never take advice from someone who just admitted to being devious and just confessed to treason
Their pace was slow and meandering, but still it took them away from Elle and the recent conflict, allowing the pair to slip back into the easy familiarity that had come with their friendship. Soon all past transgressions were forgotten, any tension in the frigid air slipping from their notice. Roland wasn’t sure if ‘hero’ was the right epithet to add to his current list of titles, such as trickster, fraud, and cheat, but he supposed he liked the ring of it and found himself laughing at Arah’s jesting remark. “Anything I can do for you,” he intoned with a playful smirk, reminding himself of the morning they had met in the Thistle Meadow. By now the scar that had once left an ugly mark across the golden skin of his throat was now a mere fading imperfection, two small dips in his flesh where the snake’s teeth had sunk in.
He was glad that Arah had much to say, for he could feel sleep weighing heavy on his eyelids, and was content for once that he wasn’t depended upon to keep the conversation flowing. He nodded along to her replies, eyes trained on her white pelt even in the dark. Her mention of magic caught his attention more firmly, curiousity fighting its way through the weariness that bogged him down. He possessed no powers of his own, though Mauja had once advised him to obtain some to ease along his work of fraud, and it was something he fully intended to do, but he didn’t feel it was a priority; after all, he had managed for several years upon a network of falsehoods and corrupted truths, without a change of face to erase suspicion or prevent familiarity.
“I hope it’s not the kind that turns men into frogs,” he jested with a wink. If he felt any envy at all, it was easily suppressed, and he flashed a congratulatory smile towards his fellow Impersonator. “So what is it exactly that you can do?”
Roland mentally flinched away from her following question, tilting his chin to look up at the northern lights as if gathering his thoughts. Life had been complicated since joining the Basin, not that he had ever assumed it to be elementary, but things had seemed much simpler back in Anorien; when he’d had a stable, temperate land to call home and many companions to surround himself with, for even as a child he had been charismatic. It was the haven that he had fought hoof and horn for during the Civil War, suffering from a great many things while also thriving from the lessons learnt through his foolish mistakes, and somehow even the worst memories were looked upon with the slightest amount of wistfulness.
Rather than voicing his burdens he decided to lie for Arah’s benefit, as he was often wont to do. “Quite well,” he responded, the smile in his voice and eyes erasing any hesitance in his cadence. “I think I will be able to consider myself very lucky if I survive Frostfall without becoming a snowman.” The joking tone in his voice was unmistakable, even if he was venting a true concern of his; without the hot springs to soak in from time to time there would have been nothing that could convince him staying in the Basin through winter was a good thing. But he soldiered on, intending to reap whatever benefits he could get his hands on from the job he currently worked, thirsting for another opportunity to put his silver tongue to use.
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[O] I've gotten this feeling before...
