Condensation

"By my reckoning," says a handsome man, his chin covered in stubble, "It was an Amal. It stood on two legs, but it had a tail, two ears, and a mane of hair." Another guard objects. "No, it was an Amal with a tail and stripes all over its body!" A third one says, "I saw an Amal with horns, a tail, and a large nose." The three men start arguing, and Chorale steps in. "It's obvious that there were three Amal: a tiger Amal, a lion Amal, and some kind of wildebeest or something. Did anyone else see anything?" She looked around the room, then when it was obvious that no one else was going to say anything, nodded and pushed past the man with orange eyes again.

"Of course! Here, just let me slick it for you," says Cadenza, walking over and placing her hand on the slide. "Whenever you're ready!"

Cadenza walks onto the boat.

"I'm sorry, but I'm not qualified to do that. Do we have any other callers?"

They slide down the slide and slide along the floor, Crescendo laughing the whole way.

"Hello, I am Dimitri Alexander Blaiddyd, do you have a solution for our man with a chicken head and a chicken with a man's head?"

"Three!" Crescendo slides down the slide, one hand in the air and the other clutching Leonie's hand. "Woo!!!!"

Chorale turns away. "Well?" A couple of guards raise their hands, and Chorale nods. "What did it look like? Could you tell?"

"Yes, Kara Omer here, may I ask who's calling?"

Crescendo sits at the top of the slide and slicks it. "On three, all right? One..."

"Probably," says Cadenza. "It might be a little taxing, but I could do it."

Crescendo reaches out a hand to Leonie. "Here, let's go side by side this time!"

Chorale brings her hand out of her pouch, where it had gone instinctively, and crunches down on something. "I'm trying to help, with sanction from the leader of this settlement. What makes yours more important than mine?"

Chorale twists away. "Sorry," she says in an obviously fakely sorry voice. "Official business."

"There, that'll be safer. Leonie, do you want to try again?"

Chorale pushes past the man, then addresses the general area. "I need to talk to some guards who have seen the Amal attack." She doesn't tilt her head up, she saves that just in case she needs to persuade them.

Crescendo winces, then slides down the slide Selia made much faster than she should have.

The guard turned. "Sorry, but I'm a little busy. Could you ask someone else? The other guards should be in the barracks, over there." the guard points to a large building at the bottom of the wall. "Of course." Without revealing her eye color, Chorale turns and runs down the stairs.

"Ros, of course it's fine with me. Even if it weren't, I couldn't make you do anything you didn't want to do. You realize that, right? You're a Knight Radiant now." Crescendo runs to the top of the stairs and gets ready to slide. Then she sees the slide Selia made and runs down. "Do you mind if we slide on this instead?" she asks.

"I mean, I think I'll go again, but I'm not going to make you." Crescendo wonders, not for the first time, what Ros was before he became a Radiant.

[censored]'s questions had been answered by a disembodied voice, but they had been answered. "Thank you?" [censored] sat down in a corner.

Chorale caught up to the guard. "Excuse me, but I need to ask you a couple of questions."

"Oh, sorry." Crescendo moved out of the way. "So, do either of you want to go again?"

"Thank you." Chorale pushes past the man and woman and jogs along the wall.