There was an emptiness to the air in Odersten of late. The streets were far more barren of faces, but many more paths wound through his door and crossed paths with his shelves. Draughts to help stave off the effects of magic. Vervain by the bunches, tonics to mute aches and other tinctures to help assuage the assault of pain. The city hummed with a palpable tension announced with the birth of the monarch's new heirs and the declaration that those involved in the draft were required to answer the call once more. He'd watched them file by with a certain kind of sickness curling like a balling fist within the pit of his belly. Some faces were better known than others, masks that he may never behold again and even those that did would be naught but ghosts haunting the familiarity of the skin the haunt of misery and tragedy deigned to sheathe itself within.

Sometimes, women and children accompanied them. The younglings would skip, oblivious with the wool of vibrant youth to shield their eyes to the ways their mothers' arms crawled like a desperate vine about the man's elbow as if that alone would be enough to leash him to their family. If only it were so simply to become an anchor, dredging the bottom of the depths to stymie the tides of war. If only the tidal surges would be enough to not leave them snapped and lost where the sun no longer touched them in the long moonless night afterward. So it was that another tear stained face departed the counter with her bundles of luck and hopeful aid for the love she may never lay eyes on again hale, let alone whole. An extremely sad affair.

"Gods, I need a drink." The rugged mumble would be given life under his breath as he turned his attention to face the chime of the entrance bell once again. However, this time, no preemptively grieving widow-to-be was cloying with desperation clinging to her skirt tails. No, rather, there was a part of him that almost wished it was.

Though Huian was more than a welcome sight, his presence during business hours rarely boded well for him. He could only hope that this time would be a different tune.

Or he would really need that drink.
"And to what do I owe the pleasure today, Bossman?"