The normal sounds of steam and heat did not obscure a sudden muttering. Seph tilted his head slightly forward, trying to pick out the words.

"Who...?"

Not Alban's voice. There were at least two people in there.

"...my...across the way..."

"Guest?! Are...can't believe..."

"No, no, no, no, it's...High..."

The conversation didn't sound entirely happy. Seph grimaced uncomfortably but before he could decide on turning back, the door opened. Alban smiled at him broadly and said, as usual, "Come in, come in!"

Seph stepped in, stifled his cough, and tried not to make it too obvious that his eyes were scanning the room for signs of the stranger. As it was, he didn't need to search too hard. There on the perches to the opposite of the room lounged a passerine man. He was reclined in such a way that his shoulder blades rested on an upper perch, and his legs stretched out before him. He had claws for feet that were as large as Seph's head and they gripped the perch, keeping him in place.

For a passerine, he was quite big, both lengthways and wide; his feathers were smooth but slightly sparse over his belly, and were a color somehow between black and gray, with ruddy red on his edges, the tips of his primaries and crest and elbows. He was clad like most passerine in nothing much more than shorts, and a metal band around his ankle.

He looked just like the passerine that Seph had seen earlier. Alban cleared his throat and said, with somewhat deflated cheerfulness, "This is Avuckkakea Earling."

The entire name was all open-back vowels and ejective consonants, but the "true name" -- that is, what Seph assumed would be the passerine's individual name -- sounded smoother. The passerine man twisted his head and regarded him with a single big black eye. The feathers of his neck ruffled, so it seemed for a while that his head rested on a fuzzy dome pedestal of greater diameter than his skull.

Seph was unused to reading the expressions of passerine, but it didn't seem that this man was happy to see him, per se. Seph rifled through the pages of Etiquette in his mind and settled on nodding his head in greeting. The passerine regarded him a while more and then tilted his head forward abruptly as well, and he leaned forward and allowed his wings to flex, slowing off streaks of paler gray and white.

"So," he said, and his voice was rather high, and as he spoke on the words seemed to undulate between sounds and syllables, dipping up and down abruptly, as if they were climbing mountains in his mouth. "You come from the sky?"

Emphasis made it hard for Seph to understand what he had said; but then he realized, and answered quickly, "Oh, yes, I come from Anthem High."

"Anthem High?" the passerine said in confusion, and Seph shook his head, "Ah, I mean, High Anthem."

"A true skyling," Alban observed, as if with pride, and Avuckkakea Earling clicked his beak together several times, with ambiguous meaning. The sound was loud, louder than clapping, and though Seph didn't understand it he noticed Alban beginning to grimace.

"Food's ready," he said with some feigned cheer.

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