not even in your favorite hole

"Wh-- Hey! You're laughing at me! Come on, Noah!"

But Noah, it seemed, couldn't be bought out of his not-so-innocent giggling for all the gil in Swordmarch, whether loot or pocket-lining.

Just there, the little pocket of space between his eyebrows...that held all the difference. Mournful concentration, or fits of folly.

"You still make me laugh, Lanz," Noah rejoined at last, when his breathing had calmed itself - without, one might mention, any additional application of off-seer's control. "I'm sorry if I annoyed you."

"You are not," Lanz grumbled, forgetting completely whatever it was that he'd stumbled himself on about.