"His friend Ehlissa undoubtedly hasn't," Keoghtom said.
"I have just the one," Heward said. "A good, rousing tale, but fit
for mixed company."
"Very im****tant," Keoghtom interjected, to which Murlynd nodded his
approva
l.
"Humm…umm…" Heward began, "how did it begin now? Oh yes! It was your
idea, Murlynd, to see how the Green Dragon Inn acquired such exotic
potables."
"No, it was Keoghtom's!" Murlynd shot back, but was laughing as he did
so.
"No, it was definitely you who suggested it," Keoghtom said. "I only
suggested we create a diversion to keep people from the tap room."
"Fine, fine, but that comes later anyway," Heward said, slightly
irritated. "We were sitting in the Green Dragon Inn and I had just
had drank sasparilla for the first time and I ask these two, 'What is
this stuff? Have you ever heard of it before?' And they say no, and
I'd never heard of it before."
"No one had heard of it before!" Murlynd interjected. "It didn't
exist!"
"And yet they had it there, right?" Heward asked.
"Sing them the drinking song you made up about sasparilla," Keoghtom
joked.
"No! Now, stop interrupting," Heward said, somewhat crossly. "Now, I
had happened to have a spell handy for detecting magic at the time…"
Ehlissa listened attentively as Heward continued to start and stop his
tale, with the others alternating between helping and hindering the
telling. The trouble was, Ehlissa could barely understand the story
and missed laughing along with the others, including Tenser, at most
of the parts they thought were funny. More im****tantly, not a bit of
it sounded particularly adventurous to her, or at least not how she
had always envisioned a life of adventure.
That night, back home, Ehlissa wanted to talk to Johydee about her
disappointment, but when she came into Johydee's room, her sister was
singing gaily to herself while she brushed her hair in front of the
mirror.
"Isn't life wonderful?" Johydee asked in mid-song.
Ehlissa did not think so and glumly denied it was so.
Johydee whirled around on her stool and scolded Ehlissa with a shake
of her hairbrush. "Now don't you talk like that!" she said with mock
seriousness. "It was for you that I saw Welmer in the first place. I
just had no idea how wonderful he could be.
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