'Just the one today, Buscarron, I'm running behind,' the weary Lalafellin lancer sighed as she perched a leather satchel on the barstool next to her.
'Let me guess... more antelope horns? Mumuse, at this rate there'll not be a single stag left in the Shroud by the time yer through.' Buscarron's faux indignation quickly gave way to a wry smile at the appearance of his favourite barfly.
'You want to tell my boss that yourself? Besides, drowning my guilt's the only reason I stop by the Druthers these days. Gods know I don't come here for your ugly mug.' Mumuse chuckles to the grizzled proprietor as he sets a tankard of faerie apple cider before her. She eagerly clasps the cup, only to find Buscarron's hand still firmly wrapped around it.

'Mumuse, ye know how honoured I am to serve the Warrior of Light's foremost retainer, but we all have to pay our way and it's been two moons now.' Mumuse's nose wrinkles, but she nevertheless reaches into her pocket and produces a fistful of ventures, allowing them to skitter across the bar.
'You know, you're a lot less fun sober,' Mumuse laments as Buscarron makes a show of counting out his twenty-three owed ventures, beaming all the while. Once the tally is done he relinquishes the tankard.
'Aye, and I'm a lot less broke sober too. Anyhow, enough talk of debt and duty, how is yer trusty employer keeping?' At that, Mumuse drains half the tankard and sets it back down before her, drawing a deep and satisfying breath. She meets Buscarron's gaze and draws his eye to the satchel beside her.

'Well, he's still adamant his slapdash carpentry merits as much of his attention as slaying Primals. Can you believe he's more proud of the quality of his wood carvings than he is of killing a giant whale from atop a flying boulder?' Mumuse returns to her cider before continuing, enjoying Buscarron's undivided attention. 'All the while I've been out making the antelope an endangered species he's had Y'subri felling half the Shroud.'
'If I've told ye once,' Buscarron shrugs, 'I've told ye a thousand times, yer wasting yer time trying to understand the mind of a 'venturer, least of all the Warrior of Light. Ye've more chance of winning the Cactpot than ye have of making sense of what goes on in his head. So long as he's got you to make sure he doesn't trade his axe in fer an awl fer good, I can at least sleep a little easier at night.'

Around halfway through Buscarron's counsel, Mumuse had reached the bottom of her tankard and by the time he was through talking she had her satchel slung over her shoulder and was making for the alehouse's door. Before making her way out into the cool evening air, she turns to bid Buscarron farewell. 'If I'm so crucial to your beauty sleep, you might consider giving me a drink on the house from time to time.'
'I'm sure I could stretch to one o' me ciders fer free. How does this time tomorrow sound?'
'Sounds perfect. Of course that's assuming there are any antelope left this side of Amdapor by tomorrow,' Mumuse ruefully jokes as she begins she walk back to Gridania, heartened as always by her time at the Druthers.

Character: Waughlin J'arth
World: Coeurl
Choice: Ahriman Choker