Pearls are a girl's best friend

[Micaela Vaenys]

Micaela Vaenys headed to The Dragon's Pearl.  At first she headed automatically to the quieter corner table she usually favoured when she wanted to read in the tavern.  Then she realised that she hadn't come for that - after all, she hadn't even brought a book with her - and began scanning the room for Jonarth Dabrezzio.

[Jonarth Dabrezzio]

Jonarth is coming out of the kitchen, having done his daily inspections of the food and spice inventories to make sure he never serves anything old. He meets Micaela’s eye for a second then noticed she doesn’t have a book. In the few years she’s been at the colony, he’s never seen her without a book at his establishment unless her late husband had been with her. He stops to get a cup of one of her preferred drinks and brings it over. “Good afternoon my Lady!” He said cheerily. “It’s been too long since you graced my establishment with your presence. Have you come to exchange reading materials?” Jon had a small collection but she’s probably read all but one or two of his library already.

[Micaela Vaenys]

"Not today. Maybe next week," she said, favouring him with a brief smile. "I actually wanted to talk about something other than books, for a change. Though it's not entirely unrelated." She took a sip of her drink. "Can you spare a little time?"

[Jonarth Dabrezzio]

“For you,” he said with a slightly larger smile, “I can spare as much time as you need. Would you prefer talking in my office?”

[Micaela Vaenys]

She shrugged. "Here is fine, as long as we won't be interrupted by your people. I'm hardly here to plot murder, after all. I just want to talk about...the future, actually. Sounds silly, doesn't it? I spend so much time reading and thinking and talking about the past, and here I am thinking about the future for once."

[Jonarth Dabrezzio]

He pulled her a chair out and then took a seat across from her. “The future?” He asked, genuinely curious. “Something has changed,” he agreed. “Here I expected you to order books for the next ship from Volantis and I end up with an existential crisis.” He grinned to show he was kidding. “What about the future would you care to discuss?”

[Micaela Vaenys]

"The colony, the Society, the tavern." She paused to sip her drink. "You've been here longer than me. Do you remember the Society as it was in those early days? Just starting out and full of hope, like the entire colony. Or so I hear."

[Jonarth Dabrezzio]

“I remember they used to buy a lot more drinks here,” Jonarth said with a half smile. “But...seriously, there was a lot more adventure in the first year. More curiosity,” he settled on. “Before they realized that Valyria couldn’t tame this land for a reason.” He unconsciously looked south, towards the endless green void. “Once the expeditions failed, even the Ivory Band stopped venturing in. I thoight in those old days maybe they were just craven sellswords...” he shook his head. “But there was something more to it. Something even drink can’t pry out of their lips.” He leaned in. “And no sellsword keeps a secret drunk.”

He looked her over a minute. “But how does that have anything to do with me?”

[Micaela Vaenys]

"You've said it yourself. The Society members spent more money in those early days. If that old excitement can be brought back, and the Society prospers, your profits would increase as well. So..." she took a deep breath. "I thought we might discuss the ways in which our interests might compliment one another."

[Jonarth Dabrezzio]

Jonarth was silent a long moment, but he involuntarily leaned back in surprise at her purpose. He looked about a second and collected his thoughts, then nodded slowly. “All right, then,” he said. He waves for another bottle to be brought over and then dismissed the servant. “I always like discussing ways to attain mutual benefit,” he began. “Is love to hear specifically what your interests are.” If the Society had sent someone to ask for money they had sent their best person for the job, for sure.

[Micaela Vaenys]

"My personal interests are history and dragons," she confided. "I'm especially interested in learning about the local history and perhaps finding out if they have anything in common with our Valyrian ancestors, you know, like migratory patterns and building shapes, things like that. I'd like to learn more about wyverns too, their habitat, their feeding patterns, whether they can be tamed. I've got my darling Byka, of course, but wyverns are the closest living creatures to dragons, at least that I know of. And maybe if I'm really lucky we might even discover actual dragons here. I mean, I've never heard of them coming from anywhere but Valyria, but the fact that they have wyverns suggests there might be other similar creatures."

Her face lit up as she talked and her hands became animated as she gestured at intervals.

[Jonarth Dabrezzio]

Jonarth actually found himself swept up into a bit of her enthusiasm for a second before he allowed himself to calm down. “So you want to head into the jungle?” He asked. “Or do you plan on sending others in and then researching what they discover?” He let himself think a moment. Wyverns would be a hot commodity overseas if properly domesticated...or at least had the appearance of being properly domesticated. Every upjumped noble of Valyrian descent all the way to pentos would want one.

[Micaela Vaenys]

"Oh, a bit of both," she said. "I've no real experience travelling. I'd never even left Volantis until Jace and I came here, but I would certainly need to go out into the field - or rather the jungle - so I could see things for myself. I'd be able to sketch things of interest, and my personal notes would be more valuable than someone else's. But at the same time I'd also need time to read and research at home, and promote the interests of the Society. But of course, any expedition needs experienced travellers to guide us, guards to protect us and slaves to carry our baggage. Even if I had more coin this isn't something I can do with just the members of my own household. But you see, if we can have just one successful expedition, the Society's future is going to be so much brighter, and I think my interests are relevant to our people as a whole. And you know, our little colony might one day grow into a city, or at least the foremost in an entire series of colonies."

[Jonarth Dabrezzio]

Jonarth nodded along. “That’s the reason the expeditions stopped in the first place,” he said. “It was too dangerous for both the scholars and the mercenaries protecting them. It’s a very dangerous...” he considered the word a moment, “investment. Both financially and mortally.” He rubbed his jaw. “Do you plan on leading such an expedition?”

[Micaela Vaenys]

"Not yet. I know I lack the experience and the prestige to lead, at least for now. The leader of the new expedition should be someone with confidence and authority, someone who is respected and who knows how to deal with the dangers of this place. I'm none of those things." She shrugged, since it didn't trouble her, not really. "The thing is, great deeds are accomplished only with risk. The great heroes of the past taught us that. I'm sure the very first Valyrian dragonrider was frightened the first time he - or she - mounted a dragon and flew. I won't deny that I feel a little trepidation myself, about what it will be like when Byka's big enough to carry me. But I'm going to do it. It's in my blood." And she gave him a dazzling smile.