Chapter Text
Syndara spotted the shugo as soon as she entered the tavern. He was sitting at the bar, but he’d been facing towards the Apellbine’s entrance, and when he saw her he jumped down from his seat and hurried over to her.
“Syndara! Syndara!” he said earnestly, taking her by hands. “So glad you could come. Have terrible problem, terrible. No-one else knows what to do, not shugos or daevas. You were only other person Kaoranerk could think of who might be able to help.”
The sorcerer frowned. She’d never seen the inventor so distressed…not even when his wife had left him. He was one of the few people Syndara knew who shared her love of science and technology, and they talked frequently. She hadn’t heard from him for the past few weeks, though. “What happened?” she asked.
“Lab accident,” he whispered. “Very bad. Nobody knows how to fix. Tried everything! Thought maybe pink-haired daeva might think of something others didn’t.”
“A lab accident?” Her brow furrowed. “Was anyone hurt?”
He shook his head. “No. Er, not exactly.” His whiskers twitched nervously.
“Not exactly?” snorted a voice from behind them.
Syndara turned. There was a young man at the bar, near where Kaoranerk had been sitting. He had a half-finished glass of something in his hand, and he would have been rather handsome, in Syndara’s estimation, if he hadn’t had such a deep scowl on his face. But Kaoranerk was bristling. “Was accident!” the shugo insisted.
“Was accident,” the man mimicked sarcastically.
“Potion should have worked! Stupid courier contaminated ingredients on way to lab!”
“Wait, wait, slow down,” Syndara interrupted. “Potion? What kind of potion? What exactly happened?”
“Potion,” Kaoranerk said slowly, lowering his voice. “Potion to learn Asmodian language and Elyos language instantly. Commissioned by Torinerk to help with communications, if daeva knows what Kaoranerk means.”
Syndara nodded. She’d always guessed that the business owned by her friend Talerinerk’s great-granduncle was involved with trade on both sides of the world, which would have gotten him executed by either faction if they’d known about it.
“Very useful if can get it working, yes?” Kaoranerk asked. “But with bad ingredients,” the shugo continued in exasperation, “potion does not work!”
“Kaoranerk means ‘potion explodes while being prepared by incompetent scientist’, not ‘potion does not work’,” the young man declared. “Nothing was wrong with the ingredients Talerinerk brought.”
Syndara’s face fell. “Tal was there?” she asked worriedly. “He was the courier who brought you the supplies for Torinerk’s potion? What happened, is he all right?”
“Friend of daeva is alive and awake and fine,” Kaoranerk assured her.
“Are you sure? Where is he?”
“Talerinerk is fine, Syndara,” the man at the bar said, his voice softening.
The daeva blinked, taking a closer look at the young man. Fair hair, light blue eyes, very open expression. Still, she couldn’t place him. “I’m sorry, I don’t think we’ve been introduced...”
Kaoranerk sighed, then gestured at the leather and metal band on the man’s left wrist.
Syndara recognized it immediately. It was Talerinerk’s tail ring.
“Syndara,” he said sheepishly. “This is Talerinerk.”