Turn the Totem

It's a bit late in the day, which means its grown dark outside. Despite this, there's a beauty to it, and its one that Auranar can appreciate as she walks the last few steps towards where Dolan and Andelana live. She carries a basket of freshly baked goodies with her, tightly and carefully packaged into a basket in her right hand. The wild elf knocks gently but firmly on the door and shifts her fingers in her new gray gloves.

As is true fairly frequently, Dolan is here alone. He's only just gotten home himself, and is seated on a chair in the middle of the living room, cleaning and polishing his gear when the knock comes, wearing only an old shirt and trousers. Surprised, he stands and, naked blade in one hand, opens the door with the other.

"Oh, brightest of days, Auranar, come in." He immediately steps aside, and the chair, pile of gear, bottle of oil, and pile of rags makes his current activity reasonably evident. "What brings you here?"

"Can't I just come by for a visit?" She asks playfully as she steps inside and to the side so that he can close the door. Auranar takes quick stock of his activity and then gives him a more serious look. "I did actually come with purpose however, so I'm sorry to be interrupting your chores. Do you have time to talk?"

"It's always good to see you," Dolan answers with a cheeky grin, closing the door behind her and taking the blade over to where their gear normally lives. "It's fine. I'll take care of this later." The chair, cleaning materials, and breastplate and gear are tossed with limited ceremony back into their corner, and he wipes off his hands with the clean rag off of the top of the pile. "Tea and ale are about all I've got to hand, will that do?"

Auranar follows him into the room a little ways, not really sure where to sit. Instead she sort of hovers while he puts things away and offers him a warm smile when he offers her a drink. "Tea would be wonderful. I brought some snacks for us to have and... Tea would go nicely with them." That wasn't what she'd been about to say at all. She offers the basket to Dolan, uncertain where he wants it to be.

Once Dolan has finished cleaning up, he gestures to a small table next to the informal, secondhand sofa, and to the sofa itself. "Have a seat. I'll get the kettle going." Some water out of a waterskin, and in just a few minutes, the kettle is over the fire, cups are laid out, and he returns to take an equally beaten chair in the rather cluttered common area, across from her. "How can I help?" He leans forward intently, fully turned towards her and situated so that she is just a touch to his left. Arms that seems to have for the most part healed and are beginning to grow hair back rest on knees.

The wild elf places the basket on the small table indicated and sits down where Dolan can comfortably see her. Once everything is settled, she seems no more relaxed than when she first entered the house. Which is to say not very relaxed at all. "I found the man you asked me to, and those that spoke of him were right to tell you it was in good hands. However, he was willing to give it to me, because of the fact that we learned that those that serve the gods that made them are more... tied to them. It's a totem made by Daues, Dolan. It should be yours."

"You found the Knight's totem?" Instantly, Dolan sits up straight. "Yeah, Kincaid said that, that you've got to give them to people who serve that god." Both eyes are instantly fixed on it, eyeing it with great interest. "So this guy was holding the Knight's totem? How do we know it's the Knight's totem?" He looks up suspiciously.

There's the sound of footsteps coming up to the apartment, followed by the sound of keys clinking together. The door opens shortly afterward, Andelena stepping through with a new cloak billowing out in the wind behind her. She shuts it and locks it behind her quickly, as per routine.

Deliverance is strapped to her back, but that's the least eye-catching thing about her. More accurately, it's the things she's swearing that are ear-catching. "Dumb fucking idiot. Can't believe I went and bought a cloak just to go and rip it up," Andelena mutters. Indeed, there's a good portion of her cloak that's missing from the bottom hem, although it looks like it was cut off the clock by a blade of some sort. The swear earns her a mild buzzing rebuke from Deliverance, which Andelena doesn't even acknowledge beyond an eye-roll--

And then she actually looks over at Auranar and Dolan, a moment right after the totem words are said. "Oh, hey, Auranar! Sorry Bry, didn't mean to come back earlier than expected--had to help heal this dumb idiot on my way from the Market to the Colosseum--"

Then her eyes widen a little as it finally registers. "Uh. Wow, what a fucking time to walk in." A buzz from Deliverance again, which Andelena ignores as she walks in further into the apartment.

"The man I got it from told-" She stops talking as she notices the sound of footsteps. The next sound is more comforting - the jingle of keys - and yet she doesn't begin again. Not even after the door opens to reveal that it is in fact Andelena returning home. She offers a faint smile to the woman that probably goes unnoticed amid the greeting. "I suppose it is at that. Welcome home."

Dolan's head snaps up at the jingle of keys, and he stands up, walking towards the door and Andelena. "You okay, baby?" he asks in low, affectionate tones, then turns to Auranar. "You can say anything to Andie that you would to me, Auranar. She's holding one, too. She should know."

With that, he walks back over towards the seat he'd just vacated. "Come over here, Andie. Auranar found the statue the Knight made."

"Yeah, I'm fine, just pissed that I cut up my brand new cloak to help with the bleeding this dumb fuck had from a wound he got from trying to impress his friends," Andelena grumps. "I healed him, escorted him to the Soldier's Defense to get properly cleaned up, and then told him to get better friends, because they were calling him all sorts of names for getting, you know, /medical attention./" But then she gives Bry a little peck on the lips, which banishes most of the grumpiness on her face. Looks like she just needed a little rant.

She follows Dolan's beckoning in, taking the cloak off and throwing it onto a hook somewhere in the process. Deliverance is put away onto a wall mount, too. Her eyes are wide as the weight of Dolan's words sink in. "No shit? Auranar, where'd you find it?"

Auranar has the grace to look embarrassed by the whole of the situation. "I'm sorry about your cloak." She offers demurely to Andelena and then takes a breath. "I found it almost by accident really. I asked a friend of mine who is familiar with the faithful of Eluna if he knew which of them had the statue. It turned out... it was him. He attuned the statue quite by accident, and he gathered enough information on it to determine that Daeus made it. Which brings us to the present."

She pulls the statue from one of her pockets and places it on the table. At the moment it looks like a lovely woman. "It's currently attuned to him, I figured that if I was going to give it directly to you that I might as well save cutting my fingers up." Here she smiles faintly and places the statue carefully some distance from herself.

"That sucks, but he's lucky you were there," Dolan agrees, once the peck on the lips is complete. He resumes his original chair and posture, eyeing the statue with great interest. The explanation, at least, does seem to explain something to him. "Ah. Figures that an Elunan would try the Dream Realm for information. That's the only real way to tell." He reaches for the statue of the woman, picking it up and turning it over in his hand. The figurine appears for all the world to be roughly the same one Kincaid had given them. "You okay with me attuning this here and now, or would you rather I wait? I'll check the Dream Realm to be sure tonight."

Andelena finds a seat herself and just inspects the totem for a long moment as Dolan handles it. "Well, hot damn," she says. "Made by the Knight himself..."

Her voice fails for a moment, and then she looks at Dolan. "You sure you want to attune it to yourself?" she asks. "I mean, I could. I'm cool either way, but you've got two of them already, Bry. I don't want you... running yourself ragged." She had to find the right choice of words.

"Actually..." Auranar takes the top off her goodies basket and pulls out some note-taking equipment. "I'd like to take notes if you don't mind."

She glances between the two people as Andelena brings up an excellent point. "I... I don't want to add to any burden here; Dolan or ...Bry? Is just the person who's been at the center of all of this for so long. He was the first person I thought of. I could... I could take one of the totems myself in exchange? That way there are fewer here?"

Dolan's answering grin covers the mobile side of his face, and is more than a little crooked and a lot more than a little sheepish. "I don't use my real name too much," he admits. "It's Brydion. Most everybody here knows me as Dolan, and I won't get into why." The smile fades, he stares briefly off into the distance. "Look, that might not be a bad idea, if we've got ones that somebody else ought to hold. Tarien Bard-King made one of the ones I've got, and I don't mess with that lot unless I want to find myself face down in a mud puddle."

"I'm fine, baby. You're not always around when this stuff comes up. Which one do you have?"

"I call him Bry because he's still the farmboy I've been in love with since I was seventeen, even if we've both grown way the fuck up since then," Andelena says with a grin. There's a look in her eye as she looks at Dolan that really does confirm that she thinks that--despite everything, it's still him. "Been calling him that for years."

She fishes out her totem from her own bag and holds it up. "Pretty sure it's Angoron's," she says. "I think there's a cleric of Angoron I've met before, but only once. Don't know of anyone else--so maybe you swapping totems is a good idea, Bry."

Auranar doesn't comment further, not yet. She doesn't want to interrupt their conversation. This is their choice after all; not hers.

The look in Dolan's eye as he returns it holds a wealth of affection - worship, even. He adores her, this much is clear. "I'll take it, and trade you Tarien's. I've got one I'm pretty sure is Thul's, too. We better figure out what we're doing with the ones from the gods of darkness," he mutters. "I'll hold that for right now, and we'll see about finding someone from Angoron's temple to take hers."

So saying, he stands up, sets the one Auranar brought down, and moves over to his own gear. From it he extracts one, looks at it, puts it back, and extracts the other one, bringing it over and setting it down next to him, well away from Andie's and Auranar's. It's clear, though - his eyes keep going back to the one Auranar brought. With reverence, even awe.

"Sure, I'll take a fall in a mud puddle any day of the damn week for you, babe," Andelena says warmly. "Besides, it even fits. I get the weird shit, you get the scary shit. Maybe the Coyote's going to be nice enough to tell me why that is in my dreams tonight."

Seeing that he's keeping the totem away, Andelena doesn't immediately hold out hers. "Attune to yours first and then I take the Tarienite one?" she asks with a nod. "Or... just do it at the same time?"

A snort of laughter from Dolan greets that. He absently picks up the Tarienite one and hands it to her. He seems a bit more sanguine about having multiples together - at least when they're attuned and he knows who they're attuned to! Removing an eating knife from his belt, he pricks his finger with it and touches it to the statue of the woman, watching intently to see what happens.

Andelena just shrugs and follows suit, retrieving a knife from in her own bag. She's not nearly so practiced as Dolan is at attuning--she's only done it once before--so she takes a breath to brace herself before she pricks her left-hand index finger and presses it to the Tarienite totem. "Here goes," she murmurs right as her finger makes touchdown.

There's a moment's pause, like a breath being taken in the universe and then... There's a a swirl of magical energy that neither are prepared for. Darkness envelops the pair and to Auranar nothing seems to happen save that their eyes go distant. To them however, the world around them is changing. Darkness swallows everything. Then in the darkness is a shadow. A beast of formless flesh, a writhing thing that can not be totally seen nor understood as having form. Chains hold it in place, giving it no further semblance of shape. Instead the chains are like hooks in that writhing nothingness.

The shadow opens red eyes and in those eyes dance the image of three wolves. The wolves resolve into men, but they can not be made out. They are too small in the monster's eyes.

The vision changes, like a dream nebulous. A woman takes shape, a woman surrounded by stars, and she is instantly known by each person who holds this vision. This is Eluna, and though they see her differently she is the same goddess. She points toward a tiny blue speck, and that speck swells as she fades into the night. Not gone, but rather taking her true form as the goddess of magic. The world swells and swells, becoming a place, a place in the desert where roses grow and a piece of a goddess once lay. Now the blue roses wither and die, outplaced by the black and that place gives birth to black wolves.

The vision swims again, and four totems with twisted forms face one another and begin to drip with black ichor. Chains link these totems together, reaching back and back into the dark. Into the unknown. Into something with red eyes…

Auranar takes furious notes as the pair before her go stock-still. She can't see what they are seeing, but she suspects that they're having the vision that she had before. She doesn't try to touch them, or intervene, but rather continues to write and document everything.

It takes Dolan a minute, the vision swimming before his eyes still. "The desert. She's not there, but the war's still fucking happening. The roses of Telmentar. What's she still defending? Maybe we'd better go back there." The statue in his hand remains there, his bleeding finger forgotten as he clenches the statue. "Fuck. So there's four left to find. Makes thirteen," he nods as if this fits his math. "Three wolves. Bet me one is Zalgiman."

What the hell is he on about?

"You're right," Andelena responds, reeling a little and pulling her eyes away from the totem. She closes them for a long moment, breathing in and out in one deep gulp and exhale of air, and then her eyes open again. "The roses. We should go back. We /need/ to go back. Somehow. Gods, I don't even know..."

She shuts her eyes tight again. "Ugh. Damn. That was a hell of a vision. My head feels like it's spinning."

"I got the vision too. Not now, but earlier. I wasn't sure what it meant but... It seems that you two do?" Auranar looks at the pair curiously, still writing her notes. "Interesting though... Both of you didn't have to be touching it... Was it because you attuned at the same time? Or was it Dolan attuning and that you both follow Daeus' teachings?" She's mumbling to herself now. What's _she_ going on about?

GAME: Dolan rolls fortitude: (1)+12: 13 (EPIC FAIL)

It's at this point that the teakettle in the other room lets out a shrill whistle to inform the room that it is ready. Dolan nearly jumps out of his skin when it goes off, and swears. "Fuck. Forgot about the tea." Setting the bloodied statue down on the table in front of him, he jumps to his feet -

-WAY too fast, after a vision like that. Without warning, the world spins around him, and he grabs for the edge of the chair, Andie's shoulder - whatever is handy, really - swaying on his feet.

GAME: Andelena rolls Reflex: (3)+3: 6

Andelena's still reeling, but the moment she hears Dolan get up to go for the kettle, her eyes open--just in time to see Dolan about to go topsy-turvy. Her first instinct goes before her first thought, and she lunges to try and catch him--

Only for her to end up on the floor. "Fuck, sorry, Bry," she groans, picking herself up and sitting back down. "I don't think either of us should... Move for a minute. Fuck. Look at us--two of the Knight's servants and we've been defeated by a fucking teakettle." The last is delivered with a little laugh.

Auranar is on her own feet, blinking at the sudden issues that the couple is having. She sets her note taking aside, and walks toward the kitchen. "Maybe I should ge the tea." She says it gently, and not without some amusement in her voice. "After a vision like that, a bit of rest is not a bad idea."

GAME: Dolan rolls reflex: (19)+5: 24
GAME: Dolan rolls fortitude: (4)+12: 16

Fortunately for them all, Dolan had managed to grab the edge of the chair, and uses it to steady himself. "Yeah," he tells Auranar, holding himself upright. "Thanks. I - think I'd better not move for a minute," he says helplessly and with a small laugh. "Yeah. Never had a vision like that. That was - fucking something." He's still not moving. "Andie - where's my eyepatch?" he asks suddenly.

"Eye giving you trouble?" Andie asks as she rises to her feet, slowly, /slowly/. "It's in the bedroom on your side of the bed. Nightstand. I can go grab it, Auranar doesn't need to see our dirty laundry--although Patches is probably sleeping in there, so not all bad."

She takes an experimental step and... Yup. That one went where it's supposed to. A couple more and she's at least back into something resembling a walk, going into the bedroom to fetch the eyepatch. Andelena returns with it, thankfully with no calico kitten dangling from it.

Auranar gets the kettle while Andelena retrieves Dolan's eyepatch. She brings it back to where the tea cups are sitting alongside the tea pot, and fills the latter with hot water before returning the kettle to the kitchen. It's clear from her comfortable puttering about that she's well used to doing this sort of thing. She even hums a merry little tune while she's about it, keeping the music quiet. When she's done she settles back into her seat and makes herself comfortable.

While Auranar works, and Andelena goes to fetch the eyepatch, Dolan has worked his way back into his chair, and sets about the complex motions required to remove the prosthetic eye from its socket. He turns himself fully towards Andelena to take the eyepatch, setting the prosthetic on the table in front of him, and settles it into place as Auranar returns with teapot and cups.

"I'm a damned bad host, Auranar, I'm sorry," he apologizes. "That just - caught me."

"Babe, we just got one hell of a vision," Andelena says with a soft smile. "Cut yourself some slack. I sure as hell would give Auranar a stellar review at being a host if we were at her place and just watched her bite the floor after being given a vision like that."

She looks around for a moment. "I didn't see Patches in the bedroom, so she's probably hiding. Poor little thing. I didn't know she was afraid of 'strangers'. You like cats, Auranar?" Andelena asks as she prepares to help Dolan as needed with his artificial eye.

Auranar offers a comforting smile even though Dolan isn't looking at her at the moment. It's the thought that counts. "You're not a bad host Dolan, it's like Andelena says. If you had seen me after the vision... well I wasn't very host-like myself!" She laughs gently and nods to Andelena's question. "I love animals! I was never allowed a pet as a child, and so I've gotten a bit used to just other people being around? But I've always envied people who keep pets."

Dolan seems to have the matter well in hand, and the artificial eye is resting on the table next to the statues. "Best we make sure we know which is which," he mutters, turning his head so that he can see the table fully. He separates his from Andelena's fully, setting the new one with its blood mark next to his chair on his left. "Thanks. I think I need a minute, and I really need them to look at this," he gestures at the artificial eye, which proves to be a gem set in a bronze and steel bracket, whose back has tiny catches in different places on the back. "But that's something different." He seems to be reassembling his brain, reaching with his hand for something on his right absently. "We should go back there, and I'll try to see if there are any other things that artifact does when its own servant has it."

Andelena's right there where Dolan's looking for her. Her hand finds his, and she squeezes it gently, a subtle reminder of her warmth. She nods to Dolan's statement. "Just hoping we can find some servants of Tarien and Angoron to give them to," she says--before her face bursts into a wide grin. "Heh. I just realized. We have the lovers. Kind of appropriate, really."

She looks back at Auranar and nods. "I convinced Bry to let me keep this scrawny little cat I found," Andelena says. "I had a cat as a kid, actually--apparently that's surprising for some people, but I did. Fluffy little thing that was supposed to be Mother's, but she liked me better. So, she was my cat from that point on--and now I have a cat again."

Auranar smiles broadly at the 'lovers' comment. "I will keep my own eyes peeled for any that serve those gods that we might be able to entrust the totems to." She grips her knees and seems mildly troubled. It's an expression that quickly fades however and she listens to Andelena's story with a soft expression. "I'm glad you have something that clearly makes you so happy Andelena. Would you like me to pour the tea? And Dolan, do you intend to try anything now? If so I should probably take notes..."

"I can do it." Some of that cheeky grin returns to at least the unscarred half of Dolan's features, and he squeezes Andelena's hand gratefully, then sits forward to do just that for each of them. He passes to Auranar, then Andelena, then takes the last one for himself, nodding to the honey jar that accompanies it, should either of them care to sweeten their tea. "Not sure what I'd want to try, though. I'd like to look at it in the Dream Realm, see if they look any different. Maybe they can do some different things."

Andelena takes her tea without any sweeteners whatsoever. Whether it's from a result of being expected to drink tea a certain way or her own personal preference is unknown, but she drinks it readily. She puts her cup of tea down and sighs gratefully. "Thanks babe," she says. "You're better at that stuff than I am, at any rate, so... Now you've got the Knight with you, you ought to be golden."

Is that a smirk on her lips? She hides it quickly with another sip of tea.

The wild elf considers Dolan's unasked question carefully and tries the tea. After a moment she adds a bit of honey to it and stirs the contents of her cup thoughtfully. "That's a good question Dolan. Considering the things done with the totems, some kind of test is a good idea. Verna blames herself for the ressurection of Kol, since he was brought into being when she entered the dream realm with one of the totems. So be careful of your intent, and your mind when performing your tests. I suggest; if you mean to do nothing now... that you take notes. The information might be useful."

Auranar has a somewhat pensive expression on. "I... I had a thought. Though it is one that I think needs carefully tested if at all. But... These totems seem tied to blood yes? They require it to become attuned to us. What if... more blood does... something?"

Dolan draws in a sharp breath, but nods. "It makes sense. I'm willing to try it, but Andie decides how far I go with it." He picks up the one by his chair with the bloodmark and sets out in front of him, next to the artificial eye, and after a moment, he chuckles nervously. "The first thing on my mind is that I'm messing with an artifact created by the Sunlord," he quips. "I better not screw up."

"Oh, trust me, I'll be very observant," Andelena says. "You're not bleeding out on my watch, and I don't think the Knight would want you bleeding that much on something He made, anyway."

She looks at Auranar and presses her lips together for a moment. "I just wish that we... Had a better method for doing this? Kind of feels like we're just tying a rope around the waist and going, "Okay, I'm seeing how far this hole goes, I'll yell if I break a leg," giving the rope to a friend, and jumping down. But no use in bitching about it besides making myself feel better, I guess."

Auranar picks up her notes once again, and sets aside her tea. "We are here Dolan, and if you require aid you will receive it." She smiles faintly. "It does help I think that we have a cleric at hand don't you think?" This is clearly a bit teasingly said. "Don't hurt yourself too badly, we only need to know if it does _something_ after all."

For a long minute, Dolan stares intently at the blood-marked totem, then pulls out his eating-knife again. This time, the cut he makes is on a different finger, and is longer, diagonally across the digit. He lets out a hiss between his teeth, but reaches out and touches the bloodied finger to the marked statue, slowly and carefully.

Instantly, the statue vibrates in his hand, almost wibbles, and - turns itself - to face Andelena's statue on the table.

Andelena braces herself. She knows it's coming, and yet... It's still her man hurting herself. She bites her lip and winces at the sight of it, but she does not look away. She is tasked with making sure this doesn't go too far--

And then the statues turn. Andelena looks at the two and she raises a brow. "The fuck," she says softly.

The wild elf watches the bloodletting without comment, though she understands Andelena's position. If Verna were in Dolan's place? Well... she would have come up with a very well-reasoned argument that Verna not do what Dolan did so easily. A small twinge of guilt rises at that thought. One that settles alongside the guilt from earlier. Her dark eyes flicker toward Dolan's removed prosthetic and then away again politely. She had purposefully evaded looking before out of politeness and the knowledge that he didn't want her to see.

Here she was, allowing him to hurt himself for their cause and... there was still so much she didn't know about him. What kind of friend was she? The thought echoes in her mind not for the first time and she firms her intent to be better in the future.

The statue vibrates and moves and she blinks at it. "Indeed." She offers to Andelena's colorful commentary. "That's interesting."

Unconsciously, Dolan cups the injured hand as he withdraws it, staring intently at the statues. "Fuck me. Of course," Epiphany dawns on the Corona, even as his hand stings, the bloodied knife in the other. "In the vision, the four evil ones faced each other. We need to get these to face each other. Be willing to bet - the attuned ones facing each other strengthens the bonds. The corrupted ones starts breaking 'em. We have more than they do, and if we attune the ones from our gods -" He's rambling now, stream of consciousness, in the way that he sometimes does. "What if we do the others." He starts to stand, but sits back down again. "We also might make a big fucking target out of our house," he mutters. "Wonder if there's a better place to do it. The Mourner'd know."

Andelena's eyes are wide as Dolan's talking, eventually nodding. "Of course," she says. "We could blow this whole fucking thing open. We've got a massive upper hand--"

Her eyes land back onto the bloodied hand. Instinctually, the Corona's Sunguard leaps into action, going to Dolan and taking his hand. "Let me get that, Bry," she says as she murmurs a prayer to their god asking for his healing light.

Auranar blinks at Dolan's sudden outburst and smiles. "You think so?" She sounds hopeful, excited. "I wonder... How close in proximity do you think they need to be? And how many of them do you think are required?" She is full of questions, writing them all down in her notes before she can forget them. "You're right about the risk though... We could end up with a whole army of wolves attacking." She might be talking to herself a little.

"Don't know," Dolan says, holding his hand out towards Andie to see to, and absently wiping the knife on his trousers. The trousers and old, ones he uses for chores, and the bloodstain merely joins others of its kind in addition to oil and other, unnamed things. He resheathes the cleaned knife where it belongs. "I'll see if I can find any clues in the Dream Realm tonight, about where those four are, who's got them. But who were the three wolves?"

GAME: Andelena rolls 1d8+5: (4)+5: 9

The healing energy pours out of Andelena and into Dolan's hand, a soft and warm thing that closes up the wound, but doesn't clean the wound. Andelena gets to that just as readily as she does healing, more than practiced in tending to Dolan's wounds after a bad turn of events. "Big fucking question of the hour, I think," Andelena says. "If Fido 1, Fido 2, and Fido 3 were good dogs, they'd just come when called, but they haven't been called yet by their master. Thank the gods for /that/."

Auranar finishes with her notes and ponders Dolan's question thoughtfully. "Don't forget to take notes Dolan. I'd be very interested to learn what you discover in your dreams and outside them. As for the vision... I'm no Seer. It seemed fairly clear however that there is more than one enemy arrayed against us. Their identities however... remain a mystery."

"Not to mention," Dolan mutters, carefully trying to ignore Andelena as she works on his hand, although his jaw tightens. "Where does that vampire fit into this? Is he working with them, or is he just using them to his own ends? All trace of smile is gone. "Keep thinking that we've got to do something about that one, if we can, or we're not going to get anywhere. But - how?"

Clearly, the topic is a thing on his mind. "I'll write down whatever I find out," he agrees. "We'd better find out who else has got totems, too."

Andelena finishes tending to Dolan's hand, looking back to Auranar as she and Dolan talk. "Yeah," she says. "Get everyone together, talk it out, get everyone on the same page. Sounds like a good plan to me."

She looks at Dolan. "Anything you want me to prepare for you for your, uh, night trip?" She doesn't know how to phrase it without it sounding weird.

A cheeky grin that holds something just a touch wicked splits the mobile side of Dolan's face and tugs at the scarred side. he takes the two statues, one in each hand, careful not to disturb the blood marking on the Daeusite one until he can find a better, and sets them aside. "Nothing except for making sure I'm good and tired," he turns towards her with a wink of his remaining eye.

"I'll let you know in the morning, Auranar, what I found out."

That gets a hearty laugh out of Andelena, and she follows that with a kiss on the lips. "Oh baby, when /don't/ I make you feel good and tired?" she asks. Yeah, she doesn't care that they're flirting like this in front of Auranar, apparently.

She turns to their friend, grinning wickedly. "Don't worry about him, either. I've got him handled."

Auranar has the grace to look embarrassed by their flirtatious dialogue, and she rises to her feet with her notes in hand. "Perhaps I should leave you two to it then?" She makes an amused noise and steps toward the door. "It was a pleasure to see you both, let me know how it goes! Ah... the testing with the totems that is!"

The kiss on the lips is heartily returned, their usual good humor returning following the apparent piece of good news and a path forward. It's enough to hearten anyone, and the topic of Kol is for the moment shoved aside. "Not yet, you don't, and you'd better not in front of our guest," he shoots back. "Sorry, Auranar," he apologizes suddenly, flushing. "Um, sure. I'll let you know."

"Yeah, sure, I'll write the play-by-play down and maybe I'll get that shit published in the Crimson Pen," Andelena responds to Auranar, wearing a grin that's way too confident as she pats Dolan's shoulder affectionately. "Nah, we'll keep you in the loop about what we find out. Here, I won't be a total ass; I'll walk you out."

She sticks her tongue out at Dolan like she's daring him to find a comeback for that as she goes to walk Auranar to the door. "You be safe out there. Shit gets weirder and weirder every day."

-End