Yumi rolls her eyes, “It is; s'why the kid pisses me off.” she sighs, shaking her head at him; Miss Rika giggles, her eyes soft as she looks up at Gerhart. “Nostalgia is a beautiful thing; lavender is a beautiful shade. For anyone.” She nods approvingly, handing the shirt over to him, and folding her hands against her lap as she looks calmly towards Vasilia as she looks through the clothes available in the store.

Caedes looks up into the mirror, turning his head to look at her from over his shoulder. He breathes a bemused laugh, turning his eyes away as he lifts a section of the red cloak with one hand. “Thank you; but I think I look a little like a bullfighter.” he jests, releasing the red fabric from his curled fingers as he sways and turns to face Vasilia. “Of all of us, I think you’re the closest to dressing like those of Crescent Isle; purple’s certainly your colour.” He offers her a pat on the shoulder in return, and strolls past her to where Yumi is waiting.

She cocks a brow at them. “Ready?” he remarks over his shoulder to the other two, turning to face the storefront. “We’ve got some things to track down.”

“... So you’re taking the first thing you put your hands on and calling it that?” Yumi regards, frowning at him; and Caedes nods, receiving an eye-roll in return. “Fine. Miss Rika, how is the boy?”

Miss Rika nods approvingly as Gerhart adjusts his armour to fit the new lavender shirt. “Very handsome on you, sweetheart. Very professional.” she remarks in her grandmotherly tone, her wrinkles softening as she smiles. “Be careful out there, okay?” She regards all three of them, this time.

"Careful is my middle name, ma'am. Don't worry, I'll make sure everyone here comes back without a scratch." He nods with a bright and wide grin as he seems fully set. "Let's get going then, we lost enough daylight playing dress up."



Gerhart looks to everyone, eager as ever to continue on the mission set before them. He'll make his way out to the door, holding it open for everyone before bringing up the rear.



"So, do we have any leads on the cult or should we start asking around town? Can't imagine they would talk to too many merchants or just mill about.....might try finding some kids, you'd be surprised what they see since no one thinks to hide from a kid."



As has become his trademark, Gerhart does not mind offering unsolicited ideas to at least get the others planning as well. Any way to make progress was worth it so to speak.

It's hard to say, really, when last his travels took him out to Starlight City.

There's a fuzzy memory somewhere deep in the recesses of his mind, of his own hand-- smaller, then, with anxiety-bitten fingernails and an amplitude of bandages from all the pin-pricks and mishaps with glass bottles-- in a larger one, calloused and worn by time and age and work, leading him along through the streets of a pretty little city with rooftops cut from the night sky's cloth, pale pink petals raining down from the trees like roseate snow. It had been springtime, then, he thinks, late spring; the ghost of winter's last kiss was ebbing away, a gentle warmth settling properly, ready to greet summer as it traveled around the bend.

Kvasir no longer remembers why they'd come here, all that time ago; he remembers being young and clumsy and nervous, shying away from the curious looks of people older and taller than him, but their faces are an empty, blank mass of mist, melding with the ink splashed over the pages of the early years. The steps are familiar, but they lead him nowhere meaningful, the mass of watercolors in his mind serving as a poor guide for the tangibility of the present.

It's a wretched thing, to know you're losing hold of your memories, of the things that define your very existence, but in this moment, Kvasir hardly has the energy to dwell on the reality that's followed him for years, now. No, at the moment, it just happens to be very, very annoying.

"Dear Solaria," he murmurs as he takes the third wrong turn onto the same street as before, the stormclouds in his mind all-too-happy to have plucked away at his sense of direction. "Couldn't you have left me this one thing, today...?"

All Kvasir had wanted, on this venture, was to step into the city, make arrangements to stay the night, and then go in and out to collect cherry blossom petals; they're common on this island, and serve as one hell of an anti-inflammatory agent. As with most components he collects, he'd been hoping to just get them himself, but the boat ride had been late and he's been left to pick up memories like scattered dandelion seeds and everything's gone to hell in one mess of disorientation since, and he still doesn't have an inn room. He lets out a heavy sigh, scanning around the street, pausing as he lays eyes on a small group of people just stepping out of a store-- it's a long-shot, but hell, perhaps they could at least give him some guidance.

"Ah, pardon me, friends," Kvasir begins, managing a bit of a frayed smile at the cluster of strangers. "You wouldn't happen to know the directions to the nearest inn, would you?"

Miss Rika’s smile is warm and friendly as Gerhart promises to keep them all safe; Caedes, on the other hand, rolls his eyes a bit as he strolls after Gerhart and slips out the door. “Whoever said we were taking this job on during the daylight hours?” he asks the young man with a noted chuckle as he slips on by him; he's kidding, sort of. This is more of an as-long-as-it-takes kind of job.

“Mm.” he hums in agreement, turning his back to the street to face Gerhart as he exits the building; he sees Miss Rika and Yumi speaking behind the windows of the little store they’ve slipped out of. “I like your line of thought, but I do have some leads to start us off with.” Caedes crosses his arms, keeping his voice low while he fills Gerhart in. “There’s an inn not that far from here; across from a temple in the marketplace district, which recently has been rumoured to be housing…— ah.”

Movement from the corner of his eyes hushes him, and Caedes stops before he can finish. He leans away from murmuring to Gerhart, looking to the stranger who’d approached them. He cuts an elegant figure with his sharp features; but his smile seems frayed and nervous— a lost tourist, mayhaps.

… Which is a bit odd, given how tight Crescent Isle’s security often is when it comes to letting those outside of the Isles come in.

The changeling tilts his head, offering the stranger a smile. “The nearest inn?” he repeats, looking towards Gerhart with a nod of his head, motioning down the street— through the cool lanterns and many stalls of the market district— towards their next destination. “That would be the Ruby Lotus— just down that way.”

He’s not saying out loud that the young man who’d just approached them could be a cultist, but he’s certainly not cutting out the possibility at this point… it could be coincidence that he’s asking for the nearby inn, or it could be something else.

Who knows.

“We’re actually heading there, ourselves— we can just show you the way, if you’d like. Right?”

He looks to his companion beside him.

"Be a waste of the day to do nothing until whoever we are tracking is expecting people to be looking for them." Gerhart grinned and stretched, letting the new clothes shift and move a bit to settle in and get used to his from.



It was still a weird feel wearing clothing that wasn't scraps or hand-me-downs, but it was interesting to say the least. He certainly doesn't match the figure of Caedes beside him, one of them sophisticated and composed the other well Gerhart.



He looked to the stranger with a curious, but polite smile. This was certainly a new kind of look, not many people with strange ears that come through his part of Moonglade. Can you ask about ears? That's gotta be OK to just ask right? Gerhart figures they get asked about them all the time and they probably don't get tired of answering the questions of gawking idiots.



Before he could though, a few quesitons have been asked and he realizes Caedes is waiting for him to answer and not just stare out into the middle distance. "I mean if we are all heading in the same direction, that makes a whole lot of sense. Might as well all walk together, at this point it would be a lot weirder not to."

The strangers that stand before him certainly cut an interesting set of figures.

The first of the men that had spoken up is a pillar of monochrome, pale and pristine, marble and ash given breath-- he's veiled all in darker shades that only make him seem the more striking, the shadows they leave behind on his skin all the sharper. The other, in stark contrast, is drawn with all the familiar, earthy shades of Kvasir's first homeland-- earth brown and forest green, a living beacon of the Moonglade's terrestrial treasures. They're fine looking men, to be sure, but that's... hardly really at the forefront of his mind, right now.

Kvasir's ears twitch just slightly as he watches the way these two interact, gaze flitting between ash and earth as he searches their faces for intention. One can never be too careful with strangers, and... considering all the information he's constantly missing, it's important to be especially cautious. Still, they don't seem particularly nefarious.

Yet.

"Ah, thank you, then," he says, managing another smile and a polite nod toward each of them. "I appreciate it a lot-- I haven't been around these parts for some time, now. My name is Kvasir Sigurros-- I'm a traveling medic, here on business of the botanical sort. May I ask your names?"

Not exactly the words of eloquence he’d been expecting, but charming nonetheless. Yes, Gerhart…. has a way with words. “Indeed… it would be a lot weirder to not at this point.” he agrees with his companion; he chuckles and offers a halfhearted shrug before looking back to the stranger.

Kvasir Sigurros… he makes a note of the name, just in case.

“Caedes.” He answers his question simply; no introduction of a surname, and he doesn’t look like he’s about to give one. “We’re here on business today, actually— of the non-botanical sort— but I'd hate to bore you with the details.” He nods his head just enough to gesture to their new companion to follow, before taking a step backwards on the street with every intent to start leading them to the Ruby Lotus, then looks expectantly at Gerhart— allowing the other man to introduce himself as much as he likes.

He waits for a pocket of silence before he dares to continue.

“You’re a traveling medic, Kvasir? If you don't mind my asking, where are you coming in from? It took us a while to arrange a boat over to the Crescent Isle from the Moon Glade.”

"Gerhart Stanislav!" He offers a bright and wide grin, patting Kvasir on the shoulder before turning him to face the direction they were heading as they start to talk. If Kvasir seemed hesitant or resistant to physical touch, Gerhart would avoid the shoulder pat entirely so as not to be off-putting to his new friend.


"A medic hm?" He raises an interested look towards Kvasir as they walk. Gerhart will contain himself for as long as he can while they walking, letting Kvasir answer and Caedes to get his question in. It's a hard balance to oscillate between 'very serious swordsman who is good and tough' and 'I've literally never been anywhere this big or weird so everything is new and I am kind of freaking out, but excited.' Needless to say there was a lot going on in his mind.



Gerhart will at least take point and lead them along, new or not he at least knew how to read signs and navigate towards the in. He weaved through the people easily enough and got them towards the inn, occasionally looking back to make sure he hadn't outpaced the others by too much.

Even just a few short minutes in, and Kvasir has already determined that these two men could not be more different.

Aesthetics aside-- although those, too, differentiate them quite cleanly, pale ash and Moonglade-earth set beside each other in one clashing pile--, Caedes and Gerhart Stanislav present themselves in vastly disparate ways. Caedes speaks elegantly but carefully, saying so much and so little in one breath, caution etched carefully into every word he speaks, whereas Gerhart is an open book, friendly and warm and unafraid, eager to reach out but still polite in the way he does so. They are a cluster of amaryllis entangled around a sunflower, together, a warning wrapped around a beacon of joy, and Kvasir would be lying if he said he wasn't curious about how two men like this wound up traveling together.

"Caedes... and Gerhart Stanislav," he says to himself, committing the syllables, the pronunciations to memory, knowing he will agonize over where to place them amidst the pages of his journal later on. He nods after a moment, managing another little smile. "It's lovely to meet you both. Again, I greatly appreciate the guidance-- my... memory often fails me, nowadays."

It is an understatement, and the understatement of a millennium, no less, but such grim details can go unspoken for now.

"Oh, I came in from the Moonglade myself," Kvasir says as soon as he's prompted, figuring this is a fairly safe question to answer. The influence of his birthplace still lies in his clothing, the Moonglade's mark on him intertwined with his beloved desert's in swirling patterns and small trinkets, after all. "I venture out that way quite often-- there's no shortage of good foraging there. I arranged travel out this way a while back to stock up on some Crescent Isle-exclusive flora; bamboo shoots, cherry blossoms... spider lilies, if I can find them. They're potent little things, but tricky to find; doesn't help that there's some... rather morbid folklore around them, too."

An embarrassed laugh leaves his lips after a moment, guilt flashing across his face as soon as he realizes he's gone and rambled about plants to two strangers he's known for all of five minutes.

"...My apologies, friends, I... tend to get a bit carried away with talk of flora."

“Mm.” Caedes hums a response in agreement; his smile subtle, but present, while Kvasir extends his polite courtesies. ”Lovely to meet you as well, Kvasir.” He slows his pace to allow Gerhart to take the lead, but keeps the swordsman in eyeline at all times, lest he lose him; for now, Gerhart doesn’t seem too talkative, which… is odd; but he’d also seemed quite eager to get on with things.

Once they can drop their third party off at the inn, they’ll be able to continue their conversation from earlier; the sooner the better, so Caedes keeps a steady stride while they lead Kvasir to the Ruby Lotus. It turns out, by all accounts, the man is talkative; his doubts of the stranger’s involvement in whatever’s going on in Crescent Isle dwindle the longer he listens to idle chat about foraging, flora, and bamboo shoots… granted, he doesn’t cross it off his suspicion.

“...Spider Lily, as in the corpse flower?” he hums in repeat, a brow cocked as he looks to Kvasir. “I’m only familiar with one type; and those are quite poisonous, by my understanding.” At the mention of the spider lilies, he feels a slight shift against his back; curious tendrils tapping against his shoulder, unseen save for at specific angles.⁽¹⁾

Oh, she’s awake.

Inexplicably, the cloak around his shoulders sloughs off his shoulder, seemingly moved by nothing at all; but he can feel Charlotte's head resting on his shoulder.

He breathes a laugh under his breath when Kvasir apologizes for his rambling; the changeling shakes his head. “Don’t be; hardly a crime to have a passion, is it?” he answers, turning his eyes back to Gerhart as they move through small crowds of brightly clad people in the streets. Soft murmurs and laughter come from passing groups, growing in number as they grow nearer to the heart of the district.

---

^{(1) Prismatic Spider — Invisibility}

"Don't worry too much about, ya can't be much worse than I am." Another warm smile as he tries to reassure Kvasir when he mentions issues with memories. When he started talking about plants, there was probably a look that gave away he had absolutely no idea about any of this, but he gave the man his full attention anyways. He seemed to enjoy talking about it, why cut him off?



Oh thank Ginma that Caedes can pick up the thread of that conversation. Gerhart would've hated to see it drop given the enthusiasm. "Never heard of half of those flowers or....flora...are those different? I know there's a few weeds and flowers that can be useful and found in the forest, but nothing so fancy sounding.



As they walk, he looks back and raises an eyebrow at the drop of the cape, but shrugs seeing there weren't any pickpockets running off. Stuff happens sometimes. He perks up after a minute, pointing towards the sign. "There we go, starting to think I made a few wrong turns."



Gerhart smiles and turns to head through this final stretch of people. This new person seemed interesting, but admittedly he was excited to continue chasing after these cultists or whatever as well. That was the real job after all.

Considering how... niche some of his knowledge of botany can get, the very last thing Kvasir expects is for Caedes to be able to latch onto a word of what he's talking about. He blinks for a brief moment before the surprise melts away, some of the sheepishness melting from his tense, embarrassed stance as he walks beside them both.

"You would be right," he says, a wryness tucking itself into the corners of his grin. "The corpse flower is poisonous on its own, but its roots can be utilized in certain types of poultices, and through a bit of careful leaching and processing, the bulb itself can counteract other forms of poison. Sometimes it just requires the work of another few herbs, sometimes it's good enough on its own. It calls for a careful hand, but with enough dedication to what you're doing, it's surprisingly potent as its own form of medicine."

Half of the challenge-- and thusly, half of the joy-- of devising one's own medicines came from using whatever materials the earth threw at you. Kvasir is no stranger to spinning vitriol to suit his fortune, turning ill tides to flow his way, finding a way to make things that are only ever designed to hurt and burn and destroy heal instead. The flames that burn hottest can cauterize, too, and that duality is a light he'll never stop chasing after.

He shoots a smile back over at Gerhart, too, eye twinkling at the chance to keep chattering. "Flora generally encapsulates plantlife as a whole, Mister Stanislav. Some would say I'm a bit overly acquainted with it, so you could say the two of us balance each other out."

Even despite the smile he's putting on for the sake of these two, Kvasir's ears twitch just so as they near the inn, some indistinct, uneasy feeling starting to settle over his shoulders-- he can't place where it's come from, or why it's only just blown in, but it is there all the same, and he'd be a fool to ignore it. It'd be easy enough to blame the bad feeling on the presence of unfamiliar people, to pin it all on the overstimulation of working his way through a crowd, however small, but he knows, deep down, that can't quite be it. Still, as their steps start to slow as they draw closer to the inn, The Ruby Lotus, he turns to face his temporary companions once more, giving one more polite nod.

"I thank you both for the aid, friends," he says, ear still twitching incessantly as he glances around. "Ah... it's... a fair bit busier than I thought it might've been, isn't it? I'd always heard the Crescent Isles were on the quieter side."

Caedes keeps a straight face, but it is truly an effort to not cave into the quirk of a mischievous grin when Kvasir reacts the way he does. The man’s excitement flutters into sheepishness for just a moment at the sudden spouting of some surface amount of floral knowledge.

How charming.

But, true as it may be that he’s certainly no man of botany, it is by chance that the medic mentioned one he does know quite a lot about… after all, what kind of assassin would he be if he were not familiar with the poisons at his disposal in any given location? It would be an understatement to call the Spider Lily’s flower anything but potent— and amongst the floral notes of any herbal tea?

A ground, lethal dose could be nearly indistinguishable; and a poison of nature is rarely traceable.

“Is that right?” Caedes remarks while Kvasir regards the medicinal uses of the roots of the plant; which is a part he, admittedly, did not know. He makes a note. “Funny how that works, given the properties of the rest.” He turns his eyes towards the upcoming Ruby Lotus; he shakes his head as Gerahart apologizes with the wrong turns— and follows him into the final crowd.

With an ornate red-shingled roof and jade statues risen out front, the place is objectively beautiful. The sign for the Ruby Lotus, marked in both elven and common, features a hand-painted red lotus, sitting amongst a crystal clear lake; and across the way, stands a gorgeous temple of ebony, ivory, and gold embellishments.

“Happy to help,” Caedes says without looking at Kvasir— but when he does, he can’t help but notice the incessant twitch of his ears. Nervous, perhaps? “Generally the Crescent Isles are on the quieter side, or… so I’ve heard. I haven’t been here in a while, myself; took quite some time just to arrange the travel to Starlight City...” he trails off.

His pale eyes narrow as they pass a group of brightly clad figures standing outside the rightmost side of the inn; one of them turns to the other, murmuring something that makes him snicker. He keeps note of the way their eyes follow the group as they head towards the doors; but it's subtle, barely a turn of the head; and a few moments later, one of them stands up and heads across the street towards the temple across the way.

Caedes turns his head just enough to try and see where he's going; he has a feeling that's where he and Gerhart will need to be once they drop their new companion off at the inn. He breathes a slow sigh, offering the swordsman's back a glance; it is rather unfortunate he can't just relay the message directly, but he will make do.

"Well... either way, I hear good things of the Ruby Lotus and the Solunalian Temple; a joint temple, I hear, to Lunala and Solaria... quite newly established, actually— have you been to visit it yet? Gerhart and I were thinking of dropping by after we get our rooms for the night."

"Just Gerhart, Mr. Stanislav was my dad and well he ain't around....which I guess would make me Mr. Stanislav.....huh...either way." He laughs and shrugged his shoulders as they walked. Gerhart gives no time for the others to linger on the "he ain't around" bit of backstory he just dropped.



He can't help but let out a low whistle, the tourist facade breaking through a moment as he looked through the windows of the Ruby Lotus. This was certainly a far cry away from the lodgings he was used to. He'd definitely have to write home about this, they probably have like silk sheets or something. Real fancy type, though relatively speaking any bed that is an actual bed is fancy. Hands are put on his hips as he watches the one guy walk away, curious group.



"This is the stop....don't know much about any temples, but if you do fancy checking that out maybe we will see you there later, who knows." Another wide grin and shrug. "We would lead ya, but we're a little....................................preocupied." No one should notice how long he paused trying to think of a word that wouldn't immediately give away this was a super secret mission.

Somewhere amidst the messy patchwork quilt of Kvasir's memories, where the stitches hang loose and fabric frays and everything lies unevenly, there lingers a line of advice he's managed to hold onto, a word of advice he presumes came from his father. It's served him well out in the wild, during foraging ventures and hunts for other components, guided him safely out of the gaping maw of danger more times than his failing mind would allow him to count, led him out of the hands of those seeking to wrap a boy like him around their waiting fingers. It's an easy lesson, but a lesson he values all the same.

Know when the air changes-- know what the world itself is communicating to you. Know when something is wrong.

And it is subtle, but Kvasir catches the way Caedes's eyes narrow-- catches the... significantly less subtle way Gerhart pauses in search of the correct words, his whole sentence heavy with an unspoken meaning. Amidst the whirl of prismatic fabrics and the rigid backdrop of blood-vermilion, there sounds a silent warning bell, and he is all too aware of that very same sense of something being off. His tail flicks the air nervously, the traitor that it is, but he manages a short nod.

"...Solunalian Temple, you say?" he muses, a quiet hum following the words, pensiveness locked into the notes. "...It must be a very recent establishment, indeed. What an... interesting concept. Ah, if the two of you intend to drop by later on, then, would you mind too terribly if I accompanied you? I'm... curious."