[ and presto, the intended effect is right on the mark. if eseld had a little bit more blood flowing through his extremities, he might've mock-clapped himself on the back for a job well done. as it stands, he's pale, sluggish and so very amused, and so whatever blood that would've gone into patting himself on the back instead went into--

laughter. small, golden bubbles of it, welling up like hysteria from his throat. he shakes into torth's shoulder, infernally amused and not at all intending to hide it, given how far they've come in the conversation.

he said it, not him, he wants to say, looking up to the sky in vague glee, because fable's probably scrying in on them right about now and he owes him seventy gold. ]

Torth, love-- [ the snickering is starting to hurt. no, it's hurt for a while now-- but the rush of endorphins plus the childish glee from having his theory proven had been enough of a buffer for him to ignore it. it comes rushing back in now, but the peppered laughter continues. he grasps torth's arm weakly, his back still shaking from the exertion. ] you needn't be so serious. Like you said, it'd never happen.

[ a beat, the silent equivalent of a flourish that even a bard would find proud. ]

That is, it'd never happen in the sense that it's impossible to get all three of us to agree on something. You know that. [ that suicide pact would never happen, let's be real. a snicker. ] Though to think it was Fable's name that Freudian slipped through your lips after all. You said it, it wasn't I--