"Please, make yourself at home," Skori said, rising briefly from his couch. Aldrec sat down in the sofa beside Mericlou, flashing a smile to her just to see her blush all the more.
"Ahh …" Alaema sighed, leering at Aldrec. "At last, Meri's mysterious elf friend makes himself known to us!"
Skori threw Alaema a warning gaze, effectively silencing her.
Sedriil, meanwhile, introduced Aldrec to Noroa and Garen. "He's a friend of Meri's and has been a steady client for the past year," He said. "We finally got the chance to meet him on the way back home from work when he gave us some spare change at the grocery store."
"An elf client?" Noroa said, mildly surprised. "We never did get many elves here." "So I've been told," Aldrec said. "I wasn't interrupting anything important, was I, Skori?"
"Not at all," Skori replied, noticing the look of disappointment on Mericlou's face at the prospect that he might leave. "I simply didn't expect that our other sister, or even you, for that matter, would be coming."
"Is that the reason you have that?" Sedriil said quietly from the other side of the room. He pointed towards the package Aldrec held in his lap, along with the large bouquet of multicolored flowers.
"Yes, it is," Aldrec said, running his hand over his package's iridescent wrapping. "I was on my way here when I met you. It's a present, actually, for Meri."
"You knew?" Mericlou said, whipping her head towards Aldrec, whom she previously tried to avoid eye contact with. "How …? I mean, I never told you!"
"One can find anything with a small amount of patience," Aldrec answered, inwardly relishing the memory of his search's success. He handed her the package and bouquet. "They're not much, but I hope you like them."
Mericlou stroked the roses' petals daintily, and briefly inhaled their aroma. What made this gift different from the other pink roses he had given her in the past was that these roses came in many colors, ranging from fiery red and lively pink, to golden yellow and an especially gorgeous, mellow purple.
Putting the roses to the side, she accepted the package, and began to tear through the wrapping. When she opened it, she let out a small noise that was somewhere between a gasp and a sigh.
"Oh, Aldrec … thank you!" She said, removing the content of the package: a large leather-bound book.