Lyr, Rose, and... a Babysitter? (Kenkuroi)

[Lyr Tlansson]

Early Morning in the 3rd Brightening of Cryxatum, Summer of Era XIV Post Fractum

The light of the sun was not yet to be seen above the tall houses of the city and the last, laggard housewives were throwing out their last morning slops onto the street. For the runny-nosed apprentices of the city the brightening had started long before; for Lyr, it had started much too early.

"Feth. Feth. Feth." It came out as a near moan: the youth hadn't any more energy to produce any curses more inventive than the single word, over and over again, muttered in a soft monotone that didn't make any headway at all over the intermittant cries and sniveling sobs of the red-faced baby in his arms. He trudged through the streets of Imperia almost aimlessly, ignoring the peculiar looks he and his wriggling armload engendered, on occassion passing one hand aimlessly through his rumpled hair before dropping it once more at his side.

It had started the evening before, when Rose fussed at dinner - was Imperian milk and mush any different than that of Trysvale? - and, later, didn't fall asleep. Needless to say, she had made it entirely impossible for Lyr to fall asleep either. At most, they'd caught a candlemark - two - or troubled shut-eye; it didn't show in the bags under the vagaran's eyes, nor in the blotchy-red exhaustion of the child. They'd incurred the wrath of the innkeeper, his staff, and all the guests; when the innkeeper vengefully made reference to a nearby orphanage, Lyr beat a hasty retreat onto the streets.

He had had the vague idea that somebody could be found to take care of Rose. He'd had neighbors, servants, and love interests in Trysvale to furnish this space; in Imperia, he had neither, and was consequently at a loss as to how to deal with the problem. What did people do with children? Surely they didn't carry them around until they could be shooed off to schola? Did they have servants? But then where did one get servants? The last time Lyr had servants, they'd come with the Thanal mansion. He didn't even know where the Imperian thanal mansion was - if the place had one, anyway - and even if it did, he'd imagine that the posibility of 'borrowing' a servant there were slim to none.

So what now?

"Feth." The litany paused for a second as Lyr paused himself, looking around blurry eyed at an unfamiliar cross-roads and wondering which way to turn. "Feth."

[Kenkuroi Mithania]

Kenkuroi yawned sleepily. The brightening was still, to his standards very very early, and yes he wasn't technically awake yet. The only reason why he was up and about was simply because he needed to go to the outhouse.

Now just having done his business, the young half elf, half dragged half stumbled his way back to whichever cheap inn he had managed to bunk in for the darkening. All the way he was grumbling and complaining incessantly, about drinking too much the previous darkening, about why can’t taverns and inns be equipped with convenient toilets and bath places, about that son of a bitch dorin who kept banging the door while he relieved himself, that beggar who kept pestering for his money, that lousy baby crying its lungs out and its lousy parents for not quieting it…

Somewhere along those lines seemed strangely familiar....

He then heard a string of 'feths' by a strangely familiar voice, and as he turned in the direction of the voice, saw what he thought was a strangely familiar man and his strangely familiar bundle.

"Hmmm..... where have I seen you before?" Kenkuroi called out, his words slightly slurred. He yawned another time, and with one hand rubbed the sleep from his eyes while the other idly scratched his backside.

His red hair was in a mess as it was uncombed, but then again, it wasn't like he used to comb it anyway. His grey shirt was completely rumpled with its collar in a mess and the buttons buttoned partially and to the wrong hole. His trousers was crooked, with the left slightly pulled higher than the right, which was so low, it showed his underpants.

But before Lyr could answer, a sense of recognition finally dawned on him, his sluggish grey matter slowly stirring from sleep.

"Ho! It's you! That arsewipe with the crying baby! Seems like my curse worked!" Kenkuroi sneered, identifying Lyr as the man he had met during the camel incident, one of the first few people he had bumped into since he set foot in Imperia.

[Lyr Tlansson]

There was a rush of morning traffic on the streets, and it took Lyr some moments to even realize that somebody was talking to him. That somebody looked vaguely familiar, but all the native Jaedaxian could think of that this baby-faced half-elf was making fun of him.

In a series of depressing events that had begun all the way back in Trysvale and had continued to hound the youth since then, this was perhaps the lowest point of all. To be laughed at on the streets of Imperia while Rose yelled out her blessed little heart. How did he get here? What the feth was he doing? Hands balling into fists, Lyr would have hit the man right on his grinning mouth if his hands hadn't been otherwise occupied.

Jorel, but why had he deserved to be called an arsewipe with a sniveling baby by a... why, he'd heard that expression before! The slow processes of Lyr's brain that morning had only now come to the certain conclusion that he knew this misbegotten half-elf. Though for the life of him he couldn't place when or where he had seen him before... ah, the camel! The scene of a few brightenings ago came rushing back, in all of its confused glory, and the offense Lyr had felt at the time vaguely came back to him. The man had been able to do what Lyr clearly couldn't. Jorel, but the way he'd handled the baby he was no man at all, despite the smoothness of his chest. "Feth."

Lyr couldn't take it any more. Degradation be sent to aeternia, but of everything Lyr had ever experienced - riots in Jae, escaping out of town in the dark of night, apologizing to a woman, resigning his thaneship before the gloating eyes of Marcus Ecuas - this was one moment where Lyr's pride could not overcome the pain of his senses.

"Just do it again." He held the kicking Rose out toward the half-elf, speaking nevertheless in a normal tone of voice that did nothing to hide the exhausted defeat he radiated out of every pore. Borthanas was taking his vengeance on him, to be sure. Somewhere, the dragon-god must be gloating right about now.

[Kenkuroi Mithania]

"Do what?!" Kenkuroi replied indignantly, with a challenging ring to his tone. "Help you shut that thing up again like that brightening?" he continued, thrusting a finger at poor Rose to make clear what he meant by 'that thing'.

"...Or curse you again? Fine! May it cry for every half a candlema..." the half elf never got to finish his sentence as Lyr suddenly held the kicking baby forward like some weapon.

Talk about baby power..

It was a wonder that a thing so weak, helpless, fragile and innocent, the very sign of hope and a promise of the future, was one of the greatest adversary and obstacle to men everywhere regardless of race. For as poor Rose was thrust out kicking and screaming, the youngster, thinking that the man was using the baby to attack him was so taken aback, was actually afraid of the little flailing limbs that he recoiled so hastily, he tripped and fell on his back.

If Lyr has flashed a real weapon, the youth would no doubt countered by flashing his own weapon out of defense, would probably attack or counter attack, or simply better, yell for the guards. But what Lyr was wielding right now, was downright un-counterable.... well at least by any civil minded person.

"What the...!? What were you....By Phedos what kind of MOTHER are you! I'm surprised that that poor kid isn't dead in your hands yet!" Kenkuroi exclaimed, half in anger, half still in shock as he gazed up at the man and the baby, his expression conveying his emotions.

[Lyr Tlansson]

On any other brightening, under any other circumstances, Lyr would have burst out laughing when the half-elf fell on his back in his efforts to get away from the flailing baby. Not this brightening, and not now, however; now, he reflected with bitterness that, after all, he wasn't alone in his feeling of terror at sight of a crying child. Feth, what did people expect him to do about it? Did they think he'd wanted a child - did they think he'd ever dreamt that the fool whore at the Naked Orc in would let herself get pregnant - and not just let herself get pregnant, but pregnant with his child? Borthanas! If that's what people thought, then people were stark raving crazy.

And then, to be yelled at for mistreatment when the fething mother herself had abandoned the poor kid, leaving him to Lyr instead of dealing with her herself as any decent mother was supposed to? Not that she could have been decent, given her profession; nontheless, couldn't she have done something else... anything else? Lyr had spent an era thinking the problem over, and he still couldn't see why this had happened to him. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. It simply didn't make sense - and yet it was.

"I fething am not her mother!" He yelled at the top of his lungs, strung to the highest register of anger by the half-elf's words. "What the feth about me makes you think I'm her fething mother! I'm her father, may aeternia take you, and Haya only knows if that's the truth anyway! I wish to Jorel her mother had never bore her. Now will you fething shut her up or will you not?"

It was mean and it was unjust - maybe Kenkuroi was right, Lyr was a terrible, terrible travesty of a parent. He certainly didn't deal with crying very well, and that was the truth if ever there was any. But he'd taken her in when her own mother wouldn't; he remembered his own childhood, and wished fondly for a better life for Rose; he did his fething best, and if his fething best was truly awful, then who was to blame for that but whatever god had made him the way he was?

[Kenkuroi Mithania]

Kenkuroi could see and hear that his insult of calling the man 'mother' or perhaps any reference to being female, has clearly poked a sensitive button somewhere. By normal standards, he would be leering, having found leverage in the 'war-of-unfriendly-verbal-exchanges', but not now..... not around a crying baby whose screams and wails seemed loud enough to wake the entire Imperia both living and dead. And now all thanks to Lyr's yelling, the baby's cries, if it was any possible, got even louder.

"Yea, yea! It was just a figure of speech, no need to add to the noise!" the half elf growled in reply as he picked himself up after scrambling a good distance away from the dangerous flailing 'weapon'.

At Lyr's last sentence however, the young boy merely stared at Lyr's and his wriggling bundle, his blue-grey eyes seemingly cold and heartless, further enhanced by its natural sharp and piercing looks. It was as if the most absurd thing he had ever heard...... Why should he be any responsible for the poor thing? Because of the 'curse'?....What the feth?

"Stuff it with a cigarette, it works," Kenkuroi retorted and turned away, clearly rejecting Lyr's request or more like demand. The mere mention and thought of cigarette itched his throat, and mere seconds later already he had stuffed himself with a tobacco stick in between his lips, tinderbox ready to light it.

But as he was prepared to leave, some of Lyr's words kept drumming on his thoughts.... "I wish to Jorel her mother had never bore her.."

It reminded him of someone who had uttered a similar phrase.... "I wish to Jorel I had never bore you..."

His mother.

The very thought of it made him clench his teeth and fist. Yes, of course he was angry at those words, but he wasn't angry in a way that was bore out of hatred, just simple annoyance and the unability to hold a temper. For despite saying that, she kept her words to the very end. She raised him, fed and clothed him, pampered him in some way, and when the time came she delivered him to his father, just as she had agreed to do. She was a terrible mother despite being a woman, maybe even more then Lyr if that was any consolation to the poor man. But she was a great sister, or perhaps more accurately, a big brother.... one who's always bossy, bullying and annoying, but after a fight will always try to make up for it by giving toys, extra nice food, maybe a fishing trip....

He sighed. The scenario of that man, this woman mentioned and that baby seemed to bear an uncanny resemblence to his own, except the situation of the parent was reversed.

"Alright ... alright..." Kenkuroi snapped as he turned back towards Lyr and approached them with both his arms extended to receive the crying baby.

[Lyr Tlansson]

Lyr had no idea why the half-elf turned around and came back, but for some mysterious reason he couldn't decypher it made him insanely happy. Almost happier than when he'd kissed Lynessa, and very much happier than when the Trysfalian crowd cheered his thanal ascension speech. Maybe that was also a symbol of his messed up priorities - but it was true, nonetheless, and the youth wasn't about to argue when he handed off the bundle of kicking Rose off to the other man.

"Feth." He repeated yet again, rubbing his eyes and feeling both the literal and emotional burden lift from his shoulders. It was good. It was good. Better than Lyr had felt in many a brightening, and he grasped onto the feeling with all the remaining power of his will, blindly, without thought or care as to what this meant for himself, for Rose, or for the half-elf whose name he didn't even know.

All potential anger at the other man's curses fell away and all Lyr felt was grateful as he looked at the pale young half-elf holding his child. He'd sworn once to do his best by Rose - his very best, better than his unknown father had done him, better than his mother had done him, better even than Khulan, the old Nimalni who had raised him, had done. Those had been high aspirations - too high, perhaps, as reality closed in and constrained Lyr to the dictates of his very fallible human nature. He decided right then and there that what was best for Rose was this half-elf. He clearly knew how to deal with babies - so it couldn't be any effort to him to deal with Rose, right? "I'll buy you a drink?" Lyr asked hopefully, amazingly enough willing to shell out a few crowns (not that crowns were of any immediate concern to him, considering how many he'd taken away from Trysvale, but still the frugality of his nature was too inbred to be dismissed lightly) for - for Rose's benefit, of course.

[Kenkuroi Mithania]

Kenkuroi received the screaming, wriggling baby from her desperate parent, and as the burden lift off of the grateful man, it seemed to transfer to the other, younger male. A look of anxiety mixed with annoyance with a dash of impatience and hopelessness settled on the fine features of the half elf as Rose got even more relentless and ruthless than before. Any experienced mother (or parent) would of course tell that poor Rose wanted attention to whatever was making her unhappy rather than being passed around like a bundle of used laundry. But alas, poor Rose was in the company of a bunch of males with liberty, one a young man in the prime of his manhood, who seemed like your typical young, good looking, successful, virile, high spirited male, a wild mustang (well, probably….. ), the other, a young boy who just reached puberty an era or two back and possibly still in the progress of growing enough pubic hair.

"Chooo, chooo choooo chooo," the young half elf used the same trick he remembered doing a few brightening before, when he first met Lyr and his baby, where he accidentally took hold of Rose and actually successfully pacified her. Just as before, he bounced the baby gently, hugging her close to his chest.

Rose seemed to lower down the decibels of her screams, but was still crying nevertheless, somehow either being smart enough to not fall for the same trick or was simply not satisfied just being cooed. Since that wasn’t working, Kenkuroi tried the other trick, grabbing her attention with his smoking pipe that hung from his neck and hidden beneath his shirt (or would be hidden if said shirt was buttoned properly). Pinching the string fastened to the smoking pipe, he dangled it above the baby, swinging it gently in a rotating manner in hopes it would catch her attention and persuade her from crying further.

Rose gently slowed down to sobs as she got fixated on the weird object, her earlier 'dangerous' flailing arms now reaching out to curiously to grasp it. But just as both Lyr and Ken could breathe a sigh of relief, Rose flew into her tantrum again. With a loud, high pitched wail she flailed wildly at the pipe, wriggled even more giving Kenkuroi a hard time trying to cuddle her securely yet not hard enough to hurt her. And in what could be Rose’s final act of defiance, reached out, snatched the cigarette from in between the half elf’s mouth and threw it to the ground.

"Uwaaaaaaaaah!!" Rose wailed loudly.

"NOOOOOOoooooo!!" Kenkuroi wailed even louder as he was sent scurrying for his rolled tobacco and in the progress very very nearly dropped Rose.

"My precious!" he sobbed as he picked up the bent cigarette. "Bad bad BAD baby! Bad baby!" Kenkuroi growled loudly and proceeded to actually gently slapped the baby’s hand, not caring about Lyr’s presence and position as the parent of the kid. Of course such an act only served to make Rose resumed her cries in its original volume.

Channeling his anger to Lyr, he bellowed at the man, "A drink?! You owe me TEN barrels of ale for this … this thing you’re asking me to do! Look at my cigarette! And there’s something obviously wrong with your baby you orc brain! Did you forget to feed it? Did you change its diapers? Did you wash the diapers? Did you make it burp! And what the feth is this? Boy or girl?"

Not waiting for an answer to his last question, he proceeded to try tugged the baby’s diapers in a bid to peek at its genitals and also to check how bad a case Rose’s diaper rash was.

[Lyr Tlansson]

Lyr was about to breathe a contented sigh of relief when Rose began screaming again and Kenkuroi's cigarette flew like a little white bird from his mouth to the ground. Since it wasn't him on that end, the youth coulldn't help but snort in laughter at the young half-elf's antics at the loss of his smoking mouth-piece; Lyr himself had never taken to smoking, either because drink had always seemed somehow easier or because he associated pipes with the stooped and withered old Nimâlni who used to come visit his surrogate father at the meat-shop.

"How the feth should I know!" He replied to the youth's series of questions, a bit miffed and a bit exasperated that, apparently, the young man had exhausted his genius in cooing. But there was also just a twinge of fear that the half-elf would drop Rose and leave - the exchange was still new enough that Lyr felt the real horror of that possibility - and so he complied to the tone of the questions.

"I tried to feed her a few candlemarks ago, but she - Rose - didn't want... blast it! Diapers!" Lyr hated diapers. With a passion only Haya could rival. Kenkuroi doubtless found everything he wanted to know about poor Rose's affliction by shifting them... and, of course, that "it" was a girl.

ooc: yes of course, feel very free to npc her.

[Kenkuroi Mithania]

As Kenkuroi peeked into Rose's diapers, lo behold was it revealed! The secret to ..... everything about crying babies..... and also the baby's gender of course.

What could have probably been simply diagnosed in like a few candle flickers by physically feeling around for a loaded diaper, it took nearly half a candlemark for this two males to finally know the reason why poor Rose was so distressed. Actually for Lyr's case, it was candlemarks...

No doubt Lyr's 'habit' of infrequently changing Rose diapers have also left a case of Nappy or Diaper Rash, evidently seen by Rose's glowing red bottom. If Lyr wanted the answer to why Rose was being so troublesome, it apparently wasn't the half elf's curses but what was being waved in his face now.

Hefting Rose over a shoulder, the half elf peeled Rose's diapers with a free hand further down, and lifted her towards the much taller Lyr so he got full view of the problem; Wet diaper and a developing rash.

"I'll be damned if she crap her diapers and you couldn't even smell it!" Kenkuroi growled.

"Don't be like my ma! Her idea of changing a wet diaper is by covering it with a dry diaper! If you're alike her I will so kick you in the nuts! Now do you even have diapers? If you don't I'm going to kick you in the nuts twice, one for each if you even remembered to carry both!!" the bad mouthed half elf continued berating the young man.

"Also thanks to you, she's developed a rash.... we have to go find a herbalist. I recall they have something for things like this, do you know where the herbalist in this place is?"

[Lyr Tlansson]

Lyr was getting a headache from all the confusion, the yelling, and the mess. Jorel. It felt like Telath had been turned upside down and given a good shake - an unknown youth of shaddy, too-raw-to-be-out-of-diapers looks, and elven at that, smoking and telling Lyr that his child had a case of the diaper rash?

"Jorel." He didn't even know the blasted spawn of Phedos' name. And yet, mysteriously enough, Lyr found himself once again obeying the young elf's words - had he a spell on him, or something? "Feth if I know, I only got to this Haya-crazed town a brightening ago... feth."

He looked around at the small street-corner on which this whole show was being played out, in a helpful manner, as he a herbalist was just going to conveniently pop up from one of the surrounding windows. The look-see, of course, produced nothing of the sort. Lyr shifted his shoulders somewhat helplessly, and only by the concurrent push-and-pull of the knapsack on his back did he remember that the elf had asked if he had Rose's supplies with him.

That, fortunately, he had, though he was running rather low on diapers too, having not had time the previous brightening to find a place where he could ressuply himself. Swinging the pack onto the ground, Lyr unclasped the top and began riffling through the goods inside - that is, through all of those things which he hadn't wanted to leave in his room at the inn... which meant, of course, nearly everything. Out came his visa, his rich cloak, bank certificates, the wrinkled deed to his old house in Trysvale, which he hadn't thought to sell when he left and was probably not worth more than a sneeze at this point anyway; out came an old flask without its top, a piece of hard soap - and, finally, Rose's things: a worn blanket wrapped around two extra diapers and a bottle with a soft tip.

Lyr picked up a diaper and held it out to the elf, as if expecting the youth to sit down and change Rose's diaper right in the middle of the very public street. But it sort of fit into the whole topsy-turvy world in which the vagaran felt he had landed. "Here.... feth!" Some sense of normalcy got jumbled up in Lyr's currently topsy-turvy world, and he realized that he'd pretty much laid out all his private affairs - or not so private, but still - for all of Imperia to see... and to steal.

Feeling his head begin to really pound, Lyr bent and began shoving everything back into the knapsack, for a moment without further regard to whether the elf was going to take the proferred diaper or not. "Feth! And - and - feth, what by Jorel's pants is your fething name?" He latched on to the last vestiges of his sanity as his natural, inbred and ingrained suspicions rose to the fore of his consciousness. The nature of the child-streetrat and Jaedaxian protester was what Lyr had never quite escaped, and what he finally reverted back to now, when all of the other superseding methods of identification had been divested from him: no longer thane, no longer in Trysvale, no longer panting after a beautiful woman, no longer even a father, now that the elf had taken Rose in his arms: what was Lyr, now, the substantially-built scruffy-looking youth standing in the midst of a foreign city with a bag full of odds and ends, an expensive sword at his side he didn't really know how to use, looking at another young man holding a child which he thought was his, but could never really be sure in his own mind was? Who, in aetheria's name, was Lyr?

...Who, in aeternia's name, was this elf?

[Kenkuroi Mithania]

"Well looks like I don't have to kick you in the nuts after all heh," Kenkuroi sneered with an amused look on his face as he watched Lyr who was emptying the contents of his bag onto Imperia's filthy streets. Contrasting with the sarcasm in his tone there was somehow a little disappointment laced in it when Lyr successfully produced a diaper, as if the half elf lost a good reason to really kick the human male's crotch.

The half elf took it, the small bundle of white linen or was it cotton? Which of course could not be placed instantly on Rose unless they decide to change the diaper, Ken’s mother’s style, which in short ... is terrible. Removing a diaper was simple, putting it on not so simple and therein lies the challenge for any parent doing a diaper change.

However apart from the diaper, the contents of Lyr's bag caught the young, curious boy's attention, not that he had any desire to possess it for his own. The cloak and the visa held no interest to him, the bank certificates.... well he had no idea what were those but they looked boring with no apparent value, the lidless flask.... now why would Lyr be keeping that useless thing? The soap.... interesting, what fragrance could it be? But the thing that caught his eye the most was the house deed.... and he would have scooped it up to inspect it more clearly had he not had his hands full with diapers and a poor sobbing Rose.

He watched Lyr repack his stuff while mumbling some curses and shooting it off as a question. Since both of them had mouths as clean as sewer and are currently down the crap hole, whether this can be claimed as the thing in common they shared that could pass off as some form of male bonding between the two, Ken interpreted the curses as 'serale, how do you do, may I know your name?' to which he replied rather off question, "You're from Tyrsvale? I know that place, been there once. Some peaceful farming village with nasty farmers. By the way I'm Kenkuroi... from Silrosia. And who the feth are you?"

[Lyr Tlansson]

"Fething farmers," Lyr found himself agreeing - apparently cursing was not the only thing the two youths had in common. But Lyr honestly wasn't thinking too much of that; Kenkuroi's words had set off a confused jumble of thoughts, emotions, and memories which Lyr had tried hard not to think about for the past few months and - until he'd set foot on hard land some brightenings ago - had for the most part succeeded.

"Nasty, that's not covering a single asses' tail! Borthanas, I'm glad they - Blueblossom - feth, a bunch of backstabbing numbsculls, that's what I think of farmers; just give me a farmer, I'll run him into Archaxetas, may the insects rip his head off! I'm telling you -" Lyr stuck an imphasizing finger at Ken - [b]"stay away from the lot of them. I thought it was a great place to get away from the... well, to get away; they take me in, make me their thane, and then what? 'No, Mr. Tlansson, we never got that paperwork' - 'no, Lord Thane, you didn't do anything, you just authorized it!' - 'no, Sir, bust your balls but you won't get even a scratch on the back all the same!'" Visions of Iris, of Marcus, of Lynessa all floated in his mind, vengefully struck down by a lightning bolt from Aslan - or now, even better, relegated to Turtas for eternal torment. And may they wish they had the change back again to make it right with him - Lyr'd hate them all anyway!

"The name's Lyr - Lyr Tlansson, I suppose, no fancy-pansy titles necessary anymore." The youth smirked bitterly. He'd run on at the mouth a bit, he realized, and without much provocation; furthermore, he'd probably told Kenkuroi more than the elf ever wanted to know about Lyr's past life in Trysvale; still, the man was helping him with Rose. For now. Unless he was planning on backstabbing too - but then, Lyr hardly knew anybody who would go back on a rich man... "At least I've got enough to get the kid a nurse who'll keep her quiet, I suppose." It came out, like the rest of it, without Lyr having exactly planned to say it - but it was true. By his own estimation, Lyr was hardly the pauper he'd been when he walked in to the small village on the northern Carmelyn peninsula.

[Kenkuroi Mithania]

Kenkuroi's eyes widened up as Lyr told.... revealed..... his tale, and a rather interesting tale too. There was a distinct shine in the half elf's eyes, the way it slowly opened up from his angry, furrowed, narrowed slit, like some morning glory while the fiery ball in the sky slowly creep above the horizon, at the mere mention of Thane, Mr. Tlansson, Lord Thane...... it was a glimmer of interest, a hint of desire, or a sparkle of tears perhaps more likely.

"You ... uh....you were...uh..... Thane?!" Ken found himself choking. As if for reassurance, his eyes roamed the other male across him from head to toe and back to head. This time he was couldn't hold it in...

"BO! HUR! HUR! HUR! HUR! HUR!" Ken let go a good big belly laughter, paused, and let go another one, pause to catch breath, continued.... the 'sparkle' in his eyes rolling down his cheeks. And it continued for awhile, a good while before Ken realized he was out of breath and quite believed he had ripped his guts out laughing.

"Aheh... huh..huh ....hehe... they must have had their nuts for their sockets to get someone like you as thane heh, you who can't even change diapers! Feth that's a good one.... who? Lyr? Feth I like you!" the half elf, still trying to get his breath back while wrestling with little hiccups of laughter, patted Lyr at the back, diaper still in hand, but in genuine affection nevertheless.

But just as they were about to get all comfy with their 'male bonding', Rose who wanted no part of it decided enough is enough, and pitifully she squeaked to get the men's attention.... squeak, as the poor babe has been crying all brightening (and possibly all darkening from the looks of it), her energy's drained, and soon the voice vocals too if they didn't do *something* soon.

"We should go somewhere... to change her...." suggested Ken who had some sense of motherly instincts even if it was just a pinch as he hugged her againts his smooth chest, trying to sooth her frazzled nerves.

[Lyr Tlansson]

What was so funny? Lyr could have expected many things - this elf wasn't the most predictable of creatures, to say the last - but laughter... he must be touched in the head. Brain-fever, of something. The vagaran looked at the elf somewhat pityingly. For surely Kenkuroi couldn't be laughing at him! There was nothing there to laugh at, to be sure: Lyr was as good a citizen as any, as smart a citizen as any, as worthy a man as... feth, he'd danced with the queen once! "Being thane has absolutely nothing to do with changing diapers," he replied, slinging his pack back onto his shoulders. "Otherwise I'd be a mess at it, and who'd be to blame? That's woman's work."

He glanced at Rose, who was still wriggling in discomfort, but clearly liked her current position better than that she had been in up until the last few minutes. Yes, this elf was definitely softened from brain-fever or some such sickness - either that or it was true what the Nimâlni said, that the light elves were pansies and weak. Out of sheer pity, the Jaedaxian youth didn't voice the thought but merely took a look around to see whether there was any promising-looking storefront, as Kenkuroi had suggested. It was still quite early in the brightening, but a number of them had already opened and the street was notably more crowded than it had been when the two had bumped into one another. Off to one side, so small that it was hardly a wonder that neither of the two had noticed before, a banner hanging over a smallish booth proclaimed to all and sundry that Kerwin sold healing herbs and remedies. It didn't seem to be much in use, and the countertop, Lyr's spotty experience decided, was as good as anything for a change of babywear.

"How about that? Might even have some of that... what was it... powder?" Lyr stuck his scruff-lined chin out in the direction of the booth and then followed his own advice by approaching a bit closer, peer behind the banner to discern it's occupant...

continuing here.