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| Details |
| Author: | Athena |
| Summary: | The Map Mystery continues as Natalyah Kensington-Whit and Aszera Sunstrike set up to watch the docks of Stormwind Harbor where someone got the map delivered to the Fallon's pile. The two unusual ladies discuss what they've learned so far, and get to know the other a little better. 5800~ words. |
| Rating: | M for Mature 17+ |
Arc: Apex Investigations
The Stormwind harbor in late July's summer heat makes for an entire ambience of strong scents of the ocean and overlapping calls of people and gulls, the heat of the sun beating down upon them all with only a light skimming breeze teasing relief like a coquettish would-be lover too absorbed in the thrill of the chase of affections to care about overheating a suitor.
It took a measure of coordination to pinpoint this particular table at the edge of a small cafe, the umbrella in the center providing barely any shade at this mid-morning hour, but far more importantly, it gives an indirect view of where the Fallons' goods would have been piled on that fateful day when the mysterious Kul Tiran map arrived.
But for these two ladies, indirect is all they need.
Natalyah finishes her conversation at the dock, having stood in place as a marker to track to where the pile had been long enough for Azsera to get the exact table she would need to watch the area in question, and makes her way up the harbor stairs to the middle-tier where Aszera waits.
The worgen Scientist of the Light appears to be neither today, at least from the outside. She's dressed in a tiered summer dress with an unclear butterfly motif, a strappy sandal, and a pair of cheap goggles that seem to be acting like sunglasses, worn at the moment on the top of her hair, holding the wild strands out of her face for the moment. A bag, worn diagonally across with a strap, rests at her right hip, containing several things she anticipates she might need, most notably her notebook and a pencil. She has her two canes for mobility, rather than floating or loping along, and it seems like a deliberate choice.
She plops into the chair opposite Aszera with a huff of a breath, fanning herself with her left hand while she fishes out her notebook. "This one here as it is?" she confirms. "We don't need to move the table after all?"
As Natalyah approaches, Aszera is sitting at the table, leaning forward to rest her head on her hand. To any who look, she mostly seems to be one of the few quel'dorei of Stormwind, out for some sun and a cool lemonade. She's in sandals, a single-tiered brown skirt, a loose long-sleeved blue blouse and her dark hair is peeking out from under a floppy straw sun hat. The faint glow of blue quel'dorei eyes is visible from under the rim. The image would break down under inspection, if one noticed the glasses-over-blindfold under the hat, or the lack of wear in her clothes.
As the Scientist of the Light sits, Aze straightens and smiles, raising her glass of lemonade like a casual friend in greeting.
What she says, though, is, "Yes, clear view for me — I'd spot anything living that came close, no matter how sneaky they try to be. You're good from here, too?"
Natalyah lowers her goggles over her eyes. It hides the way her pupils expand outward lid to lid, as she hangs out in a nearby seagull's vision.
"Yeah, there's probably at least a hundred options with a view to it," she answers. Rendered almost effectively blind up close, she still gets herself set up, ready to take notes.
"It's not as easy as it would have been before… everything that happened in Gilneas, but I can handle it. I used to do this sort of thing all the time when we'd come to the city for a lecture or to meet with my publisher. I'd get a table at a place afterwards, and tell Rhodes I was 'going for a walk.' I'd sit in place and hop through the city person to person to see it through their eyes, 'walking' all through it at a speed and stamina I couldn't manage myself physically. I was incredibly good at the technique," she tells Aze, nostalgia, grief, guilt, and confidence mixing strangely together all at once.
"That sounds fun,"Aze says with a touch of wistfulness, tilting towards Natalyah as if making eye contact, even though neither of them can do that right now. "Could people ever tell you were looking? Or wait, did you ever spot anyone doing anything interesting, like… I don't know… shoplifting? Or espionage?"
"Most people can't notice it at all, because it's such a minor spell, although sometimes people might feel that weird 'I feel like someone's watching me,' sort of thing. The only ones who can really tell are those with training in Void magic, who can sometimes even sense if someone else has got a ride-along, and the really steeped in the Void can even trace it back. That's what happened with the Shadow Man when I was riding along with Lathrik. Almeiria can also do it, if you give her time for it. I could tell if I had one, or if I was up close to another person with a ride-along, but not trace it back. I don't have that sort of power," Natalyah admits freely.
"Back then, though, I used to see all sorts of interesting things: lovers quarrels, little thefts, and silly accidents. I learned how to read lips, so I could catch conversations, and I would get all sorts of gossip that way, but I didn't repeat most of it anywhere. I wasn't prying into private things on purpose," she adds defensively as if Aze might accuse her of it. "And it sometimes backfired when I would see a conversation I wasn't meant to, about myself."
Aze listens to Natalyah's explanation with open curiosity, laughing as she describes the various little secrets uncovered. There's a faint flicker of surprise in Aze's expression at the defensiveness, like it hadn't even occurred to her that there might be something in that behavior necessary to defend. Then she winces sympathetically at the last.
"That must've sucked," Aze says, shifting slightly towards Natalyah in a subtle gesture of support. "But then again, maybe it's good to at least know. We don't know each other all that well yet, so I can at least promise — if there's ever anything bad I want to say about you, I'll say it to your face." Then she pauses, considering, "Does it depend on the actual, physical eyes? If so, maybe I'm proofed against anyone peeking through mine."
"I don't know really. It's not exactly like using someone else's eyes to see, not for me anyway. I can look through cats, or birds like I'm doing now, and I don't see the way they do suddenly or anything. But I've never tried to find a hold on someone who didn't have physical eyes. And I have no idea how it might be affected by the fel at all, although the void and fel energies often seem adjacently compatible. We could experiment another time, for fun," Natalyah suggests. Science! Who doesn't love a good old fashioned experimentation of cosmic forces.
"And I'm much the same way in the other thing of telling you honestly what I think of you. I've never really been known to keep my opinions to myself, not on anything." The scritch-scratch of her pencil means she must be writing something down. She taps the eraser side a few times on the cafe table.
"Yeah, that'd be fun to try out, if you're game for it," Aze says, flashing a quick smile. "I know the Void feels more comfortable to me than the Light, for what that's worth. There's a lot of stuff about how I work that I don't know, in part because of how I left, and in part because… maybe some stuff just isn't known. Whatever data there exists, it's probably in Shadowmoon somewhere, if no one destroyed it. Anyway, experimentation can be fun, with people you trust."
She drums her fingers on the tabletop, and then traces a kind of zigzag with her fingertip. "See anything interesting?"
"No, not exactly, mostly just thinking. It's clearer up here that it's not random. Everyone's sort of moving with purpose. It's like butterflies, who can seem like they're just flitting about, but if you watch them long enough you see they have patterns of deliberate choices. You wouldn't believe how many corrections I've — "
She abandons the thought halfway. "I was thinking about what that one dock worker said, you remember? That someone might have dropped off the case to the pile if it was in something else, and they could have passed by without anyone realizing their intent. What I can't get past is if someone just happened upon it, why wouldn't they take credit for it? You know, if you found something that belonged to someone as important as Siamus, wouldn't you want him to know it? Or brag about it, how you found something of 'Stormwind Fallons'? Why would you sneak it in, unless you were part of the scheme?"
"Maybe if you're kind of oblivious, and you don't know who they are?" Aze asks, her brow drawing down. "I don't think I really understood the full picture until I was here. Like, my sister said Siamus was important, and I knew he had the ships and titles and everything, but…" Aze raises her hand to gesture vaguely.
"So for the sake of argument, it could have been someone new in town — Gilnean? — or maybe someone non-human," Aze says, and then shakes her head. "But someone new would've been noticed in the whole harbor butterfly dance. In the scheme seems most likely, then. Or… maybe someone honest who doesn't want to be known to help out the Fallons for personal reasons. Someone who's fucking a political rival or something?"
If Natalyah's face does anything, it's impossible to tell, but she taps her pencil a few times, and her energy shifts a little as she shakes her head.
"No, I don't think it works, or it'd be such a fine line of an exact type of person that it's extraordinarily unlikely. Because if they are an honest person, and they just got a map delivered through strange channels addressed to Siamus Fallon, and they're involved with someone who has probably said many times that he's not to be trusted, wouldn't they feel like they needed to speak up about it? Or tell that person what they found if they thought Siamus had done something wrong, and he'd have had someone telling him they know he got a map through strange ways. This hypothetical person would have to be just honest enough to decide to deliver something no matter what, and also exactly dishonest enough with an outside force they're involved with to avoid all credit.
"Otherwise, if they're involved with someone like that and they're not honest at all, it's also a possible person who would have done the drop off. But there's also the less supported but still possible hypothesis that someone wanted him to have the map for nefarious trickery reasons, but that puts them straight into the Deliberate category.
"That's what I keep thinking about — that all the signs are pointing to someone deliberately doing this, that the person who got that map in had to be doing it Deliberately, not Random or By Chance, and probably chose being secretive or sneaky on purpose. Mayellen probably would want to know why, but right now all I want to really know is the how, and if that can tell us for certain the method of ho — " She abandons the sentence mid-word to ask instead, "What do you think about the barrel method? The one that dockhand was talking about, of dropping a barrel and another ship picking it up?"
"It's more or less one of the ideas I brought up from the start, so it seems possible," Aze says. She pauses, focusing intently for a moment, then shakes her head and sits back. "That is, I suggested boats meeting at sea, and sea barrels are just one step stealthier than that. It seems like a lot of effort to go to, just to distribute a map, so that points to being very deliberate as well. And they'd need to tell the barrel location to the receiving Stormwind ship, somehow."
"So the barrels would give us one question answered and one raised," Aze says, taking a sip of her lemonade. "How are they passing messages? How far can your mind vision reach? If someone knew to do it, or if they noticed somebody else and traced them back, then the one person could write coordinates for the other to see. How else…? Demons, I guess. They come out of the Nether to wherever you bring them, so you could easily have them share information while they're not here. But I wouldn't trust a demon to pass honest information."
"I've never heard of anyone who can keep a Mind Vision on across continents, and the Church says it can't be done, but that doesn't mean it can't be done, just that they decided it couldn't be, and most people won't even try," Natalyah says, and there's a haughty disdain audible in her voice.
Tap tap tap. "There's also a way that might be specific with Kul Tiran capabilities to get a barrel through the water to a ship without it being obvious to a Stormwind ship. You know, what Reniya was talking about with how he looks 'Kul Tiran' when you met him before, and that Siamus told you about that is possibly secret. That's about as good as I can do with implying a thing without saying it directly," she says directly.
"Yeah, I'm not really sure that's entirely secret? Like I'm not supposed to shout about it from the rooftops, but I'm not really a rooftop shouter," Aze shrugs. "If you tell me it's a secret for Reniya, I'll be careful." She thinks a little more, and then adds, "Could they actually communicate with each other using that somehow? Because even if a 'Kul Tiran' could make sure a barrel it gets to a ship, they'd have to know where the ship is to get to. Not to mention, the Stormwind ship would also have to be willing to deliver it. So we still have the message passing to consider."
"That's more a question for Siamus for what could be done, or methods that work for sailors, although it's possible he already thought of it and eliminated it as likely himself. He's good at all this sort of puzzle mystery solving. But there's always a possibility for an information gap, where someone told us something they didn't tell him, and it's caused an overlooked possibility. It's why sharing information freely is so important," Natalyah insists with a point of view near and dear to her heart scientific mind.
"But I think it still leads us to something or someone here, maybe on the ship, or maybe just at the docks, someone who was willing to get that map to the pile, and I can't think of any reason someone would do it the way it seems to have happened by accident. I think all the evidence we have so far points to someone doing it on purpose, knowingly. Oh shit, don't — " Natalyah half starts in her chair with a frustrated growl, and pulls up her goggles onto the top of her head again. "Unbelievable. What seagulls won't do for a bit of chips."
Aze raises hand, somewhere half between a steadying gesture and a preparation to attack an imagined foe.
"Ah, a seagull," Aze says, settling back when no attacker manifests. "What did it do, get too close to a cat?"
"No, someone took a kid to the docks nearby, spilled some fried chips, and now it's a damn feeding frenzy and all my eyes are on that instead of the point I need to watch." Natalyah turns her head to lean towards where they are keeping watch. "Now I have to find something or someone else. It'll need to be a person until the gulls calm down again."
There's a shake in her voice, a sense of dread churning around the words, and she grips onto the table with one hand as she slowly lowers the goggles back down over her eyes.
"Is that… a problem?" Aze asks, her brow creasing. "You can do that easily, right? Like you were talking about before, going on a walk. Anyway, I haven't seen anything weird so far. A mage once, I think, but they never got close enough to the pile to do anything. No one now except the usuals."
There's a silence that meets the words that carries a tension. "It's not as easy as it used to be, stepping into just anybody," Natalyah says finally, a defensiveness mixed and blurred with guilt. "And it's harder without Lathrik here to —"
A shaky exhale brings her arms around herself like she's cold in the summer heat. "When I was in Gilneas, I had an assistant, Rhodes, my guard and… other things. He was how I studied butterflies in the fieldwork that would be too physically demanding for me. He was out there when the worgens came, and I was there in his eyes. They killed him, while I watched — while all I could do was watch." She shudders, and in Aze's vision, the worgen curse's energy swells and seethes like an agitated ocean.
"Sometimes, when I jump to a person's eyes, I don't see what they see here and now. I see what I remember, what Rhodes saw," she concludes, her voice strained and hoarse.
"Fuck, that's rough," Aze breathes, and for the moment all of her attention shifts to the worgen. There's no sense of fear in her, though, despite the roiling energy.
"I know what it's like to watch the people you love die, to be the one who — " Aze cuts off, her fingers curling into a fist on the table and a muscle tightening in her jaw. Then she adds, "That's the sort of thing a… malevolent entity… uses to try to break a person. Is there anything I can do to help, anything Lathrik would normally do? I mean, not — " Aze waves a hand, "— not couple things, obviously. But a friend thing."
"No, probably not. It's about what he means to me, and promises he's made. I know it's all in my head," Natalyah says with a tartness that doesn't mask so much as highlight how much it clearly bothers her. "So I've been trying to get better at it. At first I couldn't do it at all, and then I worked up to being able to be in Lathrik's eyes, and then in someone else's with Lathrik there. But now with him in the army, and never knowing when he'll be deployed again, I should get to this, to doing it in a stranger's eyes without him here. So, I'll hold it until the gulls go back to normal."
Still, she leans down, and pulls her dress up closer to her face, breathing in as if she can smell something that Aszera can't, and it calms her enough that the worgen energy begins to settle into only an uneasy straining.
"You watched someone you love die? Someone whose death you were… involved in?" Natalyah asks, and although the questions are direct, the tone isn't harsh, but filled with a sort of sympathy of fellow feeling.
Aze refocuses on the dock below as Natalyah settles, nodding sympathetically at her explanation. She tilts her head curiously at the dress-smelling, but maybe it's not the weirdest coping mechanism she's seen.
"I know it's not the same thing, exactly," Aze says quietly, and there's something in her tone that is just a little too deliberately casual to be genuine. "There was the Third War, the Scourge. It was kind of their thing. See your friends die one day, kill them the next. Or your father. And then in Outland — I was always pretty good at just… disconnecting, doing what needed doing. But then later, there are things that play over and over in your mind."
"The Scourge and everything that happened with it sounded horrible. I'm sorry that happened to you. Worgen aren't really the same now, but back when it was first happening, it was a little bit like that. They would be beyond reason, and sometimes people would have to kill them, even if they knew who that person had been. The feral worgens were killing machines and did — " Another shudder, another sweeping wave upwards of the worgen energy, held at bay by an internal wall. "Did horrible things. I did horrible things."
The summer heat seems to barely exist on some other plane, the steady busy docks buzzing like bees in a garden down below, but the cold mist of memory and regret sit heavily around the worgen.
"And I can't remember all of it, not really, but I know what it's like to have it play in your head, over and over. Even if you did things you regret, or wouldn't do now, it doesn't mean you are those things," she tells Aze. "And I don't even need to know what they are to tell you that I forgive you for whatever it was that you disconnected to do."
Aze gives a brief and uncertain smile, leaning her head again on her hand so that her expression is overshadowed by the floppy hat for anyone farther away than the two of them. "There's… yeah, it sounds like there's similarities, between the worgen curse and the Scourge, what it makes people do, how people react when they're free of it. And maybe it's good to forget some things. I did my best to stay busy, for the distraction, with one thing or another. Then the Argent Crusade forced me to stop for a while, and being here has meant slowing down in a different way."
There's a flicker of something thoughtful in Aze's expression, and she continues, "Maybe that's one reason I liked you right off — some sense that we've both been through some kind of hell and have the scars to show for it. I respect that you're not letting it stop you. How's the vision going?"
"I feel sick to my stomach, I'm sweating like a sinner in church, but I haven't seen anything else but the docks at least, so there's that," Natalyah says honestly, that hoarseness still roughing her voice. She seems aware of it at least, as she reaches out carefully, blindly seeking where her own neglected glass is, and then taking several slow sips of lemonade. "I like you, too, you know. You're good to work with, you're smart, and you're fun to be around. It's nice to know someone who isn't ever going to be scared of me, or what I can do."
Aze reaches out automatically, ready to steady the cup if the Mind Visioning priestess knocks it over. When she does not, Aze settles her hand on the table instead.
"Yeah, I don't see that happening," Aze says, the smile audible in her voice. "I hope it goes both ways. I do get scared sometimes, but that's all… other stuff. I didn't come on too strong with Mayellen, did I? I don't really know how to read her yet. She is a warlock, though, so I'm guessing she can handle a little extra demonic energy around."
"I met her about a year ago in a crime scene for one of Cobalt Company's people, and then only about twenty minutes before you did the other day, so I can't really say I know her very well or anything. But I get the impression she's one of those level headed types, you know. Her canes are all very practical and appropriate, which isn't always a given when someone has to start using one. She survived being poisoned by someone trying to kill her, so the nerve damage it left is new," Natalyah says, drinking most of her lemonade.
She tosses her head, probably to move her hair around. "I've spent most of my life having people tell me I'm too much: too loud, too opinionated, too incautious. If they want less, they can go find it somewhere else. I'm not changing. And I don't think you should have to either. Besides, I think Mayellen can handle both of us. She's even married to a worgen, actually, so she's got a corner of each of us to be used to already."
"Someone tried to kill her?" Aze says, raising her head. "I know what that's like — I hope at least it wasn't someone she liked or respected. One of the worst fucking feelings."
Aze pauses to punctuate that with some lemonade, throwing it back like it's a somewhat different type of beverage. "I don't plan on changing who I am. Pretty sure I couldn't if I tried at this point, anyway. Maybe those other people just didn't have enough to match you," Aze says with a laugh. "But Mayellen Hazan, warlock married to a worgen, like she's a bridge holding the trio together… that is, assuming I'm… am I hired, officially? I assumed yes, because we're on a case and everything."
Natalyah laughs, as she moves her head in a way like she's sort of looking at Aze, even though at the moment, she's more blind this close up than the demon hunter.
"Yes, that's what it means. This isn't exactly my idea of a socializing afternoon. I'm not that eccentric or noble-blooded, though I suppose this might still be tame Wednesday frolicking for an elf," she says.
Some of the inner turmoil of the worgen energy shifts and settles, as the grip Natalyah has on the table eases, suggesting that she has shifted her vision from a human back to a bird to watch the harbor.
"Hey, you never know, could've just meant I was potentially useful this time, and you hadn't decided yet about the future," Aze says, smiling with an air of satisfaction. "Birds settled?"
Before Natalyah can answer, Aze straightens and says, "Mage nearby, looks like a gnome and… ah, wait. I know that one. Bit her once — Icecrown thing. She's a mercenary, probably here for legitimate business. But that's a thought, it would be easier for a stealthed gnome to slip through, since they're so small."
Natalyah's head moves, perhaps from hopping from bird to bird, to look for a gnome. "I haven't seen many gnomes on the docks, now that I'm thinking of it. But, you're right, if the person who got the map out of the barrel wasn't the same person who got it into the pile, a stealthed gnome would certainly be a method that would get all the way —"
That sentence doesn't get finished. "Wait, you bit her?" And then a strange other note of something swirls sorrow and curiosity into an odd warring brew in Natalyah's voice. "What sort of 'Icecrown' thing?"
"There was this woman I used to know," Aze says distractedly as she watches the gnome, and then refocuses on Natalyah to hastily amend, "Acquaintance, really, I didn't know her that well. And she was a lot nicer before she was one of the san'layn and started calling herself a Blood Queen. That's really a bad sign, you know, making up bloody titles. Nothing against M— Harvey, of course, he's not one of the san'layn. Anyway, yeah, I was part of the group fighting the Blood Queen, big group, and she did this thing…" Aze pauses, and then concludes with, "We had to bite each other. It was consensual. The gnome said it was okay."
It's met with silence, possibly as Natalyah watches Jo going about her business. "That might be the weirdest thing I've ever heard someone say about Icecrown, and I've heard some stories," Natalyah eventually says. "Did you — were you at the battle with the Lich King? My friend was there, Lucy Moore. She was one of those who died and then stayed dead."
The summer sky doesn't oblige by having a heavy raincloud sweep over them, but Natalyah's darker, sadder mood is almost palpable enough on its own to give the vibe.
"Icecrown was a weird place, in a lot of ways," Aze says quietly, her own tone dropping obligingly into the more sober vibe. "And yes, I was. I died there, too, together with most of my family, but we all came back when called. I don't know if I ever spoke to your friend, but… she wasn't alone, at the end. What was she like?"
The worgen energy rises like rain lashing closed shutters. "Lucy was… Lucy," Natalyah answers. Her voice grows more hoarse as she speaks. "She was like knowing sunshine that came to life, or befriending a smile in its purest form. Nothing ever could get her down, and she saw everything like an adventure of the spirit. It was never forced either — she didn't fake anything behind some mask of smiling but crying underneath. It was all just who she was. The world's a darker place with her gone."
And then, there, the worgen overtakes the humanity, the transformation at the onset of tears.
Nearby, two people gasp in shock at the sudden sight of a worgen, startled.
Natalyah's shoulders curl inwards at the sound and she breathes heavily as she forces the shift back to human. The whole of both back and forth is a matter of mere seconds.
Aze leans towards Natalyah, rather than away, at the transition, a hand reaching towards her worgen paw in comfort. With her other hand, she makes a different kind of gesture at the people gasping in shock — we will just have to hope they're not well-versed in Thalassian insults.
"She sounds like a wonderful person. I didn't mean to upset you, I just thought… that's all I have to offer, to help carry her memory," Aze tilts her head towards the other diners. "I might have fucked up our anonymity here, but I stick out pretty badly anyway. People will get used to us, you and me both."
Natalyah scoffs, as she swipes at her face. "When you're missing a body part other people have, especially one as big as an entire leg, anonymity really isn't in the cards to start. I'm used to the stares and people remembering me first as 'the girl without a leg' before anything else. The worgen aspect is just one more thing. I don't care if they're used to me or not," she says, and for any otherwise honest person, it has a brittle sting of a defensive claim against a more vulnerable truth.
"I have the glasses, to fake having eyes when I want to," Aze says after a moment, tapping them. "They won’t fool anyone up close, but there's ways to mask. I used to lie about what happened, or just act really torn up about it and let people imagine whatever they want. But yeah, people notice that first, even if they don't know about the demon. I get it, even if I've only had to deal with it for a few years now. If you really don't care, then you're stronger than I am."
Natalyah makes little answer to it, swiping at her face repeatedly with a hand and arm, as if she has been sweating badly.
When she starts writing again in her notebook, that's when she speaks. "I think we have enough to prove that whoever snuck in the map, or found a way to casually set it into place, did it on purpose. And that the only ways they could do it are either they really knew the docks and all the patterns, or prepared ahead of time like with the invisible gnome.
"Siamus and the other people have been asking around, and now so have we, but I think if we're going to eliminate for sure anyone doing it by accident or an overabundance of humility to want no credit for a deed done, we're going to need to get even more obvious, and make it clear we're looking for the person who did it. Maybe even offer a reward?" Natalyah considers, tapping her pencil again.
Aze sits back, crossing her arms across her stomach. "We could do that. It does tip our hand, but then I think we've established going unnoticed isn't our strength anyway." She bites at the corner of her lip in thought. "What would we even say? Reward for anyone who delivered a misplaced package to Fallon on a certain date? We wouldn't want to put details."
"We can ask Siamus since we'll need to for organizing a reward. It's not like I can put up anything for it that would have broad appeal to entice a person to come forward about it. 'One free lecture on how tent caterpillars are not invasive pests and are actually a crucial tier of the ecosystem of wild black cherry trees as prey for the yellow-billed cuckoo and providing silk for other species' nests,'" Natalyah quips informatively.
Friend and follow her for more Butterfly Facts!™
"I'll keep that in mind next time I see a…" Aze trails off, and then shakes her head. "Next time I hear a yellow-billed cuckoo. I probably don't have much to offer either — definitely not money right now, and I wouldn't dance or spar with just anybody. Especially if they might be untrustworthy."
"Can you identify bird calls by sound?" Natalyah asks immediately.
"No," Aze admits, just as promptly. "But that would be neat, wouldn't it? Can you? Maybe I could learn."
"You could, yes. It's nothing you need eyes for, obviously, just ears and a mind for organizing non-visual cues, and clearly you have that. I know only a few, but I learned them for specific reasons. If you were interested, you should talk to Birdie — er, Lord Bertrand Aspenwood," Natalyah corrects partway with the dismissive hand waving of someone who yes, yes, she knows his proper name, whatever. He's Birdie, everyone knows that.
"Maybe I will," Aze says, tilting her head in thought. "They're sponsoring me, the Aspenwoods, so he might be willing to teach. I do have pretty good hearing, but it's not like magical or anything. The whole 'your other senses grow more keen' thing is just a bullshit thing to say when I don't feel like explaining how I get around as well as I do. But yeah, anyway, I couldn't offer birdcall recognition training as a reward, even if it were enticing."
"Can you even imagine it if our hypothetical delivery person was that specific? A magical invisible gnome whose special interests were sparring dancing, sonorous bird calls, correcting misinformation on moths and butterflies, and secretly delivering packages?" Natalyah laughs at this ridiculous hypothetical herself, an unfettered sound.
Aze is drawn into laughing herself, and she says, "Maybe I'd like to meet somebody like that, if they do exist. If for nothing else, it would make for an interesting afternoon, don't you think?"
"Oh, undoubtedly," Natalyah agrees with an impish glee. "And I do love an interesting afternoon."