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Mikal

He shrugs. "To each his own." He replies. "It's not like it's really practical anyway, and it certainly wouldn't pay the bills, but there's a little satisfaction in thinking about it from time to time."

Darian

"Okay," she said agreeably though she still really did not understand the concept.

The ways of other peoples were so very different. And this vengeance thing made no sense to her.

Conrad

"Suitable? I am a trained warrior as well as an initiate of Lord Ramos. My knight, Sir Jean-Michel Wrightsson, thought this a good task for me to take on and I agree. Our order has always provided aid and protection to those of your order as your order has for our Knights and Squires. The road can be dangerous up to Craigside and I am very familiar with the route to there."

He turned to the young woman whom they were sitting with.

"If you would like to travel with us, I can offer safe passage to my father's keep, The Rock. It is obvious that you have suffered and it is only curtesy for us to offer what aid we can lend."

Mikal

Putting his mug back onto his table, he stands up. "Well, since neither of us has ever been to Cragside before, mayhap the good innkeeper can recommend some places there."

He knows of one place he can always stay there, but he'd prefer not to have to do that.

He glances over and once the girl is done with her conversation with the innkeeper, he walks over to him.

"Your pardon, Master Pauli, but I was wondering if you might be able to recommend any places in Cragside? An inn? A tavern? A good shop? I've not been there so anything you might be able to tell would help."

Like a deer frozen before the hunter, the young woman who called herself Camelia held her bowl and spoon and with a wide-eyed acceptance of her options she nodded affirmatively to the man who had just described his status as a warrior, a squire of a knight, and son of a Lord who lives in a Keep. She spoke in a soft voice.

"I have no money, Squire. I am from Trundle on the Hill, far to the north on the Road East. I have heard of this Cragside and the keep nearby called the Rock. I have never been there. So, as I have no means to deliver myself home, I must go where kindness and charity dictate. I thankyou for your generosity. Perhaps I can find the means to go home from Cragside. Yes?"

Conrad

"I am sure that between our two orders we can find help for you in Craigside. When you feel strong enough, please tell us what has befallen you. It is a long distance to Trundle." he said.

<Comfrey>

She watched the interaction and thought before she responded, "If I've the means, they're our means. We will try to find you a way to where you will feel the most comfortable.

Their kindness was a little overwhelming. That would likely change when it came time to tell them a story. But, she wasn't sure she should even do that. She had no way to know where their true allegiances lie and she was dreadfully and woefully unprepared as far as understanding the political climate of this area. By Her Light, she didn't even really know exactly where she was except that Cragside was a day's ride away.

Where to begin?

With a last look at the emptied bowl and sighed and set it down on the table. It would be impolite, perhaps downright rude to lick it in public, and certainly uncouth to request more at someone else's expense.

"I am not sure how to start as I am no story-teller. And the telling of what has brought me here might have grave consequences for me... and others..."

Conrad

He cut her several slices of fresh bread, placing them in her bowl after putting butter on them.

"Just tell us what happened to you Lady. We bare you no ill will."

<Comfrey>

She watched her finish the bowl and put it down. From the looks of her, more would not be amiss but not right now. The food needed time to settle and for her stomach to grow accustomed to it again.

As was, she worried the young woman and her food might not stay in a harmonious relationship.

She turned her attention back to Camelia...Kris...whomever and nodded in agreement with what Conrad had said. Briefly she reached out her hand and touched Conrad's arm. "Thank you," she murmured.

She looked longingly at the bread, now feeling there was a price for it. Neither the Lady of Aterra nor the Squire of the Knight of Cragside of Lord Rames said as much or even implied it. But that was the way of things. It was the way of the Imperial Court. Everything had a price and everyone had an angle.

Did she have an angle?

Yes.

"I have no desire to lie to either of you or to anyone for that matter." Her speech was clearly refined and educated in her choice of words and inflection. "But I was abducted from my home and spirited 30 days travel, more than a Fullhand of days from everything and everyone I know. What I do not know is who and why? I had a long time to think on matters and I came to some conclusions, but I have no proof of anything and thus I am left with conjecture. I am spinning in a web of conspiracy and I do not know who I can trust. I do not know who is an enemy or an agent of an enemy, or whose politics in this area might make them an ally of an enemy. My captors were bringing me this way for a reason. I do not know that reason."

She took up the cup and reached for the pitcher. Her hands shook though she tried hard to mask the nervousness or fear in her voice. She mustered as much confidence as she could to tell what she could, what she dared. It took all her training and learning in the ways of the Bankorpoole Imperials to manage the facade of courage she presented.

She shook her head as though she were at war with herself before giving up on hefting the flagon and then just continue speaking.

"It takes more than nerve and courage to abduct a member of an Imperial House right from the Imperial Palace. It takes help. It takes allies. It takes a betrayal."

"I have no money and no means at my disposal. I fear to properly name myself because I do not know who to trust. I do not know how close the enemy might be, and how committed they might be to... finishing the task, one way or another. So words of comfort are appreciated and humbly accepted, but I do not know if you are friends or enemies... and this is truth, you might not yet know this yourselves. Cragside is the closest place of Safety... or Death. Allies and enemies might await me there, but I must go somewhere if I am ever to find a way to get home."

She bowed her head, staring into her lap and clasping her hands together there to stifle the nerves that visibly betrayed her calm and control.

<Comfrey>

Conspiracy. Betrayal. Politics. Try as her teachers might, politics never became second, third or even fourth nature to her. But an enemy? Comfrey never thought of herself as an enemy except to pain and hurt. But this woman feared, and from her appearance when she came in to now, she feared with cause.

In a way that was an injury, but it was one Comfrey did not know how to heal. Instead she merely said quietly, "One of my Lady's Foes is Death, and I take on Her battles as I can. If it is something I can do, I will aid you, but you must make the decisions of trusting or not on your own." She grinned suddenl,y and her mischievous spark was revealed, "I'll still help, either way if you wish."

Although trust could help one heal from injuries, it wasn't always needed.

The Heartwood
The Plainsend Inn at the foothills of the Highgaard Reaches

"Well lad, you get what you pay for, ja?"

Pauli stepped back, as it seems the lost waif has at least two champions taking up her cause, and he does have other patrons.

"Punched Penny might take more of your coin, but it has the best rooms in town; a large stable - most caravans running between Talantal and Trundle, or up to the Vale, stop in there for their overnight.

"The Bar and Fire, well between there and the Guildhall it bunks the town guard. If you got mercenary ties, that'd be good for folks."

He then shrugs his shoulders.

"If you want to spend less coin, there's the Hart and Horse. Not being the most wealthy folk in the world that's where I stay when I head to the Market every month or so. No fancy airs, but its a decent place; I guess its where most of the local folk go when they want to tip back a pint or two."

Celi

Celi returned to her seat, now devoid of both food and employment. Her effort to garner a position, even a temporary one, had been met with no interest. It seemed the innkeeper had retained enough help.

Celi sighed. She supposed some people actually planned for these surges in their custom. Just her bad luck to encounter one. So now ... she looked around thoughtfully. Now she would have to press on with the others, toward Cragside. She had her remaining coin, plus the small emergency fund she had been hoarding; it would have to do, until she got somewhere that needed her competencies. And would pay for them. That was an important part.

Perhaps she could find a ride, or a companion, or a job along the way. Maybe she could arrange to sleep in the stable, which was infinitely preferable to her over a stuffy sour-smelling inn room.

(OOC - Wolf - Mikal had posted he'd wait until Celi's conversation with Pauli had completed before stepping up to the man? Did I miss that post?)

The Heartwood
The Plainsend Inn at the foothills of the Highgaard Reaches

"And you ... uhm ... ah ... lass?"

The barkeep finally spared a look to the buckskin clad woman; his words definitely quiet, as if they were specifically meant to go unheard. The hint of expression in his features as she decided to return to her seat equally definitely decipherable.

Relieved.

Mikal
"Hart and Horse." He nods. "My thanks, Master Pauli."

Returning to Darian and Longtooth he says, "Well, the good innkeeper recommended a place to stay in Cragside, so at least it's a start."

He glances back to the table with the Lady's Acolyte. She is still engaged with the woman and the Squire, but it appears as if the urgency is over, and that the Squire and the bedraggled woman are conversing, so perhaps he might be able to talk with the Acolyte briefly without intruding.

"Excuse me a moment." He says to Darian, and walks over the few steps needed to approach the table.

When he gets there, he dips his head briefly in respect to the Acolyte of Attera. "My pardon for the interruption, My Lady. If this is not a good time please let me know and I will not bother you. Else, I had hoped to get your opinion on how these two wounds were healing."

He moves around the table to leave as much space for the Squire and the woman to continue speaking as possible, kneels down so the healer will not have to leave her chair, and bares his left arm, holding it out to the healer. "I took some cuts from bandit blades a few days ago, and was forced to heal it myself. However the blades were full of rust and dirt and I wanted to make sure the rot did not begin in it."

His bared arm reveals two long slices, one across the forearm and another on the bicep. Both have pinkish scars from self-healing.

Darian

"A start, yes," she replied.

She gave a nod as he excused himself.

"Need find a tanner and a smithy and perchance a furrier," she mused, once again scratching the back of Longtooth's head. "Mayhap we should get a few cony on the way. Their fur always seems popular and should garner extra coin for the smithy."

<Comfrey>

She looked over as the man approached and glanced back at the other two, moving slightly to give them more room. "Of course," she said with a smile and reached out to examine his arm. "I am Comfrey, and you are...?" If the others wished to take this time as a way to loosen the rising tension, she'd not argue about it.

Her touch was light but sure.

Mikal

"My pardon, Lady Comfrey. I am called Mikal. From a small farm on the outskirts of Brockman's Holdfast."

He glances to the other two at the table. "I do hope the young woman is going to be alright? Terrible weather lately to be traveling without the proper gear."

He watches as she works, looking for any signs of concern on her face.

Celi



Celi abruptly realized that she had given up too soon; that the innkeeper had not been ignoring her, but following some ritual order as to how and to whom he spoke.

Needless to say, she had no idea what that was, only that she had botched her end of it. As usual.

She rubbed her hands on her deerskin-covered thighs, to eliminate the perspiration that formed there whenever she was nervous. Which was pretty much any time she was around people in a closed space.

She wasn't sure whether it was the people, or the enclosure that set off her sweat glands.

She decided to give it another try. She rose, put an expression of solemn determination on her face, and headed back toward the innkeeper. *His* expression of relief, so full on his face when she had retreated, now turned guarded when she started back in his direction.

At least *that* was familiar. She was used to that. She got 'guarded' a lot.

"Forgive me, sire, but might I have a word with you?"

Conrad

"Lady Camelia, all I can say for sure is that I bear you no ill will. I have never heard of you nor have I much knowledge of your hometown aside from what my tutor taught me. I will escort you to Craigside and keep you safe until you are secure in the town somewhere."

"Thank you," replied the woman who called herself Camelia. "You are kind and generous, and a credit to your order," she added.

And there was a moment where she had to consider whether or not she had the temerity to ask him a question. While this wasn't his abode, he had offered her a form of shelter, as did the Lady of Aterra. That made her a guest and subject to certain conventions of decorum and behavior.

But he had opened a door...

"May I ask you a question?"

<Comfrey>

Her fingers ran carefully over the now closed wounds, her face a mask of calm. "There is no infection, rot or maggots here. It is healing cleanly."

She smiled at him as she placed her hands back in her lap, "Bandits? I am sorry to hear they have been plaguing people. The weather indeed has been bad."