Paradunes. Serenthel’s brow tightened then raised. Ah! Sand! Lines in the sand. Guilds and their territorial spats. Yes, welcome to Ka’veshi. Serenthel smiled smugly to himself at having remembered a lesson from ten years ago. And his history instructor had sought fit to warn him to pay more attention. Ha! Take that, Master Elethchiel.
“Think it funny, do you?” The man asked with a glare.
Serenthel blinked out of his thoughts as Forfolyn snorted with a shake of the head. “Pardon?” Serenthel thought for a moment then balked at his own misunderstood expression. The pride of fools, he self-admonished. “Apologies, good sir, but my use of the common tongue is unpracticed. I am... confused by some of your words.”
“Fresh from the other side of the wall, are ye?” the woman asked with a tiny snicker.
“Fresh from his mother’s teat, I’d say,” the man said, earning another small giggle from the woman.
Serenthel blinked at the man. “Pardon?”
“Oh, you know their kind don’t age like us,” the woman said to the man after catching Serenthel’s shock. “Why, he could be older than me!”
“Hmph,” the man peered harder at Serenthel. “In years, maybe, but his eyes have the look of a boy who still knows nothing of the world.”
Serenthel wanted to argue, to say that he’d been in lessons for decades learning from masters of history, language and culture. He’d left the Mother’s Grove confident in his abilities, even if the way forward had been uncertain and not without its hesitations.
Then, he’d crossed the wall. He’d seen and met humans. He’d ventured through their untended wilds, their over-cleared farmlands and encroaching deserts, their ransacked ruins, unkempt graveyards and somewhat equally neglected dwellings they passed off as housing.
He’d also watched their expressive natures. Learned there was more than one way to say a word. Saw that the jubilant emotions of children were carried on well past the point of adulthood. He’d been met with equal amounts of suspicion and kindness, all of which left him reeling from an understanding of just how much of this world he in fact did not know.
“There, see,” said the man with a meaty finger pointed towards Serenthel’s face. “Wide-eyed as a boy catching his first toad.”
“Oh, leave the boy- er, man, alone,” the woman chided, though not without another tiny, well-meaning chortle at her slip of the tongue. She placed a hand on Serenthel’s arm, a touch he had come to assume as one of friendly comfort. Humans did seem to enjoy more bodily contact than an Elvan would deem necessary...or appropriate. “What brings you to our grand city?”
“Grand,” the man grunted. “Overcrowded and garishly gilded thieves’ den, more like,” he muttered before turning his back on the conversation.
Serenthel wasn’t sad to have the man return to fussing over his oxcart as they continued to wait in line. The woman gave a roll of the eyes in the man’s direction then looked back to Serenthel with a patient smile. After the utterance about thieves, Serenthel hesitated. But, he also knew he could spend all day in a city the size of Ka’veshi without finding what he came seeking.
“I am looking for a master silversmith.”
“Oh? Hope to become an apprentice, perhaps?” The woman put one hand on her hip and shook her head as she waggled a finger. “I’ll warn you now, you’ll not find a silversmith in Ka’veshi that would teach... your kind, begging your pardon. It’s the guilds, you see.” She tapped a finger to her cheek where the aged tattoo of a harvesting sickle resided. “They don’t take in elf nor orc, and most wouldn’t even take a Carnathian. Old laws and traditions and all that, and all apprentices must be guilded.”
“Well, it’s good to know I won’t be pressed into joining,” Serenthel replied. “But, no, I seek a master for assistance in a box I need opening.” He hesitated in showing her the box, and he certainly didn’t seek to advertise that it was not made of silver but mithril, although he did wonder if most humans could tell the difference in their current age of gold and iron.
“A silver box?” The man turned back around with more interest in the conversation. “Not some stolen item whose lock you need picked, is it?”
“No, sir, I assure you.” It had been given to him, after all, even if it had been technically taken from a graveyard. “It’s a family heirloom.” Well, that wasn’t entirely a lie. “It’s delicate, so I would rather not pry the box open by way of force. It’s also Elvan in design, so I thought perhaps it would be best to seek a master who might have knowledge of such items.”
“Why not just go home?” the man asked, with a look that said he’d prefer it if Serenthel did.
“Because, I am here now,” Serenthel answered plainly, keeping his emotions restrained.
The woman’s hand gave Serenthel’s arm the tiniest of squeezes. “Sounds like you be needing Adibe Asahn.”
“The man is dead,” the man hissed in a shushing tone at the woman’s suggestion, his eyes darting across the line of people. “You dare break the rule against speaking the names of the exiled?”
“Desperate times,” the woman replied, her hand leaving Serenthel’s arm to wave expressively at the man as she spoke. “You would rather I send this young man to the Glittering Row so Pashta can charge exorbitant prices or take what isn’t his?” The woman tutted her tongue. “I think not. Besides, there be no man in Ka’veshi whose hands be as skilled with the shaping of silver than Adibe.”
The man scratched at his beard below his own sickle tattoo. “I’ll not argue that.”
“Only a fool would,” the woman said. “Is common knowledge that the former guild master can weave silver embellished rings around that dolt
