Chapter 10: Loose Ends

"What are we doing here?" an impatient Jaheira demanded of Khalid as the two of them sat in the common room of the Copper Coronet, having been told to give these first fights at the pits a miss whilst Belgrade and Darial tried to ingratiate themselves with Ployer.

"Who k-knows," a mildly morose Khalid replied, shrugging as he stared into his ale. "G-Gorion said that we should t-take a look around, s-see if we can somehow ingratiate ourselves w-with the r-regulars. T-to what end, I h-haven't a clue."

"This is because there is no end to it," the druid retorted sharply, giving him a glare. They had been lurking in a corner for almost an hour now, mostly in silence, and Jaheira had spent much of the morning taking her irritation on this situation out on Khalid, who had done nothing to deserve her wrath. "Gorion merely does not believe that we have any use; he would much rather pass this situation over to Belgrade and Darial and ignore our presence. We are unproven; thus we are too… dangerous to be trusted with this assignment."

"T-then why did they g-give us this assignment in the f-first p-place?" Khalid demanded, equally shortly, his usually good-natured manner worn down after a morning of Jaheira's mood. "They m-must have g-given us this j-job for a r-reason. It m-must have some value!"

"To keep us out of the way!" Jaheira responded, ignoring the fact that this was a fairly circular argument. "We shall be sitting here, waiting with baited breath for somebody – Darial or Gorion, most likely – to decide that they might, possibly, want our help. Then we sweep in, do whatever pathetic job they require of us, get mildly congratulated, then move on to return to obscurity."

"Has anybody ever t-told you that y-you're absolutely insufferable, J-Jaheira?" Khalid answered, his irritation at last getting the better of him. Whilst the half-elven warrior was usually too self-conscious and nervous to ever dare to tell someone like Jaheira so bluntly what he thought of them, he would also rarely back down when he had been incensed enough to take that final step.

She glared at him, but he managed to meet her gaze unfalteringly until the venom in her eyes subsided a little. "On occasion," Jaheira muttered, still mildly bitter. "But my point still stands. We are nothing but unnecessary extras here. We could be doing something useful. Instead, we have been assigned to… to what? To sit and watch, to gather information."

"Watching and w-waiting are two of the most important t-things we could be d-doing. P-patience shall serve us w-well here," Khalid murmured, calmer and more thoughtful as he sipped his ale. "I agree that we d-don't seem to have t-too much to actually do here, but we must be r-ready in case D-Darial or Gorion needs us to d-do something. We must be p-patient."

Jaheira sighed once more, but now it was a noise of resigned irritation rather than the bubbling fury that had gripped her a few moments beforehand. "That," she declared haughtily, "is a rather vague assignment."

Khalid also sighed, shaking his head as he stood up, grasping his empty tankard and reaching for her empty glass. "Another s-spring wine?" he asked lightly, evidently deciding to flee the conversation rather than continue to impossibly debate with Jaheira. He had already worked out that she was not somebody to logically discuss something with when she was this aggravated.

She nodded slowly as he turned and headed for the bar, and sat vacantly for a few moments, fiddling with her chain shirt as she waited. This was becoming beyond a joke – how did Gorion expect them to prove their worth to him if he didn't give them an opportunity?

"There has to be something we can do," she mumbled to herself, sighing yet again as she brushed a stray lock of hair behind one slightly pointed ear. "Something… productive. Something that can actually mean something."

"I believe I can help you with that," a voice interrupted her spoken thoughts, and whilst the delicate figure that eased itself into the chair next to her suggested Khalid's return, the silky-smooth tones proved otherwise.

Jaheira raised an eyebrow haughtily as she regarded the intruder evaluatingly. He was an elf, as far as she could see, dressed in garish yet functional garb which rather suggested a sailor's life. He also happened to have a particularly broad, hopeful and inane smile on his face.

"Just who," the half-elven druid started in slow, measured tones, "do you think you are? And who gave you permission to sit in that seat? I believe it's taken. I do happen to be here with someone."

The elf's grin broadened as he daringly reached out and grabbed her hand before kissing it lightly, Jaheira only allowing him to do so because she was too stunned to react. "He's not sitting here right now. I have been watching you from afar for many a while, hoping that I could have the chance to talk with you. And now that chance has come, I see you are even more… sensuous and beauteous than I had thought."

"Many a while?" Jaheira repeated, quickly withdrawing her hand and glaring at the offending elf. "I have been here for an hour. Move along, you fool, before you get a quarterstaff in between your eyes."

He raised his hands in mock-submission, affecting a wounded air. "But my darling, I only seek to win your affections! Will you not even grant this unworthy spirit the chance to gaze adoringly upon your face from afar?"

Jaheira raised an eyebrow, hand surreptitiously reaching for her weapon. "Indeed, from afar. From afar indeed…"

"Is there a problem?"

Before she could grab her staff and beat the elf around the head for being such an intolerable buffoon, Khalid had returned, setting down both drinks back on the table and fixing the elf with a suspicious stare, his hand visibly reaching for his longsword. "Are you bothering the lady?" he continued, his stammer noticeably reduced as he spoke.

The elf gaped, leaping to his feet, keeping a chair in between himself and Khalid. "Ah, no, no," he replied hurriedly, also noticing the half-elven warrior's blade. "I was just… talking, with the lady. Discussing the weather. I'll leave you now," he finished, then turned and practically ran back to the table he had been seated at since they had arrived.

Khalid turned to Jaheira, suddenly looking as slightly nervous as usual as he released his sword. "Who w-was he t-to make you feel as if y-you needed to g-get out your weapon? Any k-kind of threat?"

Jaheira shrugged as Khalid sipped his ale. "Not particularly. He was just annoying me," she murmured, frowning at the back of the intruding elf, gathering her drink with a grateful glance at Khalid.

He looked incredulous for a moment. "Y-you mean to s-say that I c-came on the v-verge of making a scene, p-purely because somebody w-was annoying y-you?" he demanded, raising an eyebrow.

She glanced lightly and a little imperiously at him. "You didn't need to intervene, you know. I could have dealt with him myself quite easily."

Khalid sighed. "Y-yes, but you w-would have smashed his s-skull in h-half and caused even m-more of a scene than the alternative w-would h-have," he pointed out, a little dejectedly. "But c-come now. Y-you wanted s-something to do? I was at the b-bar, and I overheard one of the p-patrons mention that he s-served on board the ship the S-Seawolf. That w-was the ship P-Ployer b-bought the slaves off, no?"

Jaheira smiled at him, a little surprised as she stood lightly. "It was indeed. Perhaps we should go and have a talk to him. After all, we're supposed to ingratiate ourselves with many of the patrons… and you've already scared off one, so we would do well to make up for it. Maybe we buy him a drink?"

Khalid grimaced a little, half-regretting that he'd told her, tagging along behind as she wound her way through the crowd of the Copper Coronet, heading towards the bar. When he got there, Jaheira had already struck up a conversation with Bernard, a podgy serving boy.

"You there," she started as politely as was to be expected from her. "You work here. Could you possibly tell me who that individual over there is?" Surprisingly enough, she was not pointing at any of the piratical candidates standing at the bar, but discreetly gesturing towards the offending elf on the other side of the tavern.

The boy followed her gaze, then smiled a little ruefully. "I do, yes. That there's Salvanas. He comes here for about a fortnight every three months, whenever his ship stops by here. He's been doing that for quite a few years now. Absolute regular." Bernard shifted as he caught Jaheira's expression, and nodded knowingly. "Has a tendency to annoy the female patrons, yes, indeed."

"Hmm. Salvanas," Jaheira mused, catching up with Khalid, who had continued towards the bar. "That's a name and a face I'll remember if I ever get around to being in a position to set fire to the little wretch."

Khalid sighed. "I'm s-sure that, b-by then, he'll be so insignificant that y-you'll have absolutely f-forgotten just w-who in the Nine H-Hells he is," he pointed out as they reached the bar, pulling up stools. "N-now, you wanted to d-do something useful. Over there is R-Ramman Thorstein, first mate on the Seawolf. H-he might be s-someone we can t-talk to, once he's so d-drunk his t-tongue has loosened…"

Jaheira smiled a slightly predatory smile as she glanced down at the small purse of gold attached to her belt securely. "I believe that Gorion gave us enough funds to lounge luxuriously for a few days here at the Copper Coronet. I'm sure there's enough here for us to buy a sailor a drink…"