Reason to be an only child #2569|Skyheort

[Northen Light36]

Amaro was silent as he finished reading the messy, ink blotted letter from Vortai. For a moment he considered dropping it in the fireplace, burning it and pretending it had been unreadable. Denial was such a comfortable state.

Unfortunately, "our sister is in Morilanta" is not a sentance one forgets easily. Sinking into his favourite, over-stuffed chair and reading Vortai's letter for the second time, Amaro was torn between two great desires.

Firstly, to rip Shadow's head off with his bare hands for allowing Acqua anywhere near that place.

And secondly, to find his little sister and tan her rear end with his belt for so much as suggesting the idea.

Since neither option was available to him at the moment, Amaro decided to go for the third option - beating the stuffing out of a training dummy at the guild.

And that's exactly what he was doing by the time Spice's daily swordsmanship lesson rolled around. Although by then, he was onto his second dummy, which was looking particularly worse for wear and very near to sharing the fate of the destroyed first one.

"Kid, you might not want your lesson today," one of the mercs whispered to Spice when he saw him. "Your uncle's in a bit of a mood..."

Aria, who'd been watching her father with a wide-eyed, worried expression, walked over to Spice and reached up for her cousin's hand. "Daddy got a letter," she told him solumnly. "It made him mad."

[Kender Bard]

Spice decided not to go near Amaro - just yet. If Amaro was mad there might not be any good way of handling his lessons for the day. If he skipped out, he'd be in trouble. If he went, he might still be in trouble.

He just sighed at that and looked at Aria. "What letter?" Skip asked.

[Northen Light36]

Aria shrugged at that. She was learning to read and she did well in her lessons, but she wasn't skilled enough to have read the letter even if she'd seen it, which she hadn't. "Bout aunt Acqua, I think," she said simply. Glancing at her father again, the little girl then looked at her cousin for advice. "Maybe we get Mummy? Or your mummy and daddy?"

Despite her attempt to be brave, Amaro's anger is upsetting and frightening his daughter, as her tight grip on Spice's hand shows.

[Kender Bard]

Spice resists the urge to wince. "Well yeah, we'd better ask Aunt Cass cause I don't think my mom and dad can do much more than worry too if they can't get to the letter," Spice explained. "Is she at the guild?"

[Northen Light36]

Aria nods and manages a small smile, her grip on Spice's hand relaxing slightly. She'd wanted her mother since Amaro had started getting angry, but she knew she wasn't allowed to leave either guild without a family member. Well, it was meant to be a grown up family member, but Spice was nearly grown up. "Let's get mummy," she said and eagerly followed Spice to the bardic guild.

Once at the bardic guild, Aria finally let go of Spice's hand and ran to the first adult she saw. "We need mummy please," she annouced.

[Darastrix]

Sebastian, sitting at the common room's bar, seemed to shake himself out of a haze and blinked slowly at Aria, then at Spice. "Can it wait a bit?" he asked, his voice soft and calm. "Cass is helping one of the dancers with something. She should be done in less than half a mark."

[Northen Light36]

Aria bit her lip worriedly - a habit she'd picked up from Acqua and which Amaro was finding frustratingly hard to cure - and then shook her head. "We need Mummy now," she replied. "Daddy's really really mad."

[Darastrix]

Isn't that usual for Amaro? Sebastian thought as he pushed himself off of the stool.

"I'll fetch her," he said, in a tone that implied that he didn't quite agree with Aria's assessment. The bard headed out of the common room, toward the hall that held the practice rooms.

Cass bustled into the room a few minutes later and put her hands on her hips as she looked down at her daughter and nephew. She'd figured that if Aria was there because Amaro was "really, really mad," Amaro likely had no idea that she'd left. "Aria Melissan-Ronoh. Does your father even know where you ARE?"

[Northen Light36]

Aria squirmed and ducked behind Spice. She was in big trouble now. "I don't think so Mummy," she admitted quietly and hastily added, "But we wanted to get you. Daddy got a letter bout Aunt Acqua and got really, really mad and he broke the dummy."

[Kender Bard]

"Sorry Aunt Cass," Spice murmured. "I mean, she's right, Uncle Amaro looks fit to stab someone or something. And I didn't think Mom and Dad could help 'cause they don't know what the problems is. Um, neither do I, really."

[Darastrix]

"And neither do I," Cass stated, drumming the fingers of her right hand against her hip. "But beating up one of his practice dummies is probably the best thing he can do." She was quiet for a moment, frowning as she stared off somewhere above Spice's head.

"I will try to find someone to teach my class today," Cass said to Spice. "Whether it turns out I can do anything or not, Amaro will be fit to bite a nail in two if he notices Aria's not where she's supposed to be." She pressed her lips together for a moment until the urge to explain how she didn't own her guild and really didn't need to be canceling on people who paid as much as they did for lessons had passed.

She waved one of the other bards over, a young woman with a dusting of freckles and a Wind sign over the bridge of her nose. "Let Eril know I'm delegating to him, probably for the rest of the day, and that my dancers need someone this afternoon."

"Yes'm." She started to the door, then paused to look back at the Maestra. "Uh, Eril's got a job all afternoon, doesn't he?"

Cass wrinkled her nose. Damn. "Then just run a message out to Nathan. If he's not busy with the baby, he can probably cover my class."

The bard nodded and headed instead for the guild's main entrance, brushing her sign and zipping off once she cleared the threshold.

"All right, you two," Cass said, pointing out the door. "Back to the merc guild." She hoped Amaro would be too caught up in whatever'd angered him in the first place to have noticed Aria was missing. An Amaro who was angry at whatever Acqua might have done or gotten herself into (again) was bad enough. An angry Amaro who'd realised his four-year-old daughter had left the guildhall...well, she would feel sorry for whichever of his mercenaries had been near the door.

[Northen Light36]

Aria looked reluctant to do so, but she knew she was already in trouble. Refusing to go back would just make both her parents angry, so, sighing, she troted back to the guild with Spice and her mother. She could hide behind one of them if her daddy was still scary angry.

Amaro hadn't noticed his daughter was missing - yet - but considering that the second dummy had just fallen to pieces as the group walked in and Amaro had worked out enough of his fury that he'd stopped to catch his breath (though he still looked fit to punch someone's face in for looking at him wrong), it wouldn't have been much longer before Aria had been missed. A couple of the mercs who'd been hanging around trying to decide if they should interfear or not shot Cass relieved looks and discretely disappeared.

"Daddy?" Aria said quietly.

Amaro looked over, saw his wife and the anger was replaced by surprise. "Cass? What are you doing here?"

[Darastrix]

"These two," Cass said, indicating Spice and Aria, "decided that your temper was something I needed to be informed of as soon as they could find me at the guild."

She could see the damage he'd already done to the practice dummies and was feeling both curious and concerned herself, but still. If she started giving the impression that she was needed every time someone or something made Amaro angry, she might as well join the mercenary guild herself for as much time as she'd end up spending there.

[Northen Light36]

Amaro raised an eyebrow at his daughter and nephew. "Aria, you left the guild?" he asks, his tone warning.

Aria frowns back at her father, her disapproving look an amusingly identical to her father's as she points at the broken dummies. "You were mad and broke them," she told him. "I was scared Daddy."

Amaro sighes. "Aria, I was upset, that's all. I didn't mean to frighten you, but kid, you can't run off every time I lose my temper. Cass has her own work to do and I'd be very worried if I couldn't find you." He pauses and shoots a sharp, disapproving look at Spice. "And Spice, at the very least you should know better then to go off with Aria. I've got enough to worry about thanks to Acqua without Aria disappearing as well."

[Kender Bard]

Spice swallowed hard and considered defending his position but thought better of it. He'd do that if Amaro tattled to his father. "Yes sir," he answered and glanced down, looking suitably chagrined.