Silvertip Mountain Through the big top tent up high

There was no outward show of his impatience aside from a flick of his ear; otherwise, the bounty hunter remained entirely placid. Still — My eyes are looking, he wanted to say, Obviously.

He did resent flowery language and verbal sparring. Not because he saw no merit in it, but because he had no talent for it himself. Correspondingly, his irritation turned inward and soon dissipated, just as quickly as it had come.

Catamaran's ear flicked again, this time in quiet contemplation the man spoke words of his grandmother's tongue. It was one of the languages he was more fluent in, of the few that he spoke with any competency. Yet, he had not met any aside from his own family who favored this tongue. Moorhen Cairn taught it to her daughters, and her daughters taught it to their own children; to him. But it was a dead language, other than that. This was what he'd assumed, anyway.

"If there's work, I'll work," he said after a moment of thought. "I'm a bounty hunter by trade. But," he made a clucking sound, "times are tough. I'll work. I just aim to be paid for it."