Inta's silence when the mask was laid aside and her face was bared was anything but expected. He sat in silence and looked from her, at each of Entoma's eyes, and back down to the piping hot stew, and back to her. It went on for so long that Entoma's head cocked a little and the little leg-like appendages that made a dual crescent formation out of the side of her head actually twitched back and forth. "Well?" Entoma asked at last.
One of Entoma's eyes was fixed on Bertra, even though it wasn't obvious, she could feel the concern for her on the elf's more easily read face.
Finally he spoke, "Yes... Ah, 'Professor Entoma', are you going to take the first bite, you're the host and the food is getting colder than my body temperature." He smirked at her, and her mouth opened a bit.
"You've… nothing to say?" Entoma asked him.
"No, it's just your face, and it fits you quite well? I have to say, I envy you having so many ruby eyes, they're quite lovely." Inta said and pointed two fingers from one hand sharply toward his own. "Sadly I have only two, far inferior to the treasure chest of a face you have."
"I… thank you, yes, let's eat!" Entoma hastily got out, and they immediately began to dig in, the wine flowed freely as did the dinner conversation, and within a few minutes Entoma completely forgot that she wasn't wearing her mask at all.
"What's with this wine?" Inta finally asked and tilted the glass to get a look at it. "I'm supposed to be immune to poison and drinking only for the wonderful taste… but I swear I'm vaguely reminded of what it felt like to be a little drunk back before I became undead. That was a long time ago too, so I must be far along."
"From a runecraft press, I'm guessing." Bertra suggested.
"A what now?" Both Inta and Entoma asked at once.
"A runecraft press." She repeated and looked at the two blank faces.
"We heard you but… explain please?" Inta asked.
"A runecraft press, they use them to give what amounts to low tier temporary curses that match the symptoms of alcohol consumption, it was expressly designed to let the undead and Black Paladins, with total or high resistance to poison, to share in the drinking experience with their friends. Queen Zesshi gave me a bottle made from those as a gift." Bertra explained, "It isn't a lot, you won't pass out, but you get to be a little dizzy, light headed and so on for a little while."
"Oh… wow. I did not know they'd even worked on something like that…" Inta said and looked down at the rippling dark red liquid with a new reverence and licked his lips again.
"I first heard about it when somebody ordered a book on basic Runecraft history." Bertra shrugged, "Odd little man, a dwarf if you can believe it, he seemed obsessed with the idea that runecraft could offer the solution to working with a curious ingot he's had in his possession for years now. He talked a lot about his theories, frankly it was boring to me… but he was nice enough. He said he was the one who designed the saddle that the Pope used to ride Olasird'arc into battle… but I have no idea if he was telling the truth about that." Bertra shrugged.
"Anyway, so he mentioned it to me, and I mentioned it to the Queen, and when I was curious, she had a bottle brought to me as a gift as a show of thanks for my work compiling the stories of the elves enslaved by the Theocracy…" A look of agony crossed Bertra's face when she trailed off, her eyes welled up and she blinked back tears, her enthusiasm was gone and her hands fell into her lap.
"You were… I'm sorry." Inta professed, and meant it, 'Poor woman, horrible things happened to the elves in that nightmare…'
Bertra shook her head with vigor, "Forget it, that's hardly good dinner conversation."
Entoma took the initiative, needlessly clearing her throat before saying, "I believe I'll have a good sized class for myself when the new semester begins, thanks to you."
"Not at all, you put on the excellent show, all I did was act as the prop on which to display your greatness!" He thrust up a finger toward the ceiling as he excitedly proclaimed how well she'd done, and the last tension in the room melted away.
"She is remarkable." Bertra agreed, looking at Inta with the sort of sisterly approval one gave to a boy that showed interest in a sibling. She looked him up and down, 'Is he… well, he is technically a heteromorph, and a user of an uncommon form of magic… and a long term outsider… maybe it makes sense. Does she? Does he?' The former Berenice briefly felt like she had been cast back to girlhood and was watching a stage play of some old tragic romance.
"You know… I've been thinking since our time at the beach in the Holy Kingdom." Bertra tried not to let her own bemused smile take shape, and that was a struggle. 'This body is that of a young elf… how long do elves have those 'silly years' about them? Oh good god, don't tell me I'm the equivalent of a late teenager for the next two hundred years!'
"Oh, what about it?" Entoma inquired briefly clinking her glass against that of Inta's when he and she both had another glass refilled. Manaly took the bottle from the table, vanished out of sight, and returned again with a fresh one. His stiff, neutral face was unmoved by the levity around him, with his scrunched orc features, a study in indifference while he worked the cork out of the bottle, wedging it free with his thumb.
"Well, it's been ages since I've taken any real vacation time, and let's be frank, Entoma, we're both so busy that we haven't had time to properly catch up. So… what if I took a month or so off here? I can stay at a hotel, they have excellent ones here and…" Bertra's statement was immediately interrupted.
"Not at all, I have a guest room, stay with me until you're ready to go home, I'd be happy to have you!" Entoma exclaimed, the little appendages around her face ticked back and forth with such wild excitement that when Bertra spoke, she could not help but think.
'Entoma, you must never be allowed to play poker without that mask.' She kept the tease to herself, but added out loud, "If it wouldn't be an imposition…"
"Of course not." Entoma said immediately, tapping one of her bug hand fingers on the table, "I insist."
"Well, if you insist, what can I do but accept your generosity, and… if it isn't too much to ask, perhaps you and your companion would show me around? I haven't been here for years and after I leave it will be a long time before I can come back." Bertra replied with a little smile she couldn't contain.
"That would be fun. I'm supposed to teach a colleague's class tomorrow, but I can get that covered… why don't I get us into the arena, teachers get free seating plus one guest." Inta proposed.
"It's a date." Entoma said, and didn't really notice how she'd said it.