A Night of Song and Story (Three Broomsticks)

Elijah sneaks a quick smile and keeps playing, segueing from Stripping the Willow to Gravel Walk without missing a beat. If the crowd's willing to dance as long as there's music, he's willing to play as long as there's dancers. Nudging Miach with his foot, he winks and nods in the direction of the dancers.

Elijah's eyes crinkle with amusement; he holds back a laugh as Miach joins the twirling dancers.

An hour later, the living dancers have long since called it quits and retreated, laughing, to cool their throats and rest their feet. The ghosts, however, are tireless - and so, as far as anyone could tell from looking, is Elijah, shifting from tune to tune (including some that are not at all familiar, and may well have been invented on the spot), stubbornly determined to outlast the spectral dancers who have no need of rest or refreshment.

Miach taps out of the dance early, laughing and stomping his way to the bar for another drink; when the mug is delivered, he makes a skeptical face at the unexpected butterscotch sweetness before shooting a Look of utter exasperated fondness across the bar at the pretty minstrel. The Changeling man leans against the bar then, just watching his lover wear himself out puffing and blowing for tireless ghosts. Not once does Miach stop grinning as he nurses his drink.

Eventually, he finishes his sweet drink. He plunks another coin on the counter and murmurs a quick back-and-forth with the inn's proprietress before pocketing the key she gives him with a wink and a cheeky kiss. Then he weaves his way through the thick crowd back to the minstrel, a wicked smile playing on his lips. As the human patrons tire and return laughing to their tables, leaving the ghosts to make up the difference in dancers, Miach holds a glittering galleon coin high in the air, the light catching the attention of the other patrons as they pause, smiling, to see what the odd little red-headed man will do next.

With a grin and never looking away from Elijah's face, he tosses the coin down hard enough to bounce off the table and into the tip glass. As the gold strikes the other coins there, a rumble of errant thunder tears through the sky outside and through the windows can be seen a sudden and quite unexpected flash of lightning as the weather turns ominous. "One more tune, sir, if you please!" Miach calls over the cacophony. "Something sweet to play us to bed," he requests, his teasing wink slow and deliberate, "before the rain comes."

Miach helps the glass make the rounds and even once it is solidly going about the room he keeps a subtle eye on it, only throwing himself into his chair once the tip jar has safely made its way back to its rightful owner. He rests his chin on his fist as he basks in the song, gazing up at the singer with wry affection. If his lips purse in a wry laughing pout at the new verse, and if his red cheeks angle just a bit to show off his natural handsomeness to the other patrons, he can hardly be blamed for his well-deserved vanity.

At the end of the song he leads the room in boisterous applause, dipping to catch up the minstrel's bag and adding it to the easy burden on his own back. "Help you with your luggage, sir," he offers with a grin, his hazel eyes dancing. "Your arms must be tired."