>Nothing shady. When we come to power, we're gonna have to fix our guild's rep.
>"Thanks."
>And in the meantime, we can regale Soldier A here with the tale of Nazrin vs. Cirno and the meeting of the young Honeysuckle. So let's do that. If she's still interested.
>To be perfectly fair, you can see where she's coming from and her tone seemed light-hearted enough - probably meant more to suggest you weren't bringing some kind of serious issue to their door rather than being dishonest. Oh, if they only knew...
>"No problem at all," she replies cheerfully.
>You use the next few minutes to recount the tale the guard asked about earlier. You're actually getting rather practiced at retelling this story by now, so many times has it come up. You wonder dryly if it's bad for your fledgling reputation to keep talking about how a fairy gave you serious trouble in a fight;
you know how uncommonly strong she was, but the picture it paints in others' imagination might be far more embarrassing than the truth. You yourself would probably have thought it rather pathetic if you hadn't actually lived through it. You attempt to slide smoothly past some of these details without ever being
quite dishonest. The guard is still highly amused by the caper, and is in the middle of another peal of laughter when footsteps approach from the left.
>"Hard at work," comes a dry voice from just beyond your sight lines.
>"Yes, sir," the guard replies without really bothering to stifle her mirth. "Exercise for the lungs, sir."
>Without offering further comment, a short red-headed girl crosses into view and looks out at you with cynical eyes. She is wearing much the same uniform as the still-chuckling guard, though with a bright red cape atop it all; the collar is high enough to conceal her mouth almost totally, though you can imagine nothing by a thin flat line to match her jaded expression.
>"Since Chuckles over there is so busy," she says flatly, "how about
you tell me why you're here."
