10 Consimbs 4385: An Important Engagement

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I am pleased to hear you and your brother are doing well, my dear Delight. Do give Void-Dancer my regards when next you see him.

My resumption of duties at the docks has gone well enough, although I'll confess I miss having you around, and miss having abundant time upon my tentacles. Ah, if only I could use Sustenoc Tenpador to make the time fly past whilst I labor at the docks, and Creoc Tempador to make extra time to spend in my off hours! I fear my employer would be less enamored with the prospect than I, however. Also, if I possessed that much skill at magery, I could most likely find employment as a mage and not need the docks at all.

But in this world-tree and not the one of my fantasies, I do find getting paid terribly convenient, and I should be most embarrassed to live always dependent upon the largesse of my friends. The work is simple and easy enough for my tentacles to execute; on balance, it's worth it.

Alas, I'm afraid I've made no progress on the song I was working on when you left. I daresay I spent nearly as many hours being entertained by you whilst you were here as I typically spend at my job. Yet somehow, when I was spending days with you, I was able to complete two songs in twelve days, whilst when my daylit hours are spent in heavy labor, I find myself unable to compose a single note in the evenings. It feels like all I can do just to bang on my drums for a couple of hours. Perhaps my muse simply misses having an appreciative audience close at tentacle-tip.

Nonetheless, I did find time to break out of my routine of work and practice with the quartet to honor my appointment with the lovely Miss Pinsitter. For reasons unfathomable to -- but no less appreciated for that! -- Miss Pinsitter did not send a card to cancel, nor moved without forwarding address, nor put the lights out and instructed her servants not to answer the door when I came to call at the appointed hour.

As I know you will never let me escape without divulging all salient details of the evening, allow me to do so now, lest you be forced to return to Daukhrame and expend the remainder of your fortune beating it from my hide.

Miss Pinsitter has quite a nice home for her neighborhood, which is the Slippery Quarter - but of course you know this, you've visited her yourself. I forget myself! I floated to the second-floor entrance, as requested. Her butler permitted me inside and instructed me to wait a ninth of an hour in the parlor until the lady of the household arrived. Curious decorative wood posts -- not unlike those one might find holding ropes to demarcate a puppet-show line, but sans the rope -- lined a path through the hall and into each room. Did you note those on your visit, Delight?

I don't know if you saw the second-floor parlor. It's rather martial in inclination. I counted three wooden clubs, two steel maces, three steel bucklers, two stone axes, two steel axes, one steel greataxe, and a warharness of finely-tooled leather suitable for carrying at least six or seven of the aforementioned weapons. All of the above looked thoroughly practical, although the metal ones were embossed with a variety of intricate and generally warlike designs. In addition to the array of weapons and armor were a number of trophies: the still-burning tail of a remorshka coiled in the hearth, a half-invisible kathia-table covered by the hide of a perdithorne, the head of a river-gunch, endtables that looked to be made of the chitin of some monster with which I am unfamiliar. There was but a single couch -- in concession to the other prime races, I imagine -- with the rest of the space left open to float through.

I did not have time to finish cataloging the contents of the chamber before my hostess joined me and took my mind quite off her abode. M'lady wore a wide-brimmed chapeau trimmed in gold and white ribbons, and tentacle-bands of gold set with pearlescent glirries. They set off fetchingly the delicate sky-blue hue she had chosen for her skin. I was wearing my best hat for the occasion, of course, and a ribbon 'round my mantle, but I felt quite squalid and grubby by comparison.

Then Pinsitter bestowed a radiant smile upon me, and I forgot any thoughts of myself entirely. I gave her a bow and made an attempt to compliment her. I have no recollection whatsoever of what I said -- indeed, I cannot vouch for certain that the noises I made were actual speech. We engaged in small talk for a ninth of an hour, about something or other which my brain could not be bothered to process properly at the time much less remember now. I am reasonably assured that Miss Pinsitter was speaking normally. Whatever noises my speaking mouth was making without consultation with my mind did not appear to distress her. Instead, she looked rather amused.

I offered her a tentacle. She looped one of hers around mine, and permitted me to float her to the door.