Pursuit of the Sun 1.2

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Cassius felt no awkwardness at all. And any awkwardness on Amalia's part is her own problem. 
 

And it should have been, because while everyone else was resting at the tavern in heartfelt brotherly get-togethers, Cassius, playing the special snowflake, broke away from the company, and now just as demonstratively heads in the opposite direction from the rest.
-- This is like an illustration of where the noble ones are and where we are, -- passing Cassius, Rainulf muttered. 
-- And thank the Void for that -- I wouldn't want to live my life with such a sour face... Better to be a beggar hobo than such a titled recluse.
-- For real, what's the point of money and lineage if you live like a lone owl?

The fighters take a large elite room -- it was decided that three champions would chip in for the rent, the bathhouse attendants, and other amenities for rest. The bathhouse attendants fuss about with birch brooms, the girls dance lewd dances, the bard skillfully combines playing with downing beer, while the fighters occupy the tubs and, with a woman across from them and beer in hand, start swapping various tales.
Sigebar tells how in his youth his father sold him to the northerners.
-- I hold no grudge against my old man, -- he explains, in response to the sympathetic sigh of the girl keeping him company. -- It's far better than dying of hunger -- and how many of us were in the family?.. A lot, in short, you couldn't feed such a brood. I was about fourteen, northerners at that age already go on their first raid, and to my mind, there's something to it: if someone is of no use in adolescence, will they be in adulthood? Let them die right away, and not waste food. That's when I had to learn to fight -- when almost every outcast has a knife at his belt but no crust of bread for supper, keeping your ration is no easy task. The masters watch the slaves tear at each other and amuse themselves. Such people -- if they don't cut each other up themselves, they at least need to watch how others do it.
-- At least that's honest, -- Dail objects. -- Still better than the Silentium arenas, where rich fat cats watch from a bird's-eye view as people butcher each other trying to earn a few coins. 
-- Agreed. The northerners, albeit in their own way, respect strength -- the Silentium folk merely buy it. Sometimes that respect takes the form of a knife in the back -- until you cross someone's path. Other times it's a chance to be noticed by the right people.
-- Just like with us, right? -- Hans, now completely relaxed and feeling among equals, nods to Hargen.
-- Like everywhere. Only there the right people say it outright -- now we put you on the oars, hand you an axe, and once you and your kind get us to shore -- you go in the front ranks. And if you survive -- you'll get to do it all again, because you'll definitely like it.
-- Did you like it? 
-- Very much. I don't even know what more -- a week at the oars or when you charge into arrows and spears first and go last to the division of spoils: here, take what's beneath us. And somehow you still want to go back, even though it would seem -- the further you go, the higher the chance you'll be killed in a raid, capsized by a storm, or attacked by a sea monster. There was this one islet, not far from the eastern shore -- they said an exiled northern chieftain buried a treasure there. My second voyage, we tried to sail there -- only a measly five hundred meters left when a sea monster attacked. Such a creature... Slimy, vile, huge, with no fewer than a dozen tentacles -- not to be mentioned in the presence of ladies -- strength enough to punch through ship planks with ease. We all piled on it with our oars, drove it off by a miracle. I was sure I'd die that day -- the ship's bottom was breached, half the crew dead, but it wasn't even death that scared me -- worse was the thought that there could be many such creatures out there. Somehow we made it back, plugging the holes with our own backsides, praying to all the gods to let us survive and to the Void -- to die quickly and without pain.
Sigebar downs his mug of beer in one gulp, shuddering whether from the alcohol or the memories.

Almost forgot: Sandar, Cassius +1 OU for unarmed combat, Hargen +2

Added 10 minutes later
Cassius successfully makes it to the tavern, where Odenat, Byson, Glenn, and Rigobert have already evicted the shady characters from the far corner and taken their place. Does that mean the shady characters in the corner are now them?
-- Found us a spot, even better than I thought -- Rigobert, despite the good news, looks tired and somewhat irritated, his eyes darting from side to side, as if looking for something or someone to sink his teeth into. -- It's all handled, the bald one won't bother us. 

Added 3 minutes later

- What do you got down there in the slums, some kind of menagerie? You lot can't keep yourselves in check at all? The slightest thing and it's "chaos, storm, madness"? If I flew into a fight over the slightest scuffle, there'd be no slums left at all. Everything would lie in coals and ashes...
- And what, you can summon storms and chaos too?
- And why would you "catch a beating"? You're supposed to be the authority among the outcasts. You said so yourself...

-- I can, but only in the souls of little people -- that's far scarier... This is a decent, well, more decent society than the slums, but it doesn't make it any easier for me -- if I run into the offended wife of one of my, hmm, "victims" here -- they'll most likely try to scratch my eyes out.