Azraea and Samantha worked their way through the residential area into the heart of Old Town. Unlike the southern portions of the city which had been slowly torn down and rebuilt between 150 and 50 years ago, the buildings here were among the oldest in Caelia, dating back to the reconstruction that followed the leveling of the original dwarven buildings. The elves who owned most of the property here had never allowed any development which would have involved demolishing the now historic buildings; unfortunately King Hylas’s father and grandfather had both thought the garishly festooned old buildings to be an eyesore, and had denied the ghettos many of the improvements provided to the rest of the city. Even basic maintenance had fallen entirely on the shoulders of Old Town’s residents.
Despite that, Azraea loved to come here, and once she was finally in a part of Old Town she recognized, she made for a hole in the wall Arbarii restaurant, Samantha still in tow. “Saber Lily” was closed at this time of the morning, but she went around back and knocked until she got the owner’s attention. The little Arbarii woman who ran the restaurant started to chase them off but stopped when she recognized Azraea.
“Salmon roll!” the little grey haired woman never remembered names, but she could remember her regulars by their orders, “I thought you graduated?! Come in, come in! Who is your friend? Where are Mammoth Steak and Chicken Fingers?”
“Samantha, this is Lily. Lily, this is Samantha,” Azraea said, “She helped me out of some trouble this morning.”
“What sort of trouble?” Lily said suspiciously.
“A dick-sack got handsy with Salmon Roll and caught on fire," Samantha explained with a dry smile, "It was a debacle, ma’am.”
“I see. I always knew that would happen eventually.”
Azraea laughed slightly, “Really? That specific thing?”
“Oh yes, I am very wise,” Lily nodded, “I might also have predicted that Salmon Roll would one day become the city’s most wanted, for sassing a dragon.”
“Ah!” Azraea gasped, “When did I ever sass you? I’ve never been anything but polite…”
“Exactly; your friends would carry on all sorts of ways, but you were always quiet, and I knew, I knew you were saving it for something special. You were saving it for something big. I told Gregor, I told him, and he said you must be saving it for a trip to our homeland. He said there was an ornery mammoth out there with Salmon Roll’s name on it, but I said, ‘No Gregor! Bigger! Much bigger than mammoth!’ and what is bigger than a mammoth but a dragon?”
“Well, did you predict any other surprising twists in my life?” Azraea laughed.
“I do not know – have you told Mammoth Steak you love her yet?” Lily quipped.
Azraea was speechless. She’d not only avoided acknowledging her feelings for Kaira until this summer, she’d lived firmly in the closet the entire time she’d resided in Kingstown.
“Well, I hope you have; you would make cute couple. Now, Salmon Roll, most infamous of my regulars, what does the Arbarii rebel of Kingstown need?”
“Food,” Azraea said simply.
Lily seemed disappointed, “Is that all? I hoped perhaps you needed a weapon, a stolen uniform, or falsified documents… something exciting. You mean to tell me, the dangerous young woman being sought by the dragon's personal guard is merely hungry?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Well, then I will make you something.”
“Do you have stolen uniforms?” Samantha asked.
Lily scrutinized her for a moment, “Why would you ask a question like that? That is a ridiculous question. I will make you some food as well, and you will not ask that question again, young lady.”
Lily evidently decided to spoil Azraea, making her a traditional Arbarii breakfast – caribou stomach, filled with tundra flowers, boiled with just a bit of salt and vinegar. Sam turned chartreuse when Azraea cut into it, but Azraea found the earthy smell nearly as revitalizing as the food itself.
“Do not dally too long,” Lily said as she poured some coffee, “someone outside will have seen you, and I don’t want you beating up on a pair of unfortunate guardsmen in my dining room. They are customers too!”
Azraea laughed, “I understand ma’am; I’ll eat fast. If anyone asks, my secret hideout is in the sewers underneath the warehouses.”
“Ah yes,” Lily winked, “very clever. I think one of those is used as a slaughterhouse now, isn’t it? Yes, if anyone asks, I will tell them you are hiding in the sewers beneath the slaughterhouse.”
“Oh, and warn them of traps,” Azraea said, “I’ve set traps. Lots of traps. Magical ones. Very hard to spot.”
Samantha looked slightly confused, and finally asked, “You two are joking, right?”
Azraea smiled, “No, we’re dead serious,” she winked.
Lily suddenly spoke in Arbarii. She was much more fluent in it than Azraea was, but Azraea still understood it well enough, <<Are you okay? Do you need real help?>>
Azraea was surprised, but answered back as best she could in her grandmother's language, <<I’ll be okay. I’m not alone.>>
<<Her?>> Lily asked in Arbarii.
<<She’s a stranger. But I have other people I trust.>>
Lily nodded and patted Azraea on the hand.
<<Will you be okay?>> Azraea asked, <<Have I caused you any trouble?>>
<<Yes,>> Lily continued in Arbarii, <<Much trouble. Normally I am in the bathroom at this time of the morning. Now my whole day will be off.>>
Azraea snickered because Lily said it so matter-of-factly. Samantha looked at the two of them suspiciously. Using a language barrier to exclude someone in the way they just had was generally considered to be rude and Samantha seemed at first insulted, but then brightened up. “Oh my God, that was a spy thing, wasn’t it?”
Azraea laughed, “She was just testing my foreign language skills. I don’t get to speak my grandparents’ language much otherwise.”
“No way, that was a spy message! You were passing plans or something!”
Lily pulled a meat cleaver out from behind the counter and slammed it down in front of Samantha, giving her a stern look, “You know nothing of our plans, and you will not speak of that which you do not know.”
Samantha nodded quietly, and Lily made an 'I’ll-be-watching' gesture with her fingers, before packing up a basket for Azraea.
<<I don’t want to know where you’re really hiding,>> she said in Arbarii, <<But there’s food for a few days, and the morning paper.>>
Azraea shook her hand and discretely passed one of the solid gold Gnoman coins to her, <<Be careful where you spend it,>> she said in their ancestral language, <<And thank you.>>
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