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[Harlequin]

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Quote:

Folded once in half, and held in place by a large, copper key as proof against the wind, a sheet of cream colored paper keeps company with a single burning candle on the floor of Ashencrosse's North Tower. At the tower's back, the Bramble Rose Theatre cheerily shines its light through unshuttered windows, gently keeping the Night at bay. The note reads thusly: Little Sister, Because inns can be shabby. Third floor, second door to your left. Ei Sidottu, Arahim p.s. If you find the height of the keyhole daunting, I have left a crate in the garden you may use as a step-stool.

Quinn read the note over, twirling the heavy key between her fingers idly, then she scrambled down the ladder, and stalked toward Arahim's home. Hands clenched at her sides, she was muttering as she went.

“Like you're any better than me for being a little taller. Keyhole, my arse. I can reach a keyhole. You think you're so clever, but I can reach a keyhole...”

She shoved the key roughly into the front door and turned it with a solid click, before pulling it out again and slipping it beneath a strap of her armour, at the hip. The cold of the copper stung against the flesh of her hip, and she sucked air through her teeth as she let herself into the warmth of his quiet house, her mouth still mechanically running through a laundry list of complaints, whether legitimate, concocted, or convoluted.

“...never gave me any Dennises anyway. You cheat at cards just like you cheat at fruit, and I don't know that I even want to stay in your stupid house. With your stupid stairs and rugs all over the....ooh, I like this.” Quinn paused to touch something on a bookshelf. It was clearly a fetish of some sort. And old, at that. It was made of crudely-hewn and tanned leather. A container, that looked a bit like a skull, and bore feathers, and suggestions of feathers cut intricately into scraps of leather, both bound and hanging off to one side, unbalancing the piece. It was hideous, the closer she looked at it. Probably crafted by the hands of orcs. Still, she liked it, and she wondered if it was a trophy he'd kept—a bauble, maybe, found on an orc shaman, or a toy found in a camp he'd raided. Carefully, she put it down again, giving it three nudges of the slightest, infinitely smallest angle imaginable to be sure it faced precisely the same way it did when she picked it up.

“Besides, you keep creepy stuff in here. Skulls, and weird...feathery things, and I don't know what. All I know is, you keep yourself closed off in here with your stupid skulls, and your stupid...” She trailed off a moment, looking back at the case displaying various orc skulls, and she wandered back over to it, running her fingertips lightly over each that sat on the red velvet backing of the case. She opened her pack, and pulled out a skull that seemed some cross between human and canine. Holding it among the others, she smiled to herself, and made room on the display for her own.

“You probably snore anyway, so if my room is anywhere near yours, I'm not staying.” She topped the stairs to the third floor. “Of course. Another rug. Silly of me to expect anything different.” She trudged across it, letting her boots sink into the pile of the carpet, as she added quietly, “But this one's kinda nice...”

She peered through an open door that was slightly obscured by vines that clung to the masonry and draped down across the doorway like a veil. Beyond the veil stood a tree, a red maple. Stately, and quiet. To this, she had nothing to say. It would bear more investigation later. But for now it bade her quiet, and she moved to the next door.

Quinn opened the door to the darkened bedroom, and lit a lantern on the nightstand. She made a slow circle in the room, touching every surface that was smooth, or soft, or velvety, and paused when she came to the door again, with a heavy sigh. Tonight, she would relent. Tomorrow, she'd find Xander again. He was probably asleep, slumped over some book or other by now, anyway.

Her armour doffed, and replaced by the riotous colour of a softly faded jester's tunic, Quinn piled up in the bed beneath a mountain of woolen blankets and woven throws. But morning, spilling over the tiny windowsill, would find her in the corner of the room, nested securely in a veritable fortress of pillows and bedlinens on the floor.

Whether or not her housemate snored, she couldn't have said. Slumber like she'd never known had claimed her the moment her head hit the pillow.
_________________
Why should the world be over-wise,
In counting all our tears and sighs?
Nay, let them only see us, while
We wear the mask.
~Paul Laurence Dunbar