ROLEPLAY

A few days after the battle in the Silan arena, life had returned to normal.
The Fyros pretender, resurrected by the Powers, was once again roaming the streets, surrounded by his supporters.
Although resurrection was routine for homins, the public defeat he had suffered at the hands of Lothie remained etched in the memory.

One morning, as Lothie and her brother O'Tall were crossing the market square, they came across the fyros and his group.
The suitor, who was in the midst of ranting to his friends, paused when he caught sight of them.

- Look who it is, the little yubette and her dumb bastard brother.
I see you're still walking around with your protective detail, Lothie.

His companions burst out laughing, outbidding each other with crude insults:

- "Bastard!"

- "Homasse!"

- "Grognasse!"

- "Homine à zerx!"

But the enthusiasm wasn't there.
O'Tall's Black Dragon officer's uniform commanded respect,
and the memory of Lothie's blade cutting through the fyros' armour was still fresh.

O'Tall clenched his fists, ready to retaliate, but Lothie laid a soothing hand on his arm.

- Let them talk," she murmured.
Words are all they have left.

The fyros, stung to the core, took a step forward and shouted aggressively:

- You think you've humiliated me?
You think you've calculated me? But it was just an accident.
A stroke of luck... I underestimated you, that's all.

Lothie stared at him, impassive.

- And now?" she asked.


A tense silence settled in. The fyros opened his mouth, then closed it again.


- I don't... Not here. Not right now.

He took a step back, his companions exchanging uncertain but knowing glances.

Lothie nodded, smiling.

- That's what I thought.

She turned on her heels, O'Tall at her side, leaving the fyros and his followers behind, frozen in their own embarrassment.

Embassy of the Lochi,
Yrkanis - late afternoon.
The air is warm, full of the scent of plants.
A golden light glides over the moss-cut walls.

Fleur de Tuber, bent over a file, raises his head when there's a gentle knock on the door. Without taking his pipe from his lips, he says quietly:

"Come in, if you have clean feet."

The door opens. O'Tall enters, visibly intimidated.

Fleur (smiling, pipe in mouthpiece):
"Ah, my boy. Sit down, I've saved you a bottle of Lorelyn's Bhyre...

Before I forget, how's the little one?"

O'Tall (sits down, shakes head):
"Lothie? She's hanging in there. The old man is training her... in his own way."

Fleur :
"Meaning?"

O'Tall :
"Let's just say he's training her to survive in the most dangerous places I know. And he doesn't hesitate to kill her to make her understand what it's like to die without a crystal, as he says."

Fleur (frowns, blows nose):
"without crystal? hum I see...
Now that's pedagogy... that's effective. "

O'Tall (grunting):
"That's not the way we do it at home.
But she chose. So I respect that."

Fleur (tapping his pipe against a saucer):
"Good. About your case. "Concierge Services. "

He unfolds a small notebook, tightly scribbled.

Fleur :
"Founded in Yrkanis by the Frigo brothers - Flasco, the manager, and Valiso. Officially, they do... everything. Transport, breakdown services, logistics, small assignments for individuals or guilds."

O'Tall :
"So far I have nothing to complain about. It's the price. They accepted a payment ten times too high without negotiating. A real goo chai, that."

Fleur (raises an eyebrow, puzzled):
"I agree. The kind of gesture that either means 'we want to buy ourselves some silence' or 'we're too sure of ourselves'."

He flips quickly to another page.

Fleur :
"They are registered with the Kingdom, have branches in Fairhaven and Zora. Work with the Firm and the SMA. I didn't get very far, but... nothing to worry about. Serae Liosta and ser Cinabre have already met with Flasco."

O'Tall (leaning forward):
"Could you? Push it further?"

Fleur :
"I could, yes. But you have to tell me if you really want us to stir the bottom of the pond."

O'Tall (hesitates for a moment, then shakes his head):
"Nah. If I start rummaging through anything that doesn't smell right, I'll end up buried under the files. Besides... I don't want to know. too things. Not this time."

Fleur (slight smile, softer voice):
"Very well. You'll get nothing more, officially."

O'Tall (eyebrow raised):
"Officially?"

Fleur (rises slowly, approaches a shelf, pats an old globe from the bark):
"Let's just say my personal curiosity was piqued. And an ambassador who stops being curious... goes deaf."

O'Tall (rising in turn):
"Be careful though. People who are too clean often hide the worst mud under their boots."

Fleur :
"That's why I prefer dirty feet. At least we know where the trace came from."

They shake hands. O'Tall exits without another word. Fleur remains pensive for a moment, before slipping a crumpled bill into a sealed mailbox.

[Yrkanis - Lochi Embassy, Fleur de Tuber's personal office. Quiet night. Only an oil lamp trembles on the corner of the desk].

The office was not the elegant one, decorated with spiral plants, where Fleur received Matis dignitaries and official visitors. This was the den. The hushed, chaotic heart of her personal operations. Piles of parchments piled high, held in balance by obstinacy alone. An old, half-open cupboard with folded maps dangling from it. In the center, the great gnarled wooden desk, chiselled like the hands that inhabited it.

Fleur de Tuber leaned in, his binoculars sliding steadily along his muzzle. He would pull them up with a raspy forefinger, resume his reading, then absentmindedly light his Zoraï herb pipe, which he forgot to maintain and which died quietly, like an ill-formulated doubt.

First, he drew from a roughly sealed envelope a letter from Avendale. Recognition was immediately evident in the small grin on his face.

"Lettre d’O’Tall — griffonnée à la hâte"

Direct, unadorned writing, bordering on legible scribbling.

Fleur,

Here's what I've got.

The engineer's name is Cains. An old Tryk, a bit dry, but not the type to make trouble.
He carried gears in his toubs, nothing really exciting except maybe a still carboy.

Airmythe guy from Concierge Services we've seen, it's just wind: smiling, but hollow, and not very clean.
He tried to rip us off on the fees, but we set the record straight.

Flascoone of the company's two bosses, came in person to fetch old Cains.
I couldn't understand why a director would go out of his way for this, especially at this hour.

No proof of scheming, but my stomach's talking.
And then he tells me that it stinks.

O'Tall.

Fleur put the letter down again, the dying pipe on her lips, her eyes half-closed.
He rummaged under a pile and pulled out a much thicker, discreetly sealed folder.

Marked with a small sign at the bottom: a ploder leaf folded in half - the discreet emblem of his little frippos.

He opened it. The smell of slow-drying paper, fine inks and sifted waxes came back like a memory of happy espionage.


---

Fleur sighed.
He tugged on the unlit pipe.
Raised his binoculars, readjusted them on his wrinkled muzzle, and murmured:

"And here I thought I was dealing with a potion and herbarium delivery boy..."
He gently closed the file, his eyes half-closed.

"A botched engineer, an over-involved manager, missing workers, a wind turbine and a still... and I'm out of tobacco."

He rolled his chair to a drawer, pulled out a raspy Zoraï herb, packed it into his old pipe, relit it - to no avail.

Fleur (grumbling):
"Even you don't want to talk."

Then, in the silence, he scribbled on a piece of parchment:
He wedged the paper between two volumes, in a secret compartment of the desk.

Tuber flower knew.
He may not have held all the pieces yet, but the first shadows had been drawn on the canvas.
And they had a rancid smell that not even Zoraï herbs could mask.

He extinguished the oil lamp with the back of his hand.
The shadow swallowed the walls, leaving only the pipe to glow one last time.
Silence returned.