>>45254549"You like coffee?" you ask Jewel. She blinks when she looks at you; that pained haze floats across her eyes, not as bad as you've seen in your previous talks but enough that it colors her furrowed expression of puzzlement.
"Coffee...is...a weakness?" she hazards.
"Sure," you agree, with a shrug. "So is forgetting how to live instead of just exist. All that lives must die. All that is strong is also weak. Now, I'm not tryin' to guilt you into picking up my vice here, 'cause it /is/ a vice and it'll end up part of your life if you cotton on to it. What I'm saying is you've got the chance to pick your poison."
"I'll pass for now," Jewel decides. "...But thanks. It's not anything like liquor, is it?"
"Nah," Nathan assures her. "Coffee kicks you up. Liquor tends to bring you down."
"Preach it," you mutter, as you get some of the rose hip tea going for the four of you. Scurvy's a bitch, and you don't need it in your life.
After about twenty minutes, you have three things: tea, dinner, and enough of a sense of sobriety to want to /do/ something.
"Anyone want to hear a story?"
Instantly, Nathan and Amy's eyes are on you. Jewel looks at them, looks at you, then back at them. When her eyes go back to yours her expression is amazed. "Their ears are almost /erect/."
Out of the circle of firelight, Fetch says, "/Language/."
"...Did I just get bitched at by an undead cock?"
"Welcome to my life," you tell her. "Do you want to hear the story?"
"Is it the one you were telling me about earlier?"
"Nah," you say, shaking your head. "That's way too on the nose right now. Nah, I wanna tell you about necromancy and how it developed. Obviously a lot of it is ancient history, more guess than fact, but it's fun ancient history. Interested?"
"Sure," the assassin agrees.
