Six - 
Suikoden III, Caesar and Apple
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"I've said a lot of things," Apple said crisply, reshelving her Lesser Marlowe Guide with a definitive thump. "The truth of the matter is that it's not safe to travel through Jowston right now, so we'll have to postpone our trip indefinitely. Get your feet off the table."

Caesar scowled lazy-eyed at the ceiling and swung his feet back down.  "It's not safe to travel through Jowston right now if you're Zexen," he muttered, crossing his arms on the table and dropping his head onto them. "You're got Toranite papers and I've got Harmonian ones, what's the problem?"

"The problem is that the Jowstonians are on full alert, and--as you ought to know by now--nervous men make mistakes." Apple flicked her finger along the long rows of books and plucked out deSalva's History of Aronia. Tartly she added "I'd prefer that neither of us be those mistakes. I've been given charge of you and I'd hate to have the blemish on my record."

"Hah!" Caesar's eyes drifted closed. His mouth turned up at the corners. "So I can orchestrate a war against the Masked Bishop and my own dear brother but I can't move past a simple border crossing that may or may not turn sour? Albert would say your threat assessment skills are not in order."

Apple said nothing, only thinned her lips and flicked through her book, waiting for him to drop it. A mistake; he was only Caesar but he was still a Silverberg.

"Oh, wait, I get it." Caesar kicked his chair back again and planted his bootheels loudly on the desk, folding his hands behind his head. "It's because you don't want to go to Toran, isn't it? There's something in Toran that you want to avoid, so you're using Jowston as an excuse." Rolling his eyes up to stare at the ceiling, Caesar ticked his tongue idly off his front teeth. "And it has to be a person, since if it was just a place or a thing we could avoid it, since there are three known entrance routes into Toran. And he's probably a person of some resources, else you'd probably assume you could just avoid him--"

"Caesar!" Apple slammed the History of Aronia to the table (then promptly scooped it back up again and clutched at it--copies of the book were rare these days, ever since the Harmonians had declared it a heresy). "That is enough! And get your feet off the table!"

"Ho ho! Struck a nerve, have I?" This time, Caesar didn't move his feet. "So it is a person of some importance, is it? And you come from Toran, so it's probably someone you knew back then, when you were young--" Apple started to snap at him but Caesar quirked a lazy grin at her and just kept talking. "--so all I have to do to figure out who it is is to go read your published personal memoirs of the Gate Rune War and see who keeps popping up--"

"Caesar!"

"--mentioned in an ambivalent fashion--"

"Caesar!"

"--because if you just hated him you wouldn't be avoiding him, and if you liked him you wouldn't be avoiding him--"

"Caesar Silverberg!"

"--but since I've read your memoirs three times by now there's no need to go consult them again, and I can make an educated guess right now as to who you're avoiding. Would you like me to?" Caesar finished, closing his eyes with something like a flourish.

Apple hesitated for a moment, then laid the History of Aronia back on the table. "I've changed my mind. We'll leave for Toran tomorrow morning."

"Thought we might," Caesar said.