In the corner of this esteemed tavern sits a man. It would be wrong to call him tall, but he's not short, nor is he particularly brawny. The mug he holds in one hand levels as his eyes are pulled to the side, cutting off the flow of ale from its depths. Then, after only a moments pause, he places it back on the bar counter.

"I'm surprised to see you here," he says to his sudden and unannounced companion.

They're shorter than he, though not by much, with an older and kinder face. And their hair is impossibly gold. They fidget on their stool and don't hesitate to share in his indulgences when he slides his drink over. Eventually, when his mug is dry and their upper lip wet, they come up for air. "I've come to the conclusion that I am a coward without redemption."

The man blinks, nearly laughs, and nods. He can't say it's what he expected, but he can roll with the punches. "How so?"

Again, the woman hesitates. She chews upon a chapped lip—obviously it hadn't been the first time that day, but he can't recall the habit appearing during their journeying. It's battle worn and red. "I just … I couldn't do it."

"You couldn't ... do what, exactly?" He flags the barmaid down and has her refill the mug. When he tries to take a drink, his companion steals it from his grasp.

"Tell her," she says 'round the rim.

"Tell her—you mean tell your daughter?" By this point, he's pivoted on his stool to give her his full attention, but his face was the height of incredulity. "What do you—what do you mean you couldn't tell her? We've been here all day! I dropped you off right down the street from their house!"

"I know!" Repentant, she bows her head and tugs on her hair. She takes a few moments to steady herself, but her eyes remain clenched shut as she reiterates, lower, "Believe me, I know." A sigh comes next. "What if she doesn't recognize me? What if … what if she's forgotten about me?"

He finds himself in complete disagreement. "A girl doesn't forget her mother so easily."

"It's been a thousand years, Bell."

"For you," he reminds her, not unkind, "For you, Aria. Not for her. And even if it had been, did you ever forget her? Was there ever even a chance of it happening?"

This time it doesn't take long for her to answer at all. "No."

"No," Bell echoes with a smile. "There wasn't. Because there is nothing powerful enough to erase that kind of love."

Aria considers him for a moment longer, her lip still horrifically threatened by her own teeth, but ultimately nods as if she believes him. Yet, her nerves do not seem to fully abate. "Tomorrow," she assures him, "I think I can do it tomorrow."

Bell stares at her for a moment, meeting her eyes solidly, before sighing and nodding. Trusting in her; trusting that waiting is the right call. "Take this then." He takes off his old, worn cloak and throws it over her shoulders, making sure to throw the deep hood over her head.

She wears it without question, pushing her arms through the sleeves before returning her hands to his mug, but still voices her confusion once it is on and her face hidden.

His answering hum sounds faintly amused, but more so knowing; a moment later a large and rowdy party enters the tavern from the city proper. And, among them, is a certain daughter of a certain worried someone. Younger appearing than the woman sat beside him by half, but the spitting image, nonetheless.

He knew they would be coming, had overheard it on the streets earlier that same day. His intention, moot though it was, had been to quietly eat and observe Aria interact with her daughter, to bear witness to a happy reunion; a just reward after another successful mission with another happy client, but no. No. Of course, he now has to deal with this. Never an off day.

"Bell," she hisses, dragging the front of the hood down further once she realizes what is happening, "You couldn't have said something sooner?"

He's definitely amused; chuckling openly and heartily at her misfortune. "Was I meant to anticipate your neurosis and plan accordingly? I—"

"Yes," comes the immediate interruption and—Oh, would you look at that, she's back to tugging on her hair. How fortuitous for both of their nights. "Yes, you were!"

Bell fought her hands away and back to the mug one by one, silently urging her to take her frustrations out on the cheap wood instead. "I'll keep that in mind, but I think it's worthwhile to remind you just how long you spent prattling on and on and on about your daughter. You were so excited to see her again. So."

Aria swats his shoulder. "I did not prattle."

Bell throws his head back and laughs to the wooden beams that span the ceiling. It's loud and merry and bright, and it saps whatever anger Aria held from her heart. All the better, he hasn't anything nice to say in reply, so he would not say anything at all. Aria enjoys his laughter not and strikes his shin with a fierce heel. He weathers it with a yipe and a baleful look and is prepared to let matters rest, but Aria poorly hides her smirk behind his mug, and that he will not let stand. "Did and do, actually."

After that, they sit in shared silence. Bell's food arrives as his companion stews—a heaping pile of spaghetti that's more threat than treat. He pokes at it with his fork and wonders to himself how one person is meant to eat it.

A gentle voice fills the space between them, and both follow it like a storm does the calm. Bell sits cockeye upon his stool, with his chest to Aria and his elbow upon the bar counter, so it's remarkably easy for him to find the source. "Aria," he whispers and a trembling hand finds his knee. She pats it, saying she understood—she knew. The voice is her daughter's, a sweet thing of Bell's own age. "She looks like you," he tells her, and whispers each and every way how.

He's an unknown intermediary within this city—a newcomer, so there is nothing stopping him from dropping his food in his lap and taking catalogue of all who sat at that central table. Their group is a varied one. Adventurers, mostly, with a goddess amongst them. He sees elves, amazons, humans, even a dwarf, a prum, and a werewolf. Most places he'd visited in the world were typically much more solitary than this, home to a single people, with few notable exceptions; it's quite the novel experience. He doesn't dislike it.

They call Orario the city at the heart of it all, the center of the world. Bell had thought, too often to consider it passing, that such a title was banal. Braggery for the sake of braggery. Seeing it now ... words cannot do it justice.

He spins his fork around in his noodles, gathering a spool and quickly shoving into his mouth. The table's conversation, once interesting, trails into the mundane. It's fairly boring. Stories of the past for which he had no context; tales of those he knows not. He grows bored quickly and finds himself yawning by the time he's finished eating. Half his plate remains miraculously untouched, yet half his weight is somehow noodle. He slides it down to Aria, who barely notices it. Unlike himself, she's enthralled. Listening to every story with clasped hands and teary eyes. It's sweet, but he's tired.

He hates to be the one to rouse her from her paradise, but he hadn't a reason to stay here for the remainder of the night. Lightly, he taps her on the shoulder to let her know he's heading out. She mumbles a farewell and he figures that is that. The proprietress of the tavern is all too happy to relieve him of his coin when he raises his hand, and with his debt settled he stands to leave.

"Oh, Bell," Aria calls out to him when he does.

He turns to her, half-curious, only to balk when he sees her. "What are you—"

"Your coat," she says, holding it in the space between. The answer must have seemed obvious to her for how well she rolls her eyes as she says it. To her, it must seem senseless to steal a man's coat on a chilly night. Bell is inclined to agree, but felt there are extenuating circumstances on this particular occasion. The cloak meant to hide her identity had just been removed and all bets were off.

His gaze flies to the table and though a story is being told Bell could tell several of the group have already taken notice of the eerily familiar face. He takes his coat from Aria's hands with an apologetic grimace, unable to meet her congenial and thus-far-ignorant smile. "Best of luck," he warns her and leaves before any of those eyes implicate him in her reappearance.

As he's walking out the door he hears an ever-so-faint 'mom?' escape one of their lips. She's a woman grown now, has been for nearly a decade; but, in that moment, Ais Waldstein sounded like nothing more than a girl.

Bell smiles as he walked down the street, coat once again hanging from his shoulders, content for a time. The sky above the city begins to dim until the brightest of the stars reign supreme above the clouds. He jumps from the light of one street lamp to the next, seamlessly and senselessly making his way through the city's streets. The inn he's renting from is somewhere nearby, he'd remembered as much, but the exact location is a little bit more of a mystery.

There is a bench across the way. He waits for a slow-moving carriage to pass by before crossing and sitting at it, humming comfortably as he rests his weary legs. The right side of his face warms uncomfortably and he knows the moon cannot be the source. He follows the sensation back into the sky where Babel rises up. He can't see anything, but the feeling of those watchful eyes does not leave him for the rest of the night—crawling over his skin like a thousand angry ants—not until he's safe behind the doors of his lodgings.

The innkeep nods at him from behind their desk as he enters, and he offers them a cheap smile as he ducks into the stairwell.

With key in hand, he unlocks the door and it swings open seamlessly. Within the room, another person rests on their back, sprawled out, and lazily tossing a ballista bolt into the air before catching it. Their legs hang over the arm of the chair they're reclined in, swinging idly until the moment Bell peers over the top, deftly catching the bolt before it falls

He smiles down at her smugly as she reaches for it back, twirling it between his knuckles. "How's your day been?"

"Boring." She pushes herself up onto her elbow and reaches for it again. "There's nothing to do here."

"You could always come out with me into the city," he shrugs and returns her toy to her, "Company would be nice."

"Lili hates this city."

He walks to his bed and plops down upon the edge, tossing his coat off and setting to work on the laces of his boots. "You also said you hated all adventurers when we met, now look at you. Besties friends with one. Maybe you just haven't had enough good experiences here."

"And if Lili had anything to say about it, she never would. But she just knows Bell will take that personally and make it his mission to correct her, even when she has no desire for it, so she will say nothing and rot in her bed instead."

His second boot hits the floor with a thunk and he pauses to frown her way "You can always say no."

His friend had a unique magic ability that allowed her to change her appearance on a whim. Right now, she's appearing as a young, dark-haired caoraa—a member of the race of beast people most closely resembling sheep—with the ears and horns to match. From the brief glance he got of her earlier, the form she took is male. A disguise she's deemed necessary to even step foot in the city she so detested, but one she quickly sheds once it's clear he was retiring to their room for the night.

Lili rises to a seated position and tosses her bolt toward their equipment bags in the corner. A soft light envelops her as she reverts to her true appearance, that of a brown-haired prum girl barely a year older than himself. When the light fades, he's met with a heavy glare. "But Lili cannot just say 'no,' because then Bell gets that look in his eyes."

Before he can even say anything in response to that—and he had a few things he'd like to say—Lili is jumping up, laughing triumphantly, and pointing. "Aha! Yes, that is the one! That is the exact look Lili had in mind when she said that. The sad, pathetic one that makes it impossible to say no."

Sad, Bell wonders, pathetic? The only mirror in their room is through her, and thus inaccessible to him. He pushes his lips out in a pout as he stares longingly at it, wishing for nothing more than to know what face he's making. Upon seeing his new expression, Lili turns her back to him and says, "That is the second one she had thought of, yes. Lili appreciates Bell's help in her demonstration."

"Fine," he bites out, rather grumpily, and falls backward onto the bed. The impact rocks the mattress and sends one of the pillows jumping. He catches it in his hand and slams it down upon his own face. But, such is a punishment only for himself—the blameless, a victim—when really it is his friend who's being cruel, so instead he throws it at her back. The impact is hardly spectacular, but he feels better for it.

"Hey—!"

Bell ignores her. "What were you up to today, anyway?"

She waves the pillow around in outrage, but it only serves to make her look ridiculous. She must realize this too, because she grunts and tosses it back to him. "Lili was doing what Lili does best."

"Thinking?"

"Plotting," she amends.

He supposes he should have expected that. Even Lili's plans have plans. She'd managed to escape this labyrinth city all on her own so many years ago, but her mind was always the greater prison. The only one she could never escape, with a far crueler warden than she ever faced here. Even he struggled to free her of its grip, sometimes.

"Anything in particular?"

"Why are Bell and Lili still in this city?" Lili asks instead. "They've returned their charge to her family, just as they swore to her they would. They stand to benefit nothing from remaining here, yet here they remain anyway. Lili wants to know why that is."

It's a fair question, and one he's been asking himself all night. It isn't as if he didn't know their being here is uncomfortable for her. He'd offered to make the return journey with Aria by himself, just to spare her of the memories that would surely resurface, but she'd still insisted on her accompaniment. Something their party's third hadn't even dared. Yet, now, when they could easily leave, he dawdles. There are some errands he still hopes to run, that's true, but they could be completed within an hour. It isn't very thoughtful on his part, he knows that.

"I'm not sure," he answers truthfully. She deserves at least that. "I just feel like something important is meant to happen here."

Her frown doesn't soften, but nor does it deepen. "One of Bell's fated encounters?"

A sigh. "Maybe." He didn't particularly care for the wording, even if it had once been his own. A rather embarrassing relic from way back when; around the time a yet idealistic Bell Cranel met a young, jaded prum girl and they began their heroic journey together. "We still need to return the helmet to Hermes."

"Lili will gladly do so now if it means she can leave this place tonight." Luckily, it seems she wasn't entirely serious. The offer was meant as a jest. Mostly, he thinks. "Bell has had plenty of opportunities to return it by now."

In the end, he could only say, "I'll do it soon," and hope that would be enough.