As expected, the tavern was full and lively and wafting with the aroma of all sorts of heated sauces and spices.
Endless drinks were clinking, laughs stacking on top of each other, and drunks dancing about.
And to no surprise, the thumping had come from the soldiers who were singing some native song, their voices grating and the beat they made by kicking their feet down, all mismatched.
Bazil and Salīa reached the bar, only to be ignored. Even when Bazil waved his hand or spoke louder, the barkeep went on his merry way.
"I guess he was right," Bazil muttered to himself.
Under encouragement from his smiley older brother, who told him the barkeep won't serve a glum face, Bazil bared his best grin, one he frequently showed as a child, but now appeared awkward.
Luckily, the barkeep found it amusing and said, "What would you like?"
"Two juices, whichever you have."
The barkeep chuckled meekly, then realized Bazil was being serious. He poured it, but then brought another bottle.
"How about this fruit-flavored marula on the house?"
Bazil's face froze mid-smile, and he was fighting every part of him to not smash that bottle that brought him back to that night in Oggl.
Salīa guiltily handed over the coin and grabbed their juices, murmuring, "Thank you, but we're alright."
Although Bazil tried his best to get them into a corner and away from those noisy soldiers, it just so happened that the furthest they could get was only a table away.
"This is the book you bought from there?" The debonair man flipped through some pages while nodding to a bearded man from another table. "The drawings are not that mature as the artist has quite a young hand that imitates the greats, but I'm sure they'll develop. Luckily, the plot seems unique, and the words sharp."
Huh? That's what I said back in the last land. Could that book be…
One glance over and Salīa saw it was indeed that book. The same one that had Bazil shaking his head at her. Having realized the same thing, he shook his head at them too.
"So, you don't want it, my old friend?" asked the bearded man.
The debonair man shrugged.
"My older friend," he teased. "I'm trying to save coin."
Upon looking at how lavish the feast was on his table and how full of drink it was, as well as the ornate clothes he wore, it was hard to tell if he was joking or not.
Still, the bearded man persisted.
"Why save today when you can spend all you have before tomorrow?"
"Keep spewing that, and you might convince yourself those words have any merit."
"But it does."
"Then why are your hands as tight as a crab's claw around your own coin?"
The bearded man was stunned quiet. As he was about to counter, a serving lady appeared, placing down some hot drinks for them.
Out of the whole group, it was this gregarious man she smiled at the most, although sheepishly, as he was the one opening his purse.
"Would you like some milk?" she asked softly.
"Milk from whose breast?"
"A cow. We do have goat, too."
"No, no, no. If it's not from the breast of my mother or one of the beauties here, it's no milk for me. You see, I could buy bronze and pretend it's gold, but when I wear it on a swim, only one will still shine, is it not?"
The soldiers chortled.
Having observed, Salīa and Bazil noticed that most of the soldiers there had yellow scorpion sigils, which indicated the standard soldier in Palosa.
There were a few that had the red one, even fewer with a red-gold one, and one with a gold one. Yet it was only the debonair man who had a gold one with gemstones in the eyes.
A sign of an especially high rank.
What was unusual was that the gemstones appeared to be some deep, golden diamond, and there was even another at the point of its tail.
Yet despite his symbol of authority, he still called each man beside him, "friend," and focused on each soldier intently as they spoke with him.
The bearded man from the next table had soured his face, still determined to talk with this flashy soldier.
"You know, we're old friends, so I must let you know when you've lost your way," the bearded man spoke up, pulling the glances of the soldiers. "I think you love coin too much, especially gold ones."
The debonair man grinned.
"We are old friends indeed, and I appreciate your guidance."
He handed the bearded man a few small coins, just enough to get a few drinks.
"But if you do not love coin, how can it love you? And of course, I prefer gold. My name is Auro, after all."
Having not achieved the intended result of disarming him, the bearded man opened his mouth to speak more, but the drunken soldiers around this table spoke first, all wanting to claim their friend's attention.
"Is that why you're so lucky in attracting it? I bet that as a babe, you slept in a golden crib too," a chubby, mid-aged soldier chaffed.
"My riches started with no coin in my pockets, but a true desire for it. That is where it must start for all those who wish to be wealthy."
Some of the older soldiers groaned as if he spoke nonsense, as per usual. It was the chubby soldier who spoke again, saying, "I desire it plenty. But it's my purse that makes a fool of me."
"It's not your purse that makes you a fool, but yourself. Isn't it foolish to blame your purse for having nothing in it, when it's your fault for not having filled it?"
"I fill it plenty, but I must empty it too. You know that living costs."
The other soldiers grunted in agreement.
"So, you keep nothing after making anything?" Auro groaned. "That's pitiful, friend. Don't you know? Coin only enjoys the purses that's homed by other coin. Gold is quite the charmer; it always welcomes more friends."
With that, he patted his soldiers on the back playfully, nodding for the server to fill their drinks again. Another soldier asked for his advice to cure a skinny purse.
"Yes, let's make it nice and plump, like me," cheered the chubby soldier as he clinked with them.
To that Auro said, "If only ten coins greet your pocket, spend only but nine. And so forth."
"If only two coins do?"
"Spend only but one." The soldiers rolled their eyes. "Come on, friends. To save nothing is to think nothing of yourself."
The chubby soldier slammed down his mazer.
"Explain. If I have only two coins, isn't it certain that I'd probably need to spend it for myself?"
Auro took out some apples from a fruit basket on their table to demonstrate.
"If you only have two apples, you could certainly eat both. But then you'll have no apples left when you need it.
Now, if you eat one apple and sell another to a baker who wishes to make apple pie, does that not grant you more coin to buy at least two more apples?"
"Then it's the same as before. I've still got two apples to eat," he declared.
"Actually, you now have one apple to eat and another to trade."
"Again? But why can't I eat the two apples?"
"You already have," he showed him. "You ate one from before and one now. That's two apples."
"It could've been four."
"But it wouldn't be four if you ate both to start. Though the more you trade half your apples, the more apples you'll surely gain."
Salīa too was quite fascinated. And from the soldiers saying, "Ahh," in unison, it seemed she wasn't the only one.
"Lovely lady," Auro nodded to the server. "Apple pie for the table, please. Help yourself to a slice too."
The server smiled and did just that. In glancing over, Auro caught Salīa's gaze.
She had been staring for a long time, grinning widely too, without even realizing. And to her embarrassment, the other soldiers noticed just as instantly.
"Oh, I'm so sorry!" Auro said dramatically as he stood up. "Our hair is both golden, our eyes both blue, our skin both tan, and our spirits both sprightly. I suppose we could even be cousins, and therefore I must apologize, but I cannot bed you."
Salia couldn't stop her laugh before it burst out.
Bazil was about to confront this man's insult, but was left stunned as Salīa laughed on and said, "That's quite alright."
Most men she'd met would've taken offense at her laughing at such a presumption, but this man's good nature seemed to exceed his ego.
"I'm so glad you understand," he replied with equal amusement. "As we look alike, you must know, being pretty is so hard, indeed. You break hearts just by being. Not that my friends here would quite get it."
The jab had the soldiers laughing and nudging him, their good nature also deriving from his.
"Just ignore him," the chubby soldier nodded to her. "He's teasing because it's the first time women haven't flocked to his table.
But when it would happen, he'd always spare himself from saying he's married, because most would just respond, 'Well, so am I,' disrupting his merriment.
Then he'd spend all night trying to find that woman's husband to tell him of the joke his wife just shared."
"He's too good for his own good," a few other soldiers added.
To that, they cheered as well. Bazil had wanted to interrupt at several moments, but eventually eased when realizing these soldiers were truly bizarre and probably meant to do no more in this place but laugh all day.
"I didn't forget about you, by the way," Auro glanced at Bazil. "I figured I'd tried to get a laugh out of you first before anything, but it seems I'm not that funny."
The tipsy soldier Bazil nearly confronted earlier recognized him.
He nodded to the server and said, "Please get that table whatever they want. I'll take after my good friend, Auro, and pay it on."
"There's no need," Bazil started.
"Oh, please, let him," Auro insisted, nodding for the servers to get them more juice. "We mean no harm, isn't that right, Calvo?"
The young, blonde-haired soldier nodded stubbornly.
"Yes, friend. I know what you want me to say."
To this, Calvo looked at Bazil with glazed eyes, yet no hint of the malice he carried before.
"We are soldiers, as you see. And what makes us a guardian is not by starting battles, but by stopping them before they start."
With that, the soldiers drunkenly put their fists to their chests. Such a display had Bazil half-smiling.
He wouldn't admit it, but Salīa could tell he was finally satisfied with their apology.
Once their juices were filled, they lifted them up to clink with the soldiers.
"As Haga the Hardy taught us…Wars are all fatuous, all warlords are fools," Auro sang. The soldiers joined in, chanting, "Since battles are bitter, what's sweeter than truce?"
It was strange for both. Bazil, because he wasn't quite used to befriending guardians sworn to other lands. And Salīa, because she wasn't quite used to being around Palosan guardians who didn't undress her with their eyes.
They still peeked at what parts of her weren't concealed by a cloak, but none stared too long.
These soldiers also didn't probe them too deeply about who they were, but Auro's eyes seemed to reveal that he observed more than he let on.
The most they asked them was if they were together.
Salīa was about to answer as practiced, but Bazil beat her to it. He simply slung his arm around her chair, his claim to them clear.
She felt her skin prick up as her back brushed against him.
"Ohhh," the soldiers crooned, nudging each other.
Salīa blushed at this.
Bazil certainly gets braver by each passing day.
Although they intended to only stay a short while, they somehow ended up having their meals there, courtesy of the soldiers, and tarried their day away.
Salīa found herself having a wonderful time, especially with a cheery Auro.
They even spoke about his coin talk from earlier, and she encouraged him to write a book about it.
From there, they spoke about various books that they liked, circling back to that book they both encountered and how it compared to the other books of that kind that they had read.
In mention of a particular plot, they said in unity, "That guardian who wanted to be her lover was so useless and boring! Yes! You get it! He's like…an old shoe!"
They laughed so much that Salīa thought she was drunk. Meanwhile, Bazil was feeling increasingly sober as he watched them.
Hawking shot through a window, landing right on her head.
This had the soldiers rioting, so drunk that all their faces were as flushed as peaches.
Noticing parchment attached to Hawking's ring, Bazil nodded to Salīa for them to get going. The soldiers sighed sullenly.
"Come on, be good, friends," Auro told the soldiers. "Thank you for joining us, and if we never meet again, I'm glad that we've met at all."
His hand outstretched to Bazil.
It took him a pause, but he finally shook it.
"I'm glad too. Travel true."
Auro then reached out his hand to Salīa, but snapped it back when noticing Bazil's glare, offering her a tilt of the hat instead.
As they left, Auro sang on with his soldiers, "Wars are all fatuous, all warlords are fools. Since battles are bitter, what's sweeter than truce?"
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