The evening was starting to settle on the lands and the sailors, flush with coin from their pay day, started to trickle into the local taverns, the tavern owners were getting their food ready for the night. But the night work had started unexpectedly early for those who ran and work in the Winking Mermaid, as they had a most unusual guest at the moment.

Sitting in one corner of the tavern sat a medium height female, with flawless skin that had a grey-ish hue to it, though this did look natural and didn’t make her look sickly. In fact it complimented her over all natural beauty. She wore armour, such as it was, and it didn’t cover much of her thighs, so it was easy to see the swirling tattoo work on her right thigh. Her gauntlets and helm were sitting on the seats across from her, making it easier to see her shoulder length dull green hair. Her bottom lip had a piercing in it, as did her nose and a few in her eyebrows, over all she looked to be in her mid to late thirties. But what also stood out about this unknown female were the two huge wings on her back, with feathers of grey colouration, tucked up as tight as could be at the moment to make sitting easier. Leaning against the wall beside her was a seven foot tall glaive, its blades immensely sharp and was made of magically treated glass.

Before her on the table was a feast fit for at least a small family, but judging by the multiple empty plates and her lack of company she was devouring this feast on her own. Already having been here for an hour the woman had started to order a lot of food, and a little drink, forcing the poor cook in the back to start working on new dishes. But as the regulars started to trickle in notice was being quickly taken by this, beautiful, stranger. But between the armour, the glaive and her apparent lack of attention to anything other than her meal, no one had approached her yet. She wasn’t unlady like in her eating, she wasn’t shoveling food into her mouth. She ate quickly, yes, but cleanly, and at a steady pace, making sure to not make a mess where she could help it.

Needless to say with the amount of food she already eaten and was sitting in front of her waiting to be eaten, the kitchen would be a bit slower getting food out to the rest of their clients.

It was one of her busy days, but not because she was flying her airship. Today was when she made her rounds updating the status of her uncollected debts. Adeluna was still limping from past affects of deities no longer part of the Conclave. The streets were less safe than they had been, the sewers now home to things worse than violent, delusional vagrants. But life went on, and the Winking Mermaid was still up and running. Coming back here felt nostalgic, but right now she needed a place to sit. With the hood of her cloak halfway sliding off her head, her disguised appearance was still keeping her incognito. Any amount of magic couldn't hide her dragging feet and dark circles beneath her eyes. Sinking into a chair like a folded coat, Shiloh drew her lips into a line and held up a hand to let the serving lady know she wasn't ordering anything just yet. The poor woman looked as tired as she felt. The flow of business was different today and right away she saw why. There sat a woman whose stomach was a bottomless pit, as she kept putting food in but didn't seem full. This disruption of the tavern's equilibrium was obviously throwing off their pace of serving their customers. If she wasn't feeling like a piece of weathered driftwood, she'd probably try to help ease the kitchen's burden. 

Rush hour was starting and with people leaving much slower than they were coming in, she had to move herself away from her precious isolated table. And not wanting to rub elbows with others left her with the 'buffet' table as her only option. Pulling herself up, she made her way to the unused chair that normally would have had another patron. "Do you mind if I sit here?" She asked the winged woman. All she needed was the seat, the table wasn't necessary. Somewhere she could just slowly slide down into like a melting slab of cheese. Come to think of it, how long had this woman been eating? The fact she didn't show any signs of fullness at all was becoming very disturbing. But on the plus side she was getting the breathing room she wanted, so that was fine. After some awkward minutes if silence, Shiloh spoke up in a feeble attempt to make small talk. "…That's a lot of food you have there. That's…impressive." When you are tired, you tend to state the obvious. And it was very hard to ignore the obvious spread that could feed a small crowd. "So…are you a local or just visiting?"

Tourmaline hadn’t spoke much since she had arrived at the Winking Mermaid, only to say what she wanted to eat and ask how much she owed. She paused her eating when the unknown woman walked up to the table and asked if she could sit. Tourmaile’s dark yellow eyes watched Shiloh for a few moments as if studying her. The woman looked exhausted, she had been dragging her feet and hard heavy dark circles under her eyes. It took a moment before Tourmaline finally replied. ”Fine by me.” As she spoke it made the tongue stud easier to notice but the moment she was done talking she went back to eating again.

If the silence was awkward it was only for Shiloh as Tourmaline just continued to eat. She stopped for a moment again when Shiloh started to try and make small talk. While lazy and gluttonous, Tourmaline wasn’t rude, though she could come off like that when deep into one of her vices, being it eat, like in this case, or sleeping and being generally lazy. Tourmaline finished what she had been chewing on and wiped her mouth clean with a napkin, it was interesting to see someone who was gorging as she was still manage to keep herself and her table relatively clean. ”I’m hungry.” Was the simple response to the first part of the question. ”I’m here for a while, my mother sent me to find my father in these lands, I haven’t seen him in over a hundred and ten years.” Tourmaline explained in short. ”What about you?” She turned the question around, going back to her meal, dark yellow eyes glancing from her meal to Shiloh as she spoke.

The woman was polite enough to not mind her shabby attempts at social interaction, giving a fairly straight answer to all of her questions. She had a lot of body piercings, though to Shiloh any piercings qualified as a lot. She gave an acknowledging nod, with not much else to say until it came to why the winged woman was sitting in one of Adeluna's most famous establishments. "Oh, I see. That's quite a while in human years." When it was her turn to answer, Shiloh replied tersely. "I'm tired. From work, actually." Rubbing her eyes and her face with her hands, she then let out a deflating sigh. "I hate this job. Debt collecting sucks. I spent the whole day running around trying to find people on a list just to see if they were still alive and kicking, and then I had to remind them when their payments are due. And if they didn't pay up by the deadline, they'd get slapped with additional interest along with other penalties if their accounts continue to be delinquent. It's much less interesting than it sounds. No, I don't go around threatening bodily harm on people–that'll just lead to lawsuits. I'd rather not spend more money trying to get what I loaned back." 

With her legs feeling like lead, Shiloh was slumped in her chair staring at the ceiling rafters of the tavern. "After this is all over I'm never doing this again. Why can't the world just…I don't know–not set itself on fire every few months? It's an exaggeration but that's what if feels like nowadays. If it's not some natural disaster it's the dead rising from their graves, or something tries to end all life as we know it on this green earth–again. I'm so tired. I just want to sleep. Hibernate for like…a year where nobody can reach me. That sounds nice. Well unless the world starts burning down again." At this point she was just venting to the air while the woman across the table was polishing off more plates of food and emptying glasses. "…Sorry for souring the mood." Though it seemed the woman's appetite was unaffected. Shiloh sighed again, "I need to stop doing jobs I hate. Unfortunately I'm more or less bound by obligation for one of them." 

Tourmaline listened as the woman spoke on, never interrupting and eating the whole time. She had finished one dish in that time, cleaned up the little bit of a mess before she pushed it off to the side and grabbed another plate. This was a full roasted and season chicken, probably good for three people, but she started to carve into it with a fork and knife and eat as she went. ”Sounds tedious.” Came a blunt reply before Tourmaline swallowed the bit of chicken she had in her mouth, wiped her lips clean with a napkin and then continued, her voice rather matter of fact. ”If you have enough money to lend out like that, do you really need to get back what you lent out? Charity is a virtue, I guess, and besides, it’s money just an abstract concept that we created? Before money what did we do? Trade services. If I was good at building, I’d build your house, in return for that, you help me start a small farm, or something like that.” Tourmaline went on. ”Money is just silver, shaped into a flat disk with some kind of symbol stamped into it, but that stamp doesn’t change the fact that it’s just silver, which isn’t that uncommon. Yet, despite it all being silver, this areas coins with one stamp might not be worth as much as that areas coins with a different stamp, but, again, they are all made from silver. So, instead of getting the money from them, go find some silver and make your own coins, or, scrap the whole money idea and go back to trading services.” Tourmaline glanced at the barkeep who heard part of her words and she had the barest of grin appear for a moment. ”I’m still paying, don’t worry.” She eased.

Looking back to Shiloh again for a moment Tourmaline continued after taking another bite of chicken. ”As for the world, well, it’s just a fact of life that these things will happen. Not even the Gods know why all these things happen, so why fret over it? Deal with things as they happen and then move on and rebuild again, and when the next disaster happens, deal with it as well and move on again.” It seemed she was done as she went back to eating in full again.

"…You have a point. But the reason why loans need to be returned is so the borrowers don't get irresponsible. Can't have people asking for handouts when they don't need it. And besides…the barter system doesn't always work when people expect the exchange of goods and services to be quick. Bartering is more practical I agree, but when in Adeluna–do as the Adelunians do." The real reason why she made those loans was because she was getting something in exchange–namely information. But explaining the finer points would make it sound like blackmail, so Shiloh conveniently left that out. How else was the goddess supposed to be the first to know if somebody was racketeering or fixing commodity prices? It wasn't exactly a foolproof method, but insider information was always better than nothing. Eventually she'd work to wean the borrowers off of her financial assistance because dealing with people who didn't understand how to balance a checkbook was getting bloody annoying. "Making products and then selling them is much, much easier and less stressful."

"Again, you're right. I suppose you can say I'm like a cat. Once I find a comfortable spot to sit in, I do not like being moved. And if I do get moved, I try to get back in the same spot. It's the repetitive cycle of disaster, recovery, then disaster that I'm tired of. I'd like the recovery periods to last a little bit longer…you know what I mean? It's depressing to get things back in order only to know they're going to get messed up again." Having rambled enough, she turned the conversation off of herself. "So out of curiosity, what are your plans for finding your father?" Since this woman hadn't decided to make an early exit after hearing her rant, maybe she wouldn't mind talking some more. Listening to other people talk was a pastime of hers, just not normally face to face. Eavesdropping was what they called it. After saying so much Shiloh felt it was only fair that she show some genuine interest in the other party. Finding someone you haven't heard from over a century was…a challenge, to put it nicely. But the woman didn't seem torn up about it, so maybe a century wasn't very long to her. She'd never know unless she asked.

By now Shiloh was halfway down her chair, her spine settled into a nice position in the curves of the seat's back. It was a comfortable slouch, something she hardly had the chance to do lately. She didn't know why, but for some reason she was feeling more relaxed than usual. By now she would have left the tavern and gone home, fretting over which accounts were receivable. It wasn't exactly a bad feeling.     

Tourmaline thought for a moment as she ate on what Shiloh had said before she replied. ”Makes sense in a practical way, that that’s the way you do things around here. I guess after so many generations of using money instead of bartering would make it nearly impossible to change back again.” She observed and dwelled on it a bit a more over another bite. ”That does beg the question though; why did you loan them the money for in the first place?” It was a pointed question, but one that Tourmaline wouldn’t push for answers on if this stranger declined to answer.

As Tourmaline listened some more, what she didn’t realize was that her aura had started to extend from her. This was a facet of her abilities that she knew about, but usually didn’t think about or notice she was even using them. In this case it was her gluttony aura, meaning that anyone close to her, depending on their mental strength, would start to feel like eating more and more, regardless of if they were full or not.

”More recovery and rest time would be good, so pray that perhaps this time of peace we seem to be in lasts longer than normal.” Tour replied and ate until Shiloh asked what her plans were to try and find her father. ”Father stands out anywhere he goes, I could have to, but I get more of my look from my mother. If you’ve noticed my eyes or my slightly grey skin that’s because of dad.” She explained and wiped her mouth clean as one of the barmaids came over and cleared away a few of the empty plates. She hesitated for a moment to see if Tourmaline would ask for anything else, but, for once, she didn’t. ”My father’s name is Hacesh, he’s a dragon, though he tends to walk around on two legs. He’s about seven feet tall while on two legs and nearly forty when he changes to his full form.” Little did Tourmaline know, however, was that she had inherited something more from her father, it was just that neither she nor her mother knew of it yet.

This was mostly down to Tourmaline not bothering to practice with her magic as much as she should have. ”He and mom met over two hundred years ago, and nine months later I was born. Dad stuck around for a while but then left, he wasn’t the kind to stick around once he knew his children could look after themselves, for, as I understand it, I have at least another half siblings in the world.” If anyone knew Hacesh well enough, as some in these lands did, they would know that he liked to get around. ”He left when was around a hundred years old, and the day he left was nearly a hundred and twenty years ago from now.” Quick math made it out that Tourmaline was actually somewhere between two-hundred and twenty five to two-hundred and thirty years old, given some wiggle room for her vagueness. ”Mom thought it was time I saw him and sent me here to find him.” To be more exact, her mom and pretty much kicked Tour out of the house because she was tired of his lazy her daughter was. Add in Tour’s want to find her father again anyway, again she was just lazy, and it seemed to have worked.