Times Are Changing

Serenity stops the thief as Lyric continues walking, “Wilder, I think we should talk…”

Wilder stops, glances back with a raised eyebrow, “eh? Can this wait?” He says in a guttural voice probably drooling about the mead he is going to drink tonight.

The look on the young girls face is all he had to see, and he stops instantly. Lets out a small sigh and turns around to face her.

“Alright, what is it…” he says in a dismissive tone, but his face was telling the Assassin he was interested.

Waiting a moment, to gather her thoughts, she sees him shift his body getting impatient. “Fine, it can wait then if you are going to be like this,” Serenity finishes, starting to walk past him.

He grabs her arm softly and pulls her back, “no, what is it?” he says now in a much more sincere tone.

“You can see this is clearly not working. Your boy can’t look me straight in the eye, wants to throw me off a cliff and I feel it’s messing up ‘this,’ or your situation here,” the young woman says, looking down thinking of her next words.

A soft chuckle comes from the old thief, “this? Wait, what? You think, ‘this’ situation here is ruining anything?” He finishes with a scoff.

He softly puts his hand on her shoulder and looks into her beautiful eyes. “This, as you call it, is a minor disturbance and nothing more. We have been through hell and back, and then some. ‘This,’ is a good day in fact, if just one person is pissed off.”

She dips her head and shakes it slowly, she knows she is not good with people being alone most of her life. Maybe he is right, and I am making things way worse than they are in my head.

The old thief puts his arm around her shoulder, not to make too much contact knowing she is quick with a blade, and starts to guide her towards the horses, “I don’t pretend to know your history young woman,” he says with a bit of whip, “but these things will have to roll off your back if you are to survive out in the wilds,” he finishes with a flourish of his hands spanning the beach to the left of them.

Serenity nods and keeps walking in deeper thought now, and they make their way back to the horses. This man smelling of tobacco, booze and bad cologne really has some life wisdom to share. Maybe I should stick around a bit and learn… but she missed her safe harbor, she missed her basement, she missed her books and she really missed her guardian. Though he wasn’t very affectionate, not like Wilder or Lyric, but he was my… guardian, she thinks to her self.

They get to the horses and Baylor is burning a hole right through Serenity. Lyric looks like she housed 50 tweety birds in her skull right then and there.

The young assassin goes to Lyric and pokes her leg a few times to help her up. Took a minute for her to figure it out and up she went. Wilder leading the group heads back into BreakWater Warf.

“Odd that the monsters are all about now, weird that once the war ended they all just magically appeared huh?” Baylor says with some whip to it, aiming it mostly at the Reaper and Blade.

Wilder gives his right hand man a glance and smirk, “actually, that is odd, like they were holding back on contracts while the war was raging…” he finishes with a rub of his scruffy chin.

Serenity is just shaking her head a bit as the group finally makes it out of the moist air and into the, not so moist air, of the Waterlogged Dolphin.

“What say you, little one?” Wilder says glancing over to her seeing her shake her head.

Shaking her head again, “nothing, it’s nothing,” the young woman responds looking for a place to sit for a short time, and look over her gear.

“No, no, what is it, misses I know it all,” Baylor starts in with a sarcastic angry tone, walking towards her with wide eyes.

After a few eye barbs back and forth, she sighs. “Of course they are, any of these ‘monsters,’ with a lick of intelligence would of laid low with the Regents about. They would of been corralled into doing their bidding. Now that the war is over…” she says glancing over to Baylor who has not taken his eyes off the girl.

Wilder lets out a laugh, slaps her on the back somewhat hard, “makes sense girl, but it has only been less than a week, and what? You think they have some sparrow messenger service? How would they really know if the war has ended… or that there was even a war to begin with.”

“They were witches little girl… witches,” the small man retorts proud of himself a bit, then gives her a head bob, smirk that made Serenity’s blood boil and he walks off to the bar.

The afternoon moves slowly for the young assassin, triple checking her bag, fending off a flirting attempt by one of Wilders drunk men and she finds herself sitting on a bar stool, at the bar where Lyric is slinging some drinks and jerky.

“Come come,” Wilder says to Serenity giving her a look seeing her either bored or lost in thought, “let’s hand in the trinket and get our reward… before the day gets away from us.”

She shakes her head, “take your little dwarf wanna be, rather not get his bullshit the rest of the day,” giving a quick glance to the old man, then back to Lyric who is heading over.

Wilder slides his butt on the stool next to the young girl, and grabs a mug that Lyric instinctively put in front of him.

A smell of pipe tobacco and some really cheap cologne hits and she winces a bit, though she felt like she wanted to laugh at this point. She sighs, and looks to the old thief.

“Serenity, if I may call you that,” he starts out only to get a small chuckle like scoff from the girl.

With a slight smirk, “that is my name, so yes, feel free to use it anytime,” the female assassin retorts.

He nods his head, takes a moment, then the old thief continues, “I don’t know you very well, hell, no one here does, but my suggestion to you is that you need to get thicker skin…”

Getting interrupted by a low growl like voice, “I have thin skin? I. Have thin skin?” Serenity says glancing over to Baylor who is trying to hit on a woman twice his size.

Surprisingly the ol’ thief grabs her chin, moves it to him and he nods, “yes, you. No surprise Baylor over there would be offended by a mouse fart, he is, well… dealing with other issues,” finishing off with a chuckle.

Lyric smiles and nods her head, “yeah, short he is, can’t get vagino.”

Both Wilder and Serenity slowly look to the dopey pirateer of sorts who is looking at them seriously. They have a smile growing on their face and burst out laughing, then trying to muffle it to not draw attention.

The less than smart woman shrugs her shoulders and walks away.

Serenity looks to Wilder realizing she is just being, “a little bitch” as he heard Baylor say a few times, and she nods her head. Pushes some stuff to Lyric to hold for her. Gets off the stool, and gives the old man a look.

“Atta-girl” he says jumping off the stool and heading for the door.

Serenity purposefully looks to Baylor, caught his attention and gives him a look as though to say, bye bitch.

They head out and down the road to the Reaper and Blade.

Part Two

Wilder and Serenity make their way back to the pub, money in one hand, another contract in the other.

Lyric has found her way from behind the bar and embraces Serenity who still is not 100% with the closeness she has with the elf. But feigns the hug back and looks about the room to see most of the people are already drinking.

“Tomorrow we go hunting for a troll!” The old thief yells to cheers and the like.

The young assassin sits in a chair in the far corner shaking her head knowing just how dangerous Trolls are. That there is going to be more than one and if it is a Cobble Troll they most likely will get surprised.

Lyric sits on her lap and is playing with the young girls hair. Their eyes meet.

“We are going to die tomorrow,” she says meaning to speak directly to the female elf, but overheard by Baylor.

The short fighter twirls, “oh we are going to die tomorrow? What you are not going with us to save us?” he says, spilling a bit of his drink giving her an over exaggerated scoff.

She shakes her head, “no, trolls don’t live alone, they are extremely hard to kill because they can regenerate health and if they are Cobble Trolls, they will be lying in wait, and will surprise us. Your little toothpick is not going to do much to that.”

Wilder makes his way over seeing the confrontation start, “we will have the crew with us on this one, so they will take on 12 people not 3 or 4.”

Serenity over exaggerates her head bob, “Oh, ok… twelve graves to bury, not just 3 or 4, gotcha.”

The old thief gives her a frown, grabs for Baylor and they walk off.

Serenity then gets up, grabs Lyrics hand and heads out of the pub, walks to the Reaper and Blade, goes in and heads to the research room.

The light is dwindling in the room after 4 hours of heavy research by Serenity. She glances over to see Lyric sleeping, head cricked one way, drool down her chin curled up in a chair.

“This is not good, last report of a troll battle had 3 trolls and 8 well equipped veteran hunters… 4 returned and one of them still can’t walk.” she mumbles to herself, reading from one of the most recent journals.

The door opens and in walks Wilder with a satchel across his back and a head of steam. He stops suddenly and looks up to see the young assassin.

“Whoa, hey, you are here already?” he says putting his bag down and quietly walking over after seeing Lyric drooling on herself.

Nodding her head, Serenity sighs and pushes the last report to him so he can read the results.

“hmm,” he mummers a bit, “that’s 3 trolls, we only have to deal with one,” he finishes pushing the book back to her.

A loud sigh comes from her mouth, she pushes another book to him and she points “trolls do not live alone, they live with a group or with a mate.”

Standing straight up, wiping down his shirt he gives her wide eyes, “well that has yet to be seen…” he mutters looking about the room.

“Yet. To be. Seen,” she says, staring off in the distance, “why write anything, in any book if no one is going to read and comprehend it. Why bother? You will make up something in your mind, and go with it, even if it means leading us to our death. One troll? That is almost an impossibility. But since Wilder, leader of the drunken rabble says so, let’s throw out hundreds, if not thousands of years of first hand accounts and research.”

She finishes standing up, “unless you want to take this serious, I am going to pass on this one. This is not Hag, this is no Sea Devil… this is ten times worse.”

A bit angry himself Wilder scowls a bit, nods his head, “so everything in a book is true. In that case I will grab one of these, write in three that I have a wanker the size of a cheese wheel, owns 10 homes and is the King of Camerondale,” he says with a lot of whip and anger to it.

Serenity gives him a “really” look and steps away from the table and towards Lyric.

“That’s fine then, I’ll take my group and kill the… Troll, without you. Then accept this nice reward, accolades and you will get none of it.”

Glancing at him she shrugs her shoulders some, mumbles, “since when did I ever want rewards?” She finishes, shaking Lyric a little.