brightly colored peacocks starved for attention." He ticked off points on one hand, for the moment ignoring her sad attempt at insult through the drink. Had she really thought that was necessary, when she was spewing such racist spitch?

"They're thieves, cutthroats, laoso, generally not worth their salt, and you couldn't care less if they were tossed into a back alley and left to rot." His tone, near the end, had gone silkier. It dared her to say something else. He might well have been armed, under the dull grey of his jacket. "And, of course, their only goal in life is to find occupation with the first golly tumble who opens her purse. Anything you'd like to add, chip?"

(( Really should have thought the first one out more. Thanks for the heads up, though I am already aware of that particular short coming. ))

Arlyn watched his face shift through the surprise and outrage with the same disinterested look in which she'd insulted an entire race of sentient beings. With her hands folded in her lap, the inventor listened quietly as Reese began and finished his tirade against her words. "You grasped the concept of my words and yet you still managed to miss the meaning." The blond words accompany her hands movement from her lap to being bridged in front of her face, elbows placed on either side of her forgotten dish.

"Everybody is a brightly colored peacock starved for attention. Galdori wear refined and fashionable clothes as a way of showing off, wicks wear the rainbow as clothes, and humans raise indignation at being taken care of. Everyone wants somebody to acknowledge them in some way." Subconsciously her left hand left the bridge and touched the steel ambigram hanging around her throat before returning to its former position. "I can count the number of times I've seen a wick in plain clothes on one hand. So naturally you're going to stand out more than if you had on a standard performing outfit."

"I've seen wicks hold onto their purses when they watch a show put on by other wicks, so don't hold out that 'wicks aren't thieves' propaganda that so many Durgs are so fond of speaking." Arlyn's words almost sound like a well rehearsed monologue, as if she'd had this argument more than one time. "Is every wick a practitioner of questionable skills? Probably not due to the statistic impossibility of an entire population falling to the wayside of society. Though enough of your people have fallen into that sort of shady dealings that it's painted the all tribes as such, so swallow that false indignation of being lumped into a group of nay-do-wells."

"We're also in Old Rose Harbor, that is unless this is a very cleverly produced stage in Vienda. This is the place where the honest come to die and the villainous come to prosper. I expect everyone within the boundaries of this town has something they wish to hide or run from. Race doesn't mean a speck of anything out here, everyone's at least a little dirtied." Her disinterested eyes were boring into Reese's own frozen orbs. "As far as rotting in a back alley, anybody that I can not use could lay there bleeding for eternity. Now useful individuals such as yourself would be a waste to have rotting in an alley."

"I'm glad to hear that you don't fall into a 'tumble's' purse so quickly, that is proof of discretion." The blond inventor's eyes seemed gain a touch of amusement behind their standard disinterested demeanor. "If you're not interested in my job offer, just say so and this discussion can move onto more interesting topics. I'm sure we both have more important things to do rather than discuss socio-economic-discrepancies between our people."

Arlyn had subconsciously brought up the spell for Push in to the back of her mind, planning on using her seafood dish as a projectile should the wick across from her take even more offense and attempt to become physical.

Assumptions layered on assumptions; she spouted the close-minded, small-world ideals of a girl fresh out of Brunnhold, whose interaction with the 'lesser races' was limited to street performers and servants. Never seen a wick in 'plain clothes'? Twenty minutes in the harbor and she should have seen ten, twenty, thirty wicks dressed similarly to him. The tsats in Vienda dressed to fit in with the common populace. If her family had gone to wick markets, or shops, they would have been more subdued...

Aryln dug for a spell; his field lapped almost subconsciously at Gust, hardly even thinking about it, just knowing that he wanted her off balance. That unshakable self-certainty was annoying, all the more so since she was dead wrong. If she Pushed him, he'd push back.

"...chip, just because you're desperate to have a man look at you twice doesn't mean we all gotta be the center of attention." He gestured, absently, to the cut of her corset. It was a slow movement, meaningful, one finger tracing out the shape of her tattoo in the air as it moved. Obviously she wanted a certain kind of attention, otherwise she wouldn't have dressed like the tumble he'd called her. He was somewhat disappointed that the tek had gone over her head.

"And just because you're seeking less than savory work doesn't mean we all are." The indignation was gone, now. She'd seemed interesting, before, but had proven herself to be just another golly. He shifted where he sat, obviously weighing the pros and cons of getting up and getting out.

"I'll have you know I'm a butler, and proud of my work." It was absent, with a hand curling in around his mug and one last bite of his food stolen off his plate. If it was a lie, it didn't show. "You've obviously been in town around ten minutes; watch your mouth and you might make it ten more. But your spoon-fed fairy tale will crumble under the weight of reality."

Arlyn had seen several wicks in plain clothes since she'd been in the harbor. The key was in noticing. She had arrogantly assumed that since their hair and clothes were of normal shades that they were human. The inventor hadn't paid attention to the fields around her. She had a bad habit of dismissing any field that didn't have the cultured feel of the galdori, thus overlooking most wicks as simply being another body to move through.

When Reese pulled up Gust to go against Arlyn, the galdor's field froze. No emotions seemed to occupy the field, it was as if reactions were no longer important. Arlyn had the urge to show the "butler" that using the mona against a galdor was completely and utterly insensible, not to mention an impossibility. The urge was quickly dismissed as childish fancy, though she still earned to do so.

"So you like the tattoos my brother should have adorning his skin?" Arlyn asks as his hand outlined her tattoos. "I want people to see what never had the chance to walk under the sun, what greed and impudence cause. I'll let the ignorant believe me to be a 'tumble', though I doubt many will hold that image for long." The Tek came out of her mouth like a fly in a glass of chardonnay. It didn't sound like it belonged in her sentence, but it's meaning was unchanged.

"If you believe me to be looking for a man between my sheets, I assure you that I am not looking for a bed fellow." Arlyn leaned back into her chair and looked out to sea, left hand moving to her lap while the inventors right hand moved to support her chin as it had earlier. "I'm looking for a business partner, somebody whose willing to help me set up shop and find out how to best trump the competition." Eyes shifted from the tumultuous waves back to Reese's own frozen orbs. "And I said illicit, not 'less than savory'."

"I'm glad you enjoy your work." Arlyn states to Reese's "admission" about being a butler. Did she believe him? About as much as she believed that he was her equal. "And while I'm sure you have respectable work at the moment, it might not always be so. Should something happen and you need employment, I could always use a butler who doesn't require training. Of course you might be required to do 'less than savory' acts should you ever enter my employ, nothing will be outrageous."

"My fairy tale collapsed five years ago." The words were bitter, like coffee that had been made by inexperienced hands. "And while this forest is different from my forest, similar rules still apply. Provide a service that can't be found anywhere else, make yourself invaluable, and you become untouchable. I'll build my castle in these branches same as I built it in my old forest. And if anybody attempts to burn this forest down I plan on making sure that they burn with it."

"You wouldn't happen to know of a place to purchase buildings would you? I require a workshop, a residence, and a storefront." Her question seemed to lose it's disinterest at the mention of the workshop. "I've got some experiments that require the storefront to be separate from the workspace and I couldn't imagine living over the storefront. A cellar would provide an adequate workspace. With a workspace I could solve that short in the initial schematics....." She seemed to lose track of where she was, convinced that if she could make aeroships more economic and safer, that taking over supply lines would be easy. Her eye's disinterest became hidden as she got lost in the details of what would be created in that workspace.

The shorting of the coils, how to get make the propeller crankshaft spin, where to position them, wings, weight rations, thousands of calculations and theories spinning out of control. To Reese and any observer she would appear in a trance, mouth softly giving voiceless form to her rampaging thoughts.

...the woman was an insufferable know-it-all, and wasn't even willing to slip between the sheets a little? Reese considered her for about twenty seconds, his eyebrows raised, and left while she was distracted and still rambling on about how hard her life was, or whatever it was. Frankly, he didn't care. He had better things to do with his time.

The rest of her questions could be addressed to his empty chair. He didn't pay his tab, either. She was a golly, she could cover it, right?

"Ah. Halfbreeds—"

The words still managed to drift above the din of the evening rush that began to fill up the tavern, purred in a taunting, lilting voice. As if the voice wasn't enough, however, the heavy, obvious brush of a real field was suddenly sharp and noticeable, as if the blond galdor speaking from a table or so away had been shrouded only moments before,

"—they aren't so reliable when they know you're not a local." Corwynn smiled, revealing that his white teeth all still resided in their original, genetically privileged positions, blue eyes hidden a bit by the age lines that creased their edges above his sea-weathered cheeks. Expensive shoes resting comfortably on the table top, the older man made no effort to move, his comment and expression making it obvious he'd been observing the previous exchange without a hint of proper shame.

"I won't venture to assume you're entirely new here, but I'll admit I try not to forget pretty faces when I see them." He finished his words with a roguish grin, well aware he was uninvited. He never needed an invitation. Not really.