“Mmmmm….” Raile groaned, turning over in his bed. They had finally arrived in Abed late the night before, and at least Raile had not completely sobered up from their drinking binge while the airship had been stranded in the Nyella. The merchant barely remembered what had happened after they had docked, but he was sure that they had made it to an Inn with little problem. After all, it was a fairly comfortable pillow that he was laying on, and there was definitely a blanket wrapped around him.

He yawned, which caused a pain to shoot through his head. Ah hell… It was definitely a hangover. But t least the bed was comfortable. He opened his eyes slowly. Hm…? There’s a pretty woman sleeping next to me. Surely enough, there was a pretty girl with flowing red hair sleeping next to him, dressed in a gorgeous, lace nightgown that left little to the imagination. Oh right…it’s just Leilah.

It took a moment, and then it clicked. Turning a bright red, he flipped himself over, turning the other way. Oh…oh no, A beautiful blonde was sleeping on the other side. Unlike Leilah, she was completely naked. Both of them seemed to still be asleep from the airship antics that happened the night before.

Just how much did I drink!? he cried internally. It was all starting to come back to him. The crash landing, the poker game…. He mind wandered for a moment to the events afterwards. Apparently, even after the first few rounds, they had continued to drink and be merry until finally the airship was fixed, and finished its route to Abed.

By the Gods…this is a mess I’ve gotten myself into….Why do I have to be so damned good at poker!?

Leilah was wrapped tightly around his arm as Raile laid beside her. Her head rested gently against his arm and every once in a while she would snuggle closer but the movement was soft and barely noticeable. Kalina was yawning and she turned her head to look at the two of them. She normally slept with her back to them since she slept naked. “Tsk…”

The redhead twin opened her eyes for a moment and let out a yawn as she snuggled her face into his neck now. “Good morning Raile,” Leilah sounded cheerful as she squeezed his arm more into her hug. “Did you sleep okay?” But she was still sleepy as she closed her seafoam eyes.

“You look like you are suffocating him.” Kalina rolled just a bit to extend a leg over Raile and kick her younger twin off the bed.

“Ow…” Leilah popped back up and stared at her sister. “That wasn’t nice…” She sounded so sleepy as she rubbed her eyes and climbed back on the bed.

“Don’t suffocate Raile… Alright?” Kalina pushed herself out of bed and got dressed as she left without another word.

“Okay…” Leilah tilted her head more as she wrapped herself back up around the merchant this time with more care. “I’m not ready to get up yet… Is this okay?” Her eyes floated up to his eyes as she thought about it. “Or do you want to get up as well?” Her voice was softer than her sister’s voice as she thought about it. Maybe he wanted to disappear with Kalina.

Raile felt as though he was caught between a rock and a hard place with the twins. It was strange, though, that neither of the two of them seemed to care that Raile was between them. If anything, it seemed as though it were normal. As Kalina skillfully kicked her sister off the bed, Raile couldn’t help but be impressed with her dexterity.

But you know about that already, don’t you? his brain reminded him. He flushed as Kalina stood up and dressed without a word. The merchant couldn’t tell if the woman was being stubborn and an ass, or her usual self. Either way, Raile was worried that she might think less of him after their little bender.

It was obvious that Leilah didn’t care though, as she climbed right back into bed and latched herself to Raile. He flushed, but stayed still for her for a moment. “I mean, it would be nice…but we have things to do, Leilah. We’re already behind…” He looked at her, and her soft features.

“Fine. Five more minutes,” he said with a soft tone. “Then we have to get going, okay?” He wrapped his own arm around her, and smirked. “You two are so different from each other it’s hard to believe you’re even related, you know…”

Raile prodded Leilah to get out of bed but the half-elf only popped an eye open to peek at him lazily. He was eyeing her just as he did the night before and it didn’t bother her as much as it had before the poker game. His tone got soft with her as he gave in and she closed her eye once more. “Okay. Five minutes.” She scooted in as his arm went around her and she snuggled in her head into his shoulder and neck.

Though once he made his statement she popped her eyes open just a bit and moved her head to look at him. “We get that a lot but Kali has always been a bit more on the rough side than I am. She’s the stronger of the two of us and she makes it known a lot of the time. She doesn’t mean anything by her bad behavior though. She’s probably a big softie on the inside once in a while though I can never tell with her… Even being her twin.”

Her arm lazily went over Raile’s waist as they laid there in the bed together. “She prefers to be up early and moving… Always busy. I don’t think she knows the word relax very well. In a lot of ways we’re opposites.” Though that seemed to make her blush as she remembered the night before. A big yawn left her lips as she nuzzled her forehead into his neck once more her eyes closing. “She has always been a pain in the ass as well but you get used to it after a while.”

The realization hit her that the job in Abed had to do with herself and Leilah shot up just a bit to look down at Raile. “So this job… I am the one completing it right? You said it was a potion?”

Despite saying five more minutes, it seemed as though Leilah had decided to sit up suddenly, which caused Raile to groan and roll over. He had almost fallen back asleep, and it took him a yawn and an unusually long stretch for him to sit up. With a second yawn on the way, he tried to start explaining the client’s needs to Leilah, but it came out as something completely unintelligible.

“Sorry,’ Raile said, shaking his head and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Let’s try that again. The client is an elderly gentleman who gets a monthly tonic for his health. It’s a relatively easy thing to make, but the ingredients are a bit hard to come by.” He rolled out of bed, noting that he was stark naked, and started to cover himself out of instinct. Realizing that it was only Leilah, and possibly Kalina, who would see him, he realized he probably didn’t have to.

“Right,” he walked over to his clothes, and pulled out his notebook. He tossed it on the bed so Leilah could look. “It’s the third page. It doesn’t have a name, as far as I’m aware. Hell, I don’t know if it actually does anything, but supposedly a doctor or something gave the gentleman this. Whether or not it’s real, though, I’m being paid to acquire it.” He started to get dressed, looking at Leilah every so often.

Perhaps due to the events prior, he was seeing her in a different light. She’s definitely pretty…

When he groaned and rolled Leilah felt a little bad about her sudden bolt. Lei tilted her head at him when he tried to speak through his yawn and gave a giggle as her only response. She knew that he would fill her in as soon as he was ready and able to. Once he was out of bed she uncharacteristically watched his backside for a few moments. Her eyes flickered up to his head once he began to speak and nodded only at the end. “Monthly healing tonic… with hard to find ingredients?” Something wasn’t adding up to her as she mused over the possibilities. If it was one of her mother’s potions she could understand but the average healing tonic needing rare ingredients? That was something new to her.

Once the notebook was thrown on the bed she crawled over and sat with her knees folded under her as she flipped to the third page to read about the tonic. “To be honest…” Her eyes looked back up at him again. “I’m not entirely sure this is even the real deal. However,” she scanned through the list of ingredients and tilted her head. “This list is rather incomplete… No one but the original concoction maker could even do anything with this. We have a list of what we need but not how much… and even if we knew the number of stalks to get we would still need to know the weight of each plant.”

Her face looked rather troubled. “On top of this… I know quite a lot about each thing on this list and it sounds more like a badly planned poison than an actual healing tonic.” Still, she laid the notebook down and closed her eyes for a few moments at most. “There are many reasons to make a potion like this. You are paid to do it so as to cause an untimely death. You do it because there is something to gain… Or you are highly unskilled and think throwing rare and expensive ingredients together will make something useful.” She held up a finger as she thought. “I’m well versed in politics too… and know a bit about noble standing. The number of people who die every year because of plots for fortune or thrones it actually quite high.”

She slid off the bed now as she stood up. “I… don’t know entirely if its okay to make this potion but without seeing the elderly gentleman I won’t be able to tell you what is wrong with him. Even if I was to correct the formula on the page he would just go back to using whatever was given to him because he is naive.” Leilah rubbed the back of her neck. “Kali would probably tell me just to make it and let the old man dig his own grave… and knowing how stubborn people can be when dealing with this field I might be inclined to agree with her. However, if there is a chance we could tell him we have something better we could very well make a lot more money than this one time trip. A live client is better than a dead one. There’s also the fact that I’m not a healer so even if I see him I might not be able to correctly guess what ails him. Since we’re in Abed I might actually know someone here who could help on that front.”

Raile listened to Leilah’s advice about the mix of ingredients and how they were almost incomprehensible in terms of an actual healing tonic. The merchant had suspected such a thing himself, but he had no way to verify it, and while he didn’t consider himself a bad person, he wasn’t one to turn away a monthly stream of income on a mere guess. However, having someone as skilled as Leilah talk him through the ingredients like so, he was starting to align with her thought process.

“Okay then,” he said with a smirk, “This person you know. How much would it cost for a consultation? If it’s reasonable, I don’t mind paying it myself, however, if it’s not, I might have to work something out with Garris…er….the gentleman. I can spin a tale, if need be, to have him want to verify the concoction,” Raile said, running a line of numbers through his head. “Currently, Garris is paying three hundred and fifty silver a month for the tonic. The ingredients, until just recently, were costing me two hundred and fifty. But, while we were in Karith, I secured a trade line, which lowers that price down to one hundred and fifty.”

Raile did some mental math. “The most I can pull is six hundred silver. It would take me three months to recoup the loss at the current rate, but that’s something I can afford.” He glanced to Leilah, and smiled. “All right then…let’s get going, Lei. The day won’t start itself!”