Two Crows Watch from the Gallows Tree (part 15)

Jerica wrinkled her nose at that before she caught herself, and quickly furrowed her brow to try to play it off as contemplation rather than disgust. “Hm… I mean I feel like it’s cheating ‘cause I know there’s a decent gap between y’all.” But he acts like he’s 12. And a dumb twelve year old at that. “Maybe 31?”

(I almost had him say what the fuck)

Gaius stopped and looked at her, brow furrowed. "How did you do that?"

(Lmao Jerica out here breaking Gaius)

“…do what?” She blinked at him.

"That's how old he is," he said slowly. "Why that specific number? How did you know?"

“Uh… I mean… I dunno.” She shrugged, weirded out that this is what he got hung up on and yet pleased he didn’t seem to notice her disgust before she hid it. “He looks like he’s 35 and acts like he’s… younger. So I just knocked a few years off.” She puffed up a little. “But you see what I mean? Good guesser.”

"Indeed you are." His brow was furrowed. "He's closer to 32 now, of course, but still. Very impressive."

She grinned, even more proud of herself now that he’d complimented her as well. And amused by how off put he seemed by it. It’s not like he was some hermit. She probably should have known their ages exactly what with them being nobles and all, but, well, she didn’t even know Levin’s age, exactly. So it was on brand for her not to listen to details about politics.

Gaius reached the table they'd been at earlier and seated himself. "Now, then. To business."

She blinked. That was an abrupt change of topic. What an odd man. She nodded and sat in one of the nearby chairs that didn’t have a table in front do it. She wasn’t good at reading at tables.

Gaius glanced at her, brow furrowed, but made no comment on it. "If you have questions I'm happy to answer them," he told her. "If it's easier than reading. I know quite a lot about the gods."

“Hmm…” she wasn’t sure how much she’d be able to get out of him rather than him just pitch suspicious questions about why she wanted to know what she wanted to know back at her. He seemed very judgmental. Condescending. And made her feel dumb. She didn’t like feeling dumb. “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you.” She nodded to him, cracking open the book.

Gaius nodded, returning to his fairy tale book.

Jerica’s brow furrowed in concentration as she made it through the table of contents then flipped to one of the chapters that seemed most promising. Reading was hellish at baseline. Upper Tongue was taxing on her best days. And combining both was just cruel and unusual punishment.

And yet still somehow preferable to asking for help.

(If you would like to supplement in what she’s reading that’d be cool or even just a tl;Dr version if you’re not feeling super in depth ^^)
(I also am a chronically bad sleeper so no idea at all how long it’ll take me to sleep but I’m exhausted and just crawled into bed so if I vanish it’s cause I fell asleep lol)

(Certainly!)

The book started out by detailing what and who exactly Strithr was. They were the god of war, but they were both one and several entities at once, made up of multiple aspects that in turn made up a single entity born from Haelar's essence. They were a god with many faces, many genders, many sufferings. Their representative creature was a mountain cat.

Gaius was reading a page every thirty seconds.

The more Jerica read, the more she got confused. Many entities that made one? What, like algae? She decided that was the closest thing she was going to get to comprehending what this meant and decided to roll with it.

So one god. Made of many gods. With many genders and faces. So they were good at espionage, then. Good at disguising themself.

She only felt like she vaguely understood, and it took her a solid half hour to get through five pages at the painful pace she was going. She had meant to just skim but she wasn’t comprehending anything and was forced to slow down and read things again and again and again to first comprehend the syntax of what it was trying to say and then what it meant.

Every single bit of her focus was fixated on her task, leaving none to pay attention to how she was existing in space and time. As a result, her neurodivergency came out to play without her realizing it, and before long both her sword belt and boots were on the floor and she was sitting on her own feet, squirming as she glared at the words of the book on the arm of the chair.