Here we have another entry in the ongoing tale of Jani, who has the minds of both a native-to-Chibera elf and a pre-college smarty-pants who has been seeing into Chibera since she was a child.
For https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-390-5-minute-freewrite-wednesday-prompt-sweating

Continued...

The fire in Jani's eyes made Lavender sweat. "Why are you staring at me so hard?" Lavender asked.
Jani blinked twice, and from that intense adult elf emerged a shy teenage girl. "Oh, was I? Sorry. Just thinking, I guess." Jani felt the color rise in her face. Am I a squirrel to lust? she asked herself. Jani did her best to feel baffled by her own thoughts, but she understood exactly what was happening, and only wished she lived in some peaceful time where she could just settle into a cottage nearby and woo... She had to stop her train of thought, so she squinted and shook her head and tried to think about acorns. It worked a little, but not nearly enough, because the acorns reminded her of the little puffs in Lavender's cheeks. UGH, you don't know this shepherd. You're just enjoying a crush because you haven't been around a person in FOREVER. And this was true for one part of Jani, but another part of Jani had very recently spent hours in a room with dozens of other people.

Chanbun watched from her seat next to the still-eating Swellvben, who seemed to want to keep his mouth always full. Chanbun was pretty sure he wasn't even all that hungry. She watched how he ate and took in his demeanor and concluded that he was keeping his mouth full to try to separate himself from the others. She couldn't blame him. His bluster might have worked on the already-drunk patrons of a more boisterous bar, but why he thought they would work before noon on a quiet room... She didn't have the highest esteem for him, but if he was willing to keep eating, she was willing to feed him just to see how uncomfortable he would be willing to get. A mug of bitter mead stood untouched by his left elbow. If he could just wet his tongue enough to get soused, he'd find his wet tongue was also looser, and that would make him a much more congenial patron.

Jani stood. "Now. I've been distracted enough. I have to go now before they do more damage." Lavender and Chanbun looked at each other and Lavender stood. She placed a hand casually on Jani's shoulder, and Jani did not move. She stopped breathing for a moment, too, and all the thoughts and excuses she had made for herself, that had made so much sense they had elicited that outburst were gone, and all she could think about was not making a fool of herself in front of Lavender, and also not moving too much because she wanted Lavender's hand to stay there in that comfortable position that she knew wasn't even particularly indicative of friendship, but still felt so familiar and and and...

Chanbun was the next to speak, "I don't want to slow you or halt you," Chanbun's voice quavered as she spoke. She wanted desperately for this new friend, this still-stranger, this hope to believe her, but she couldn't entirely be sure that the quaver didn't rather read as desperate and deceitful. She tried to ignore her own voice's betrayal. Jani would believe what she believed, regardless of whether the quaver made her seem more or less trustworthy. "I want to empower you. I want to succeed alongside you. What I have to say, though, may seem unwelcome, and I don't know what all you are capable of... Don't go now. It's midday. They are all alert and awake. They'll see you as a threat (correctly). If we can get you in there under cover of some other business, you'll be that much closer to your goal and less likely to die on the ramparts." At the dismay on Lavender's face, she quickly added, "It's just a turn of phrase, they don't really have ramparts!" Then Chanbun corrected her correction. "They do have walls and guards and pikes, though. It's not just another house in town, Jani. It's a complex."

Jani still breathed in the thoughts of Lavender's hand on her shoulder. Lavender must have noticed I'm acting weird. Jani tried not to look in Lavender's eyes. She shrugged Lavender's hand off her shoulder, and then immediately regretted it. *This is what crippling self-doubt looks like." If elves could sweat, Jani would.

Lavender took back her hand. She hadn't been sure if she was being too forward or if she'd have been perceived to be physically restraining Jani. She knew she couldn't stop the sinewy elf, and she didn't want to try. She'd just wanted to be reassuring. But she'd messed even that up, and now this adventure was ruined and Jani was mad at her.

That was when Swellven swallowed. "I have an idea."

It was the first they'd heard of his voice since he had proclaimed his presence as proposessingly as anyone could when entering a room. They turned. There had been a lot of turning expectantly to him before, but this was the first time he was ready for it. He did feel like a hero again, and even though this was the opposite of what he'd intended, he was enough of a believer in fate, chance and opportunity that he knew when it was time to let the happenstance happen substantially.

"I am a bard. Listen," Swellven played a mediocre ditty mediocrely, not, of course the epic poem that he expected the elf to hate, just rather an upbeat little jig that usually let the drunkest drunks enjoy their feet, and the show-offs show their offs. He knew he was average, but sometimes you didn't need exceptional, you just needed something, and he provided that something.

Chanbun nodded, "I guess you are. So what?"

"Well, my plan was to get myself introduced to the Gem clan and then they'd pay me. It wasn't a particularly complicated plan, but I'm thinking of adding complications to it." Swellven wasn't used to self-effacing, and it showed. He was three steps from broad dramatic gestures, yet somehow this didn't seem the crowd for that kind of flamboyance. They were all down-to-earth kinds of folks in here. So instead, he bent his head a little lower and tried to make it seem like he was mumbling embarassedly, though of course while articulating clearly enough that they wouldn't miss any of his words. "I'm thinking, you see, that if our kind hostess here introduces me to the Gem clan as a traveling minstrel that you with the wasps can be a sort of second act. Like, can you make them do tricks or anything? They'd probably pay well to see something like that. Not often druids come into a town."

Jani's eyes blazed, and unthinkingly, Lavender's hand reached out again and lay on Jani's own hand for the briefest of moments. This time, Jani didn't have to spend so much mental energy on trying not to think about the hand being there touching her, but she did spend some time absorbing and making a part of herself the memory of the hand brushing hers. GAH, I'm such a teenager a part of Jani that was a teenager thought while the part of Jani that wasn't literally a teenager understood and embraced the sentiment. The anger had time to leave Jani, and though Swellven seemed momentarily stunned, when he looked more closely at Jani and saw no residual rage, he chalked it up to a trick of his own sensitive emotions and continued. "Then you can wreak whatever havoc you're looking to wreak, I can get paid, and we can both skip town before either of us gets crushed by the Gem clan."

Chanbun opened her mouth and silently laughed. "I can't tell yet if he's brilliant idiot or just a regular idiot, but I'll point out that he stands to gain quite a bit from his proposal here. Also, it relies on my complicity and I have to live here all the time. No skipping town for me."

Everyone was quiet for a second. Then a minute. Questions leaped into Jani's brain, and she dismissed them as not cutting to the core and also, was Lavender going to touch her hand again? If she just put all her hip over one leg, she'd be that much closer that Lavender could accidentally on purpose touch her again. That was a very unnatural position for an elf to stand in. Elves are centered, balanced, and do not slouch or cock a hip.

More thoughts leaped to Chanbun. Questions about the details of what would happen. She bit them. She'd already mentioned how much she had to lose. It would be impossible to know enough about the plans to even guess at whether the fallout from what would actually and unpredictably happen would come back to her. She tried to form a question that would elicit more caution from the group and then she realized that that was what she was trying to do and became conscious of how much trust she would lose from such an underhanded way of speaking. Forthright. That was what she was known to be by Lavender at least, and that was what she would come to be known as by the other two. Because that was what she was. She began to formulate, not a question, but a statement. But it just didn't feel ready yet to be verbalized. Perhaps someone else would speak, and then she'd know how to respond...

Lavender couldn't imagine a sadder, scarier thing, than being left behind just as the adventure began. She didn't see how she fit in with the plan Swellven had presented, but she couldn't think of any real arguments that weren't just her trying to insert herself into the party. What could she do? She... she could have sheep here or have sheep there. She could bring them by and have them baa at the Gem clan. Baa angrily, even. Could she deliver the bees wrapped in a sheep skin? Not bees, wasps, dammit. She was sure she'd lose all of Jani's respect if she called the wasps bees.But there, could she disguise the wasps? No, that was dumb. and every time I think I'm dumb, I box myself in. DAMMIT. Why do I even care? Momma says contentment is possible if you find contentment in what you have. But I WANT.

Swellven knew his words were bold. And more than bold, they were confusing. It was one idea. There were probably other, better ideas, but it was the first idea, so now they all had to confront it, poke holes in it. They wouldn't be looking for other ideas, not really, they would just be examining this one, improving it for him and them all. He had had the idea, and now he could sit back and let them do the actually nearly impossible work of making it plausible.

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Chapter 8

Lavender held a package of smoked rabbit in her lap. Chanbun led the Parcheron through the dust to the Gem-encrusted gate. None of these gems had value of course, they were merely the namesake gems of the clan: little pebbles with a touch of brightness beyond the dusty grey that lay alongside the road.

Photo credit: my mom or dad of me a long time ago.

A smiling guard raised his eyebrows, "Chanbun and Lavender! Your presence is good news! Are we having a party I didn't know about?"

"I'm afraid not. Lavender here is feeling her oats. She's been emboldened (or possibly em-bored-ened) by the prosperity of the flock, and she has a proposition for the Gems. I'm just here for moral support." Chanbun smiled her most forthright smile. Lavender did her best to look nervous, which wasn't the least difficult. She sat atop a rickety cart pulled by an old giant horse, and carried the only truth in a cartful of lies. She gently opened the package, nibbled a bit of smoked rabbit, and offered it to Piotr, the guard.

"Thank you Lavender! I'm afraid they aren't taking visitors without appointments today, though."