Austin had a quick mind and a quicker tongue, which often got him into trouble. With Old Garf however, when he didn't grumble about 'flaming loose tongues and flapping sails are soonest worn', it extracted tales of the distant sea and strange customs. Dark weathered skin, slashed with pale scars, an arm full of faded tattoos and a permanent squint spoke of years at sea. 'My best years', Garf would sigh wistfully on his bad days. Those days he was barely civil and went about his work as if asleep. Austin didn't mind those black days once he learned he wasn't the cause, but he lived for the days of tales of foreign parts, The Velchi tall ships, the Ancient and Glorious Penn, Half-men and Mere folk. Once, after a morning spent unblocking a grease block in the drain below Tanner Lane, with stinging eyes and aching throat, Austin asked Garf how he had ended up so far from the sea, as far in land as one could go before the barren lands on the other side of the ridge above. What he had really wanted to ask was how he had ended up down here amongst the long tail and turms, when he could have been a merchant or craftsman above. For a long time Garf didn't speak as if he hadn't heard, then he said in a strange voice "Once you leave her, you can't go back. I moved so far cuz I couldn't bear to look at her every day and not go back. That