In Which Aldhein Acknowledges the Better Man

May 7, 1181

"Huh." Falidor straightened himself to a vertical line, a further lean no doubt prevented only by the lack of a back on the bench. "That may just be the earliest Florian's ever been kicked out of here."

"I don't know." Aldhein glanced over his shoulder just in time to see Seoth and his son escort that familiar blond head away from the window. From the hair tossing about, Florian had no intention of going quietly, but he was a small man and outnumbered besides. Of course, he wouldn't have been Florian if he'd ever concerned himself with such trivial matters as 'odds'. "I still say it was September 13, 1176."

"Really? I could've sworn the old record was February 25, 1168."

"No, that couldn't have been it. There were enough people there for a belching war to constitute noise pollution, remember?"

"How drunk were you that night? I could've sworn it was just Florian squaring off against himself."

"Then how do you explain the five-part harmonies?"

"Years of practice?" Falidor cracked a sheepish smile. "Some cultures out east have mastered singing three notes at once, you know."

"The hell bullshit is that?" Florian's voice broke through the wall over Seoth's controlled muttering. "Come on, it's not like you have any rules saying I can't curl on your floor with tortoises..."

And first thing tomorrow, there would be a sign on the door saying precisely that. Perhaps it was time for Florian to cut his losses and start pestering some other innkeeper. Of course, given that would be common sense for anyone else...

Ah, it was too much thought, especially when Aldhein's head still hurt from the sounds of those poor tortoises bouncing off each other. Mindless banter with Falidor was the easier way to go. "I don't think belching and singing are the same process."

"Then you've never heard Florian sing, you lucky bastard."

Outside, Seoth raised his voice somewhat, though not to the point where his words were distinguishable. Florian didn't have that problem. "Well, that's just not fair! Why can't you acknowledge my God-given right to give you money?"

"Anyway." Falidor looked over at the window again, prompting Aldhein to do the same. It was just Seoth's son, though--not Florian making some ridiculous 'help me' face, which was the last thing Aldhein cared to do as yet another tortoise crawled over his toes. "I want to ask you something."

"Ask away."

"You're friends with Aydelle, right?"

"I guess you could say that." He hadn't seen her naked in years now, but they were still coworkers and they were still civil and they still talked when the opportunity arose. Did that make them friends? For the purposes of Falidor's question, it must have. "Why?"

"Just wondering about... you know." Falidor peered around to the door again. Luckily, Florian didn't say anything to threaten the gravity of what Aldhein expected the follow-up to be. "How she's doing, her and the girls. I know that marriage ended badly, but..."

"There's no 'but' for Aydelle." That much had been obvious. Apart from a short-lived dread over how to tell her daughters, he'd never seen the woman so relieved and carefree in all his years of working with her. She'd even laughed once or twice--a real laugh, like some weight that had held all her joviality to forced breathy chuckles had become suddenly feather-light. Shitty thought, maybe, that the death of a person could be so liberating to another, but then again, Eblor had never been much of a person. "Aydelle's fine. Better then fine. The girls... I don't know. I don't see them very often, but they seem all right, and Aydelle hasn't said otherwise. How are your kids coping?"

"They're... well, coping." There was something tentative in the cadence of the word. Falidor might have thought it an overstatement--or, more likely, an understatement. "Lyssie probably told you that she and Fenrick are building a new house and leaving the old one to Lonel and the twins. Riala and Maddie seem to be going about life as usual. Ailede was never really the type to, uh..."

"Inspire feelings of attachment?"

Falidor's face scrunched, the phrase distasteful to his ears but none more apt coming to mind. It was odd to think that Falidor, long-suffering, finally-happy Falidor, was and remained the closest thing Ailede had probably ever had to a friend. "I guess that would be the diplomatic way of saying it."

And that was precisely why, in Aldhein's mind, there was no reason for Falidor to be dwelling on Ailede, at least not a whole five months later. A former spouse or lover one held in high or even neutral regard? Fine. Aldhein still left flowers on Geneva's grave twice a year, on her own birthday and on their daughter's.

But he'd liked Geneva, even after she'd disappeared. He wasn't sure if he'd loved her--he'd been young enough to not necessarily know love when he saw it--but he'd never managed to dislike her, not after she'd given him Eilyssa and certainly not after she'd died for her. Reputation and personal woes be damned, he'd known her as a great lady. Ailede had been a being of perpetual selfishness and neglect of others and outright contempt if they'd dared challenge this. She hardly even counted as human.

Aldhein would have taken Aydelle's route of 'grief' if he'd lost someone he felt the need to speak of diplomatically. "It's admirable that you choose to remain civil."

"Honestly? She was uncivil enough for the both of us, up until the last time I went to visit Fenrick before she died." Too bad Seoth wasn't here to bring them drinks, as Falidor surely needed one. Aldhein would buy as soon as business outside had been resolved. "There's no point in continuing that ugliness now, even if I have earned the right to do so."

"Well, you're a better man than I would be." A thud! sounded from the outer side of the wall, no doubt a well-placed kick. Aldhein sighed. "And you're lucky Florian's not here, because he'd drag that ugliness out and parade it in front of you like he wanted you to marry it."

"I already did marry it." Aldhein snickered. Falidor winced at his own daring, but managed after a second to ease himself into a smile. "Florian would mean well if did that, and he can say what he likes when I'm not there."

"Oh, he already does."

"I'm sure." Another thud!. Shaking his head, Falidor stood. "Well, maybe we should help the poor man. As ridiculous as he can be, I owe him much more of my energy than I do Ailede."

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