the wine of friendship

"Oh...wouldn't you have to make a whole new book for that though? D'ya know why it helps?" Adam had hardly ever told anyone of his experience when trying to read, but when he had, he had been met with either ridicule or confusion. That Jigano both knew what he meant and had a way to help was new. "...Thanks, though. For not being a dick about it. I never really talked to anyone before about this stuff cos it was kinda embarrassing. Especially when I lived with Heidi's family, since they had all had tutors since they were a day old teaching 'em fucking everything." Adam would argue that in fact, weird sex stories were hilarious regardless of whether or not you knew the people involved, but he wasn't going to push them on Jigano if he didn't want to hear them. While no one had ever called him a 'gentleman', Adam nodded along to Jigano's descriptions of his work. "Yeah. I miss my horse and the roads. It was sometimes nice on quiet days to just ride around and go out into the fields. There was this one road out of the city that went into the forest...if you went down the right part, you could come to this cliff edge that overlooked the sea and everything..." He sighed, a wistful sound, though it was cut short by a laugh. "It did lose some of it's charm after I got arrested there, though." As for alternative lives. "Ugh, no, I haven't got the patience for sheep or booze. But...I have actually been thinking of something. I used to do...for all the ladies at the brothel, then later on in inns for a bit of cash...piercings and hair and sometimes little tattoos. I'm not an artist or nothing, but I could do words if I had a picture, or a few lines. The skill is really in keeping people calm while you stick a needle in them." With that said he looked over to Jigano with a half-smile. "Think I could convince you to be my first customer?" A D A M Do you wanna dance? Do you wanna fight? Do you wanna get drunk and stay the night?

"I would, but it's alright," Jigano assured his erstwhile friend. "And if the letters are farther part it's harder for them to wander and switch places in front of your eyes, from what I understand of it." Not that the letters actually moved, but he'd heard it described as such from others. "And you came to me to learn. I might be a stick in the mud, but I'm not going to be an ass about it," he reassured the skinny thief. "It's my job to help you, not to make it harder. Besides, half of those noble jerks were probably lying about how much they could read," he added idly, gesturing with his bottle. "They just had people around to read things for them."

"The sea," Jigano repeated dreamily. "What was it like? I've read about it, and heard about it from others here, but my land was in the middle of a continent, far from the oceans."

He listened to Adam's dream curiously, a smile of delight crossing his face. "Maybe practice on the art?" he suggested. "And the handwriting a bit more," he added with a wry grin. "But I could let you do something with my hair some time! And I'll see about introducing you to Tarasha. They're a Fae who does tattoos. They might be able to help you get set up with inks and needles."

"If you're sure, then." He still felt asking Jigano to make a whole new book just to help him read was a big request, but if it would really help, he didn't know if he could afford to turn it down. "You're prolly right. Most of them spent their time boozing and bullying anyway...there were a couple smart ones. I knew this one guy...Navy Captain. Really posh background and all that, genuinely really fucking smart with books. Though..." Adam snorted. "Still couldn't work out how to stop me blackmailing regular hundreds out of his ass." It seemed Jigano had never seen the sea. As someone who'd always lived within at most a couple hours journey from it, at least until he'd come here, this was hard for Adam to wrap his head around. "Uhh...well, it's big. So big you can't see all of it at once. And...powerful. Y'know when you're stood in the sea that if it wanted to it could just pick you up and toss you out and you'd be dead. But it's also...really pretty. Especially at sunset." He cringed and wrinkled up his nose at the idea of practising art. He didn't like working on things he wasn't good at much; with the reading as well it would be too much for the moment. "A fae, huh...? I don't wanna take away anyones business...and how much leeway do I get with your hair? Is a razor allowed to come anywhere near any of it?" Adam asked with a wicked grin. A D A M Do you wanna dance? Do you wanna fight? Do you wanna get drunk and stay the night?

"I've been relying on Sam too much for making the Guild books anyways," he admitted with a sigh. "It will do me good to get back into the practice myself." He wasn't sure if Sam would be coming by the Guild much for awhile. He could understand his friend wanting to keep some distance while they settled into their new god-given roles and worked out what that meant for them. In the moment it was easier to listen to Adam's tale of his past, and the bard snorted at the tale of blackmail. "Oh? What did you have on him? Shame for a smart man like that to fall to vice," Jigano tutted with a grin, taking another drink.

A navy meant an ocean or a sea though, something Adam confirmed a moment later. Jigano soaked in what he said; the power, the beauty, the size. "What sort of creatures lived in it on your world?" he asked next, endlessly curious.

His smile quickly returned at Adam's clear dislike of the word 'practice' considering the reluctant stubbornness with which the magpie man approached his reading lessons. "They do their business in the Greatwood," he pointed out dryly. "I think you'll be fine if you stick to the Settlement. As for my hair? No cutting," he admonished with a smirk. "It took years to grow out this long. The care that you put into maintaining your boots? That's what I put into maintaining my mane." No magic on Caido that he knew of could fast-grow hair, so any harm that came to it would be taken out of the culprit's hide - if not by him, then by his mate, who loved to play with it even more than he did.

"That's like, his whole job though, isn't it?" Adam asked, unawares of any rift between Jigano and the bookmaker, whom he was only loosely aware of anyway. He'd passed the bookstore several times but given his inability to read until very recently, had never desired to enter. As for his blackmail...he grinned, tongue coming out to lick at his teeth for a moment as he laughed over the memory. "Well. Sometimes when I wasn't making enough on the roads, I'd go and spend a bit of time at an inn doing the family business. Let's just say that as many pirates as he arrested, the good Captain was not the one putting handcuffs on anyone else in the bedroom." Honestly, it hadn't been a bad night, but the man had insisted on denying he'd ever known Adam afterwards and the best way to take offence was to get some cash out of it. "Uhhh well....fish. Lotsa fish. I heard about whales and giant squids and shit but I never saw any of them. I didn't spend a lot of time out at sea...I'm a mountain kid really." He'd always found boats a little unnerving. The way the floor swayed and changed beneath you, the knowledge that there wasn't that far to run should anything go wrong. "There was rumours of mermaids too, but..." He squinted and shrugged. It seemed that cutting Jigano's hair into a fun undercut was out of the question. "I noticed you didn't compare it to my hair for care and maintenance." He pointed out, sticking his tongue out. "But fine. Just a style it is then." Speaking of hairstyles, something came to mind. Adam lifted the braid that fell from his left temple to his chest, ended with a large red wooden bead. "Y'see this? This was a thing, where I'm from. As soon as you have enough hair for it, your mum gives you a braid like this. If you keep it in, then...her hands, her love, y'know, they're always there with you. It's...kinda silly, but..." Well. His braid was still there. A D A M Do you wanna dance? Do you wanna fight? Do you wanna get drunk and stay the night?

"It is... though his religious, ah, duties for the Voice are taking him far afield for long stretches of time," the bard revealed with flicker of sorrow. "So there is a need to cover for his responsibilities here. That being said, if you know any scholars, explorers, or nerds who wish to join, please send them my way," he added with a wry grin. "We're recruiting at the moment!"

The salacious tale of 'the good captain' had Jigano snorting his amusement with a little shake of his head. "For that, he paid you good money? That's hardly news to get excited over. But I suppose the military mind truly is a different beast. No perception of weakness, and all that." Really, what a foolish man. Given his position he likely could have buried the rumors, or threatened Adam with arrest to keep him quiet. Or perhaps he made enough on his naval commission that he had money literally throw away?

"Mermaids... that Launceleyn fellow, Peter, was asking about them, too," Jigano mused curiously as his mind plucked pictures from books to match the words Adam spoke. Of course, he had Jyoti the starwhale to serve as a reference for her more oceanic cousins, and 'giant squid' sounded excitingly terrifying.

"You were more worried about your boots than your hair, earlier," Jigano pointed out with a grin. "And I'm more worried about my hair than my boots! Besides, if we're comparing lengths, your boots have more in common with my mane than your curls do." Adam's hair was artfully tousled, but short in comparison to the white cascade of Jigano's beloved locks. His grin softened back to a smile at hearing about the mother's love-braid and he nodded in understanding. "As someone who lost my mother... I wouldn't call it silly," he said quietly. "I'm glad you still have that connection to her." Something Jigano had lost when he'd come through the portal and so many of his belongings stored in his handy haversack hadn't.

"Oohh, okay. He's changing her oil or something I guess?" Adam asked. He knew The Voice had...some kind of mechanical element to her, so he imagined her similar to the very rudimentary automatons that had begun to be made in his world just before he'd come over. "Well, no offence, but you're never gonna get me joining. I'll see if any of the nerds I know are interested, though." Adam had once been surprised he'd been able to turn one lightly kinky encounter into years of money too. "He had a reaaaally important family in one of the port towns that were super obsessed with their image. The good Navy son having sex with some criminal guy and even worse, not being on top? Jesus, he may as well have killed the whole town." Laughing, he shrugged. "I never envied him it, even though he had golden swords or whatever. Seemed like his whole life was caught up in making sure everyone thought he was perfect." As Pet was mentioned Adam looked over and smiled, a little bemused. It seemed Jigano didn't know about his relationship, if he was giving an introduction to Pet as 'The Launceleyn fellow'. "Oh, well, me and Pet come from the same place. Just...at really different times. He's..we think, we're not totally sure, but about five or six hundred years in the future from me?" Pulling a face, he added: "I asked, and I wasn't a cool household name by then. How shit is that?" Lost mothers were common around Caido. "...What was your mum like?" Adam asked, thinking Jigano might like to reminiscence. A D A M Do you wanna dance? Do you wanna fight? Do you wanna get drunk and stay the night?

"Or something," Jigano agreed, dryly amused at the image Adam's words called up. As if the Voice were something merely clockwork and not the electric iron goddess that could freeze a dragon with a flick of her finger. "And none taken, though the invitation remains if you ever change your mind," the bard chuckled at Adam's blunt refusal of the implied - now upfront - offer.

"Heaven forfend he not be on top," Jigano echoed, voice as dry as the desert wind as he rolled his eyes at the strange nonsense the unfortunate young officer had believed. "Call up the guards and arrest that man for high treason!" A toast to the long-lost Navy-boy, and a nod of agreement to Adam's lack of interest in that sort of life. "It's a much easier facade to keep up if you're moving through and don't plan to be back. Stick around long enough for anyone to get to know you, and it all falls to pieces sooner or later." The admissions was wry but not bitter as he considered his own short-lived kingship and subsequent fall.

Jigano arched a brow at the unlikely tale of time-skipping, but he couldn't exactly disprove it so instead he caught onto something else Adam had said. "He's your pet?" he asked, brow rising even higher. "I thought you had more respect for him than that. Otherwise what was the point of all the rose petals and poetry?"

Talk of lost mothers earned a slight shrug and a wistful smile. "She was... kind. Gentle. She was an Oracle of Life, unlike me. She had healing hands and was something of a wisewoman. She taught me much of what I know about medicine and plants. And she was killed when an enemy my friends and I had made found our home and arranged a ... demonstration of how serious they were," he finished, and this time his tone did turn briefly bitter, the self-recrimination for that still running deep. Given that Adam had also lost his mother, Jigano didn't dare turn the question around on the other man, turning to his cider instead with a sigh.

"You wouldn't actually want me there anyway. It'd take me three years to read any of the books and when I'm out on a trip, I'm busy kicking ass, not taking notes." Adam's understanding of the Loreseeker's guild was basically 'nerds that like to go on field trips to focus on boring details', which had never been his style. He snorted at Jigano's mockery of his old Navy 'friend'. He'd never really understood the fascination with sexual positions the higher ups had, the insistence that gay sex was bad, but not that bad as long as you were on top and it was secret and also you hated it really...it was all a bit exhausting. He'd just manipulated the way of things to make money out of it, then left it be. "Well. The rumour, just before I came here...is he got off with a pirate. I wish I'd stuck around long enough to know how that turned out." Jigano's response to his nickname for Peter took him a moment to understand, and even then he responded to it with a bemused smile. "Uhhh...no? It's just short for Peter. If he wanted to call me 'Ad' to be even, he could, though it'd be kinda weird. He's...my boyfriend. Coffee is my pet." The dragon lifted up his head with an offended glint in his eyes and Adam laughed, fondly shaking his head. He listened to Jigano's description of his mother as he took a drink. "Oh. That's rough...uh..." For a moment he paused, kicking his boots against the ground and wondering if he knew Jigano well enough to ask any more questions. Maybe he didn't, but he was getting to be tipsy enough to not care. "Oracle of Life, though..sounds fancy. How come it didn't come down to you?" A D A M Do you wanna dance? Do you wanna fight? Do you wanna get drunk and stay the night?

"Mmm, yes, we try to use our powers for good, and only kick ass when we don't have any other choice," Jigano agreed with a laugh. Which technically was the truth, it just wasn't as exciting as going in to every situation guns blazing. Adam had a point about the importance of memory to a Loreseeker, though, even if he was wrong about the focus on reading. The provost wasn't going to push it, though, since Adam had stated his decision.

"He got off with a thief, too," Jigano pointed out, gesturing with his bottle. "Or is that not as 'bad' since he's Navy and not Army or guardsman or... whatever they had, on your world?" Even Numeria, considered one of the most barbarous nations of his world, didn't have such hangups on sexuality as Adam's world seemed to. Thank the most fortunate gods!

Isuma also chirruped offense on Coffee's behalf when the dragon glared at Adam and Jgiano tilted his head in confusion. "I thought his name was 'Pete-er' though?" he checked, brow furrowing into a slight frown of misunderstanding. "Not 'Peht-ter.' How did you get 'Pet' from that, if not to imply ownership of someone less than human?" Peter had introduced himself to Jigano as 'Pee-ter' so he knew he was pronouncing it right. Given how shy and quiet the man was Jigano couldn't help but want to stand up for him... even if he was a Launceleyn by choice. The fact that Adam referred to his soulbound companion as a mere 'pet' only made the word choice more concerning to the confused bard.

Jigano sipped his drink as he let the guilt of his parents' deaths linger like a bitter incense, trying not to let the alcohol lull him into a morose downward circle. Adam's question, nosy though it was, was also a welcome distraction, and Jigano tilted his head wryly at the other man. "The Oracle part did. But I was born an Oracle of Lore, not Life. Both the blessing and the curse were passed down in my family for generations, though the blessing part took a different form in each new son or daughter. Or so my mother told me." He shrugged lightly, but there was a troubled cast to his gaze as he looked to the fire, as if seeing a shape within the dancing flames. "Coming here broke that cycle... for good or ill. At least in my lineage." He had no siblings, and he'd never heard his parents speak of their families back in Tian Xia. As far as he knew his line had been wiped off the face of Golarion with the appearance of the portal to Caido.

"I would say I'd like to see you kicking ass, but I actually don't doubt it." Adam might have been a lot of things, but stupid actually wasn't one of them. He knew the quiet confidence of someone able to defend themselves and Jigano practically oozed it. It seemed Jigano didn't quite understand the extra shame of the Navy man's love being a pirate; Adam supposed if the man had no oceans where he'd come from, he may not have had any intense nautical rivalries in his world, either. "It's just. Navy and Pirates have a thing where they all hate each other more than anything. Though they should expect it all to get a bit smoochy, really. I mean, you can't spend all the time obsessing over someone and following them across the seas without it getting kinda romantic." Apparently Jigano really thought he was trying to claim a weird ownership of his partner. Adam laughed uncomfortably, shaking his head. "He's...called himself Pet around me plenty, whenever he talks about himself or whatever. I promise it was never meant as a like, weird thing...he's just not much of a Pete." He shrugged, unsure of what else to say on it. There was at least Jigano's rather confusing Oracle inheritance to distract from the whole debacle. "Wait, what's the curse? He asked, tilting his head. "And...did you get a special power for being an Oracle of Lore?" A D A M Do you wanna dance? Do you wanna fight? Do you wanna get drunk and stay the night?

Jigano raised a toast to the compliment, neither confirming nor denying it, but there was a hint of sharpness in the grin he gave to his unlikely friend. He had survived a number of dangers in his own world, long before coming to Caido, and he had survived here long enough to claw his way back up to new strengths and powers, as well as beginning to regain some of his old ones.

He was right in assuming that the lack of personal experience with oceans left Jigano relying on secondhand knowledge of navies and pirates, with none of the personal experience viewing the rivalry that gave Adam his familiarity with the subject. He listened raptly until the word 'smoochy,' at which point he snorted and sipped his cider with a chuckle. "I've heard it said that love and hate are only two sides of the same passionate coin," he acknowledged. "Though I would personally disagree with it. The picture you paint is certainly one of, ah, tension and... shall we say, opportunity?" He chuckled again, until talk of 'Pet' drove all thoughts of romance from his head.

He found it unlikely that Peter referred to himself as 'Pet', if only because he didn't take the man as the type to speak in the third person. Or the type to speak much about himself at all, really, though clearly he and Adam were close enough for the magpie man to see a different side of the newest Launceleyn. He wasn't so uncouth as to call Adam a liar, though, and merely hummed noncommittally at the excuses.

When you wanted to distract Jigano, however, a tried and true method was getting him to talk about himself instead. The bard opened up about his history, and for the first time since he'd arrived on Caido someone asked about the old curse that had plagued his family for generations. "A devil's curse," he admitted after a moment's pause. After all, there was no need to hide it here, not since it was broken. "Oracles of my lineage were physically bound to our word. Breaking a covenant had... consequences," he grimaced. "Even if it was unintentional. Wracking sickness for a full day afterwards if it happened, or until I could fulfill what I had promised. I learned early to simply not make promises," he admitted wryly. "To find ways to word things that gave me loopholes and ways around it."

He swirled the cider in his bottle thoughtfully. "The blessings though... yes. An... understanding of the world around me that gave me preternatural reflexes, and the ability to enter a trance-like state that let me recall previous knowledge I had learned with perfect clarity, as well as access to certain spells of divine magic." He arched a brow at Adam with a grin. "I thought the trade well worth it, in truth."

Adam laughed in turn at Jigano's reaction to his description of Nautical rivalries, though he honestly couldn't think of a more apt word. There'd always been something vaguely homoerotic about the way Navymen and Pirates circled each other, somehow never seemed to kill each other despite the hundreds of swordfights. "Oh, I dunno. Maybe not love right away, but it can definitely be a hatesex thing and once you've seen someone naked...it's kinda hard to hate them as much as you once did." God, how he wished he could have seen how it had turned out back in his world. He was telling the full truth about Peter, had not ever considered the word 'Pet' as anything that could be taken the way Jigano said. Since the bard said nothing else on it, Adam hoped that he'd been taken at his word. There were a lot of things Adam could be accused of, but devaluing his loves wasn't one of them. "Devils, huh?" In Adam's words there had been demons and so on, but Jigano just didn't look like the kind of person they'd curse. Maybe that was rude. He kept listening. "Sounds interesting...it's probably a good idea not to make too many promises anyway, for everyone. They never really work out as you plan, I find." He'd made many he'd been unable to keep: I won't get another drink. I'll stay quiet all evening. I won't stop loving you. "So if you'dve had kids, would they have had that curse?" He asked, then tilted his head. "...Did you have kids? Or...a wife or a husband or whatever? Back there?" A D A M Do you wanna dance? Do you wanna fight? Do you wanna get drunk and stay the night?

Jigano snorted at the line on seeing someone naked. He didn't quite agree with that statement, but he could appreciate where it was coming from. He wasn't sure what to think about Peter's nickname, either, for that matter, but if the would-be Launceleyn didn't mind, he supposed it wasn't his place to be too offended in his stead. The cider helped to relax him, as well, making the decision to let it go that much easier.

Besides, if he could talk about himself he could forgive many things to his guest. "Nasty beings," he confirmed. "But very specific on things like contracts and matters of law. Hence the saying 'the devil is in the details.' No one can write a contract - or find a loophole in one - like a devil. Unlike demons, who just sow chaos." He shrugged, a wry smile tugging at his lips as Adam espoused a line of thinking that Jigano toasted with a nod of agreement.

The question on kids and family earned a small snort, however, his smile fading as he shook his head. "I didn't have kids, no, nor a spouse. There was no time, when we were fighting the good fight... and after I was too lost in my own guilt to let anyone close again. Not until I came here." He paused, looking up to Adam with a slow nod. "But yes, any children I had on that world... any born with an Oracle's powers would also have carried the curse that counterbalances them. It's not always a straight lineage, from what I learned of other Oracles, but in my family? It most certainly was. The pull of that curse is what drove my parents to Numeria in the first place. It pulled me, too... towards the Worldwound. But I had grown strong enough to resist it by the time the compulsion kicked in. So coming to Caido was... unexpected, but far from the worst thing that could have happened to me." Especially now that he had his healing magic back! "What about you? Do you regret coming here?" he asked curiously. "And... did you leave behind any children?"