Fog and Knee Joints

They began with fog, or the lack of it, and whether the old lands still looked properly old. Arrowyy was hurrying through his work like a man promised a glimpse of weather. Meho had already decided Punt would arrive blood-soaked and beloved by the wrong army; Blaedy admired the evidence of her insanity.

Then Arrowyy asked after gnomish proportions, which is how a quiet evening gets dragged behind a cart. Meho improved the question in precisely the direction no scholar can survive. I kept the records locked, as they ought to be.

Arrowyy compared me to some manner of paddock creature, Meho tried to make my knees indecent, and I was forced to explain that age is neither a vice nor a performance. “Knees with opinions” was apparently an invitation to further inquiry. These people could turn a funeral procession into a tavern ballad if given half a verse.