It was a quiet afternoon, just after the lunch rush had died away. Summer heat blistered the bare earth outside the Little Acorn Inn. Inside,
Bier sat by his regular table tuning his horsehead fiddle when the bell above the table jangled. He looked up, expecting Karina or maybe the three adventurous troublemakers that wandered the sands. Instead,
Titus stood in the doorway, looking awkwardly from one to another of the dragons in the Inn before limping over to Bier.
"I need your help," he said, taking a seat that relieved the pressure off his stumps as much as possible.
Bier struggled to keep his face as clear as his father's might have been had a civilian approached him this way. Torch, his father, long ago perfected the casual disinterest with which to speak with someone outside his occupation. Bier hadn't quite mastered the same chill. Instead, he turned his best appraising eye at the skydancer beside him and wondered aloud, "Possession?"
"No?" Titus said, though it was more a question than answer.
"Poltergeist?"
"N-No."
"Good. Those are more my mother's problem. Renegade revenant?"
Titus' feathers flattened against his head. "You're a musician, aren't you?"
Bier looked down at his fiddle, then to Titus. "Oh, a request!" he suggested, bursting into a grin.
Titus looked away, almost as if he were trying to gage whether to give up and leave or if he wanted someone to bear witness to this farce going on in the back of the Inn.
"Rockbreaker's Ceremony is coming," Titus said, speaking slowly and deliberately. "I've heard that you play." He gestured to the fiddle. "I'm looking for a musician to accompany me for the ceremony."
Bier frowned for a moment, then remembered that Titus was a dancer. "Oh," he said. The word fell flat between them, and Bier moved his fiddle to one side. "I um, I don't really perform in the Citadel. I'm more of a ... you know ... a rugged ... out doors... musican... guy."
Titus looked positively crestfallen. Bier knew it took a lot out of him to come down to the plains, both physically and emotionally.
"Look, if you want, I can have someone take you back. I know a few travelers are due in soon. Maybe one of them will be willing to perform for your show."
"I had hoped someone who played more traditional music could accompany me," Titus said. "It's why I came all this way." He eyed Bier's fiddle. He looked around at the dragons in the Inn, how few there were.
"If I find anyone willing to, I'll--"
The door opened, and Bier stopped silent.
Blackshore, ancient Guardian of the Stones, met his eye from where she stood in the open doorway, the sky bleeding light into the Inn around her bulk. "Sidney's not here?" she asked.
"They haven't been by,"
Gentian, the florid proprietor of the Inn, said as he came from a back room. "Is everything alright?"
Blackshore looked at Gentian, then back at Bier. "Keep them inside," she said as she turned back towards the door.
Bier looked at the Inn staff - Gentian and somewhere in the back his mate, Sunstar; timid Peony at the bar; relaxed Mallow filling out an inventory sheet before the evening rush - they weren't any good in a fight. With Karina out on the road this week, Bier was the only one among them who'd drawn blood before, such as it was.
"Blackshore," he called after her. "At least take Titus with you."
She looked back over her shoulder at the skydancer, then frowned and shook her head. "He'll be safer here than on the road. I have to find Sidney." And she was gone.
Bier looked around at the others, all of whom were looking nervously at the door or back to the tasks they had been doing before she arrived. "Fine," Bier grumbled as he went back to tuning his fiddle. "Seeing as you'll be here a while, let's talk about your dance number."