The Heartwood The Plainsend Inn at the foothills of the Highgaard Reaches Dusk Attaday, the Twenty-Third Day of the Month of Raven, 2623
Darian, Mikal, Celi, Conrad, Camelia, Comfrey Pauli Threeleg, Missus Pauli, Margie
For four days it had been raining. Not continuously, usually the clouds would build and by evening become heavy enough to let loose and drown the mountain passes. Thunderheads they were, announcing the upcoming storms, shattering the night with lighting. Each day the rain lasted a little longer and a little longer and a little longer.
The small inn was settled in at the base of the Black Mountains. The sign that hung over the entry from the upper floor was a simple drawing; a green band of grass ending in a simple, stylistic mountain, its top white to represent snow. There were no letters scribed on it, but it's meaning was fairly obvious. The Plainsend Inn was exactly that - a small day's travel rest at the break point between the lowside plains of the High Tarn and the Black Mountain foothills. Behind it the tall range climbed into the sky. On a clear day one could make out the first bottle necking pass, the strategic choke point where Cragside and the Rock overlooked the mainland.
The tavern itself was a simple structure; a long two story building of heavy framed timber infilled with wattle and daub; the walls tending to be fading, picking up a sepia tone. After winter, in the spring, it would be cleaned and repaired and whitewashed once again. The roof was thatch and thick, with a single thick chimney rising from the building's center. The Inn did not stand alone; at the foothills there was more rain than snow, so a makeshift stables provided a roof for caravans passing by, its walls open and mostly fencing. There was a small smithy next to the stables - little more than one room tucked up next to a forge. Most days it stood empty; the innkeeper keeping its fire stoked; the blacksmith spent most of his time working the nieghboring farms, returning to Plainsend on a semi regular basis. He knew when the big caravans came through, the less frequent traveler may have to wait a few days if their horse threw a shoe or a wagon had a broken wheel.
Twice a month it was very busy. That was when a merchant prince from the Guild up in Cragside came down on Marketday, buying and trading with the local farms.
There were local farms. But, being the High Tarn, they were scattered so far afield they could not be seen from the Highland Path.
In front of the tavern was a sturdy wooden bridge; it leapt a small kill slipping down from the mountains. Freshwater could be gotten from upstream, if one didn't mind a small hike with a bucket.
The first one to arrive had been there for three days. Tall and handsome the young man received the hospitality of the house. As Raven drew to a close so did the Inn's patrons. Most people had already gotten to their winter's rest, so even a single steady patron was appreciated. The barkeep, Pauli, was called Threeleg because of his dependence on a sturdy wooden staff to get from one place to another. The sword and shield above the bar betrayed New Jvrillian roots, his crippling limp telling of the cost of being a sellsword, now retired to a quieter profession. It wasn't all bad; he was able to find a wife to help take care of keeping the common hall clean and cooking up a sturdy pot of stew. And it worked out well enough that they had a daughter to help out too. Though at about five she was mostly good at collecting wooden bowls and carrying the water bucket - though it took both hands.
And, of course, to peek over the top of a rough hewn wooden table with wide eyes, as if she could not believe the young man in red and gold was real or just stepped out of song.
Three days.
And then it was a very good day for Pauli Threelegs.
It started as night approached, the setting sun casting long shadows from the plains top die against the mountain foothills. The weather had turned; a cold wind was sweeping down from the west, sliding down from the mountains, stiff enough to make walking difficult. It also cut like a dagger; which was made even worse by the small shower that rolled through as She met the far horizon.
The first to enter was a obviously a swordsman of some sort. He had good looking gear; professionally kept and enough coin for both his meal and a to have a bucketfull of oats sent out to the stables.
When the three wagons pulled up, Pauli knew things were going to be fine. A call to Missus Pauli and she started adding to the big pot of stew in the hearth and Margie was sent out to point the incoming merchants to the right places to tie their horses and fill the water trough. It was a small group, an elder trader and his two strapping sons. But they had three carts of beer, flour and grain bound for Brementown and Tor-an-dal. The Kories might be able to keep the grain out of Highgaard, but they said nothing about the small hamlets tucked away along the Road East.
They also were parting ways with a traveling companion; they were bound for the dangerous path between the Dirkwood and the Black Mountains, she was, obviously, not to travel that fel route but bound up the path into the Mountains. But it was a friendly parting, with a lot of well wishing on their part, as well as making sure she got a private room, lots of blankets, breakfast, and something better than just the stew for dinner.
She was garbed in tunics of soft white.
The next in, just as the setting sun was sending a glare through the tavern's windows, was an oddity. It was a woman, well traveled and with a confident air. The oddness was not just the rugged nature of her garb, not the fact that she carried a tall, finely crafted bow. It was her ruff. Now ruffs were common, and it was not the first time nor the last the commons hall would shelter a canine customer. Dogs were common critters; most farmers had at least one or two or three if the kept cattle or sheep.
This one stood a bit taller than most, its rough fur long and tossled, even to the flopped ears and the tumble of its forelocks over its long snout. It was if every color ruff hair in the wold was woven into its coat ... even to more than a little grey.
Just as the sun was about to settle below the horizon, just the top of Her disc showing far off in the west, another woman slipped into the room. The most distinctive thing about her, besides her short shorn hair was her short stature. Aside from Margie she was the smallest peron entering the commons. Pauli gave her an odd look - a woman coming in all alone - but pennies were pennies, so stew and shelter against the night could be hers too.
Eventually the merchant's three sons returned from settling their carters to rest. A first round of beer made its round about the commons as Missus Pauli ladeled out a large helping of stew into deep wooden bowls. She called for her daughter's aid.
"Margie, you be getting bread outta' the oven, leebkin?"
There was silence from the kitchen.
"Leebkin ... we be the bread needing!"
"Margie?"
For a moment both husband and wife looked worried. But then the front door opened and Margie bustled in. Bustled is quite the word. She dragged, ran around and pushed, tugged on a skirt and otherwise, as only little children can, herded the inn's last patron into the warm hall.
She was a young woman. There was no way she could have seen more than twenty tears, making her, except for Margie, the youngest here tonight. She looked as if she had been in the center of a winter's storm, save the storm season was still a week or so off. Exhausted, tired, long blonde hair tangled and disheveled, as if the only bath she has seen were the brutally cold mountain downpours. Her clothes were fine, far too fine, but they were torn and bore not just the stains of travel.
"Mat and Va!"
Margie called out all bright eyed.
"I found her wandering down by the water bucket place, at night even. She's all gone and lost."
The five year old peeked at her parents from beneath her auburn bangs,
She buried her hand in the ruff’s nape fur and scratched as she settled on the rocky outcropping and stared down at the walls of the inn as if she could, through sheer force of will, cause it to reveal whatever secrets it kept hidden. Her nose wrinkled in distaste. Even at this distance, the stench reached her.
The trader’s words came back to her, about stepping cautiously near the “civilized” areas. The man knew of the old ways, was a follower of Marrennen, as many traders were. He had told her of things only hinted at by others of her Pack. She thought they would have told her eventually, had they lived. She chewed her lip thoughtfully as she considered.
Females had their place in the Pack. Without them the Pack would wither and die. They were not equals, but sometimes could be. It was accepted that it happened. She, herself, was evidence of that. But the city dwellers, they were very different. Her being a Hunter would make her valuable for her skills, but a woman who carried weapons seemed to either be a joke or a threat or both.
Yes, she must step cautiously lest she become prey...
She needed to study them learn their ways, just as she would if it were a creature in the forest she had not seen before. That would require moving among them. She could hide her weapons, even the bow if it were unstrung, but there was no mistaking the hound at her side for what he was. No, she would not pretend to be something other than a Hunter. It was what and who she was.
She had considered trying to disguise the fact of her gender, but it had been a few years since she could pass for a lad. There really was no other choice but to go in as she was. She had taken only small game since leaving with trader. She had not needed more, only enough to feed herself and Longtooth, but it might work in her favor. The smaller game had consisted mainly of cony and fox and pheasant. She had used the parts she needed and treated and packed the rest to be traded or used as needed.
More recently, though, knowing she would have to find better shelter for the two of them then what she could make of lashed together branches, she had taken a larger kill, a hart. By far, it was too much for just them too even with the ruff’s ravenous appetite, but it’s flesh could be bartered for a room and a meal and a drink for them as well as some coin.
The first of the real storms would be here soon. She pushed up to her feet and resettled her packs, her kill and her weapons, the buckskin traveling cloak draped over her and all. “Come along, Longtooth. Let’s get to seeing what kind of shelter we might find there.”
Padding down the hill together, woman and hound made a slow, wary approach to the Plainsend Inn. Her sharp eyes took note of everything and everyone as she came upon it. The hood of her traveling cloak, pulled low to keep the frequent rain from her face shadowed her eyes and nose. As she entered she pushed back the hood letting it fall, exposing her sun burnished complexion, tawny hair and amber eyes.
Those eyes swept the inn until they lighted on the innkeep. The ruff at her side, she went to him and, iIn an accent naming her to be from the High Tarn, she asked, “Innkeep, might’n you be needin’ more meat for yon stew?”
The man walks up to the inn, leading his horse. Having dismounted to cross the bridge he kept walking, not wanting to waste the effort to remount the short distance.
Reaching the porch, he removes and shakes out his rain gear, sighing as he looks down at the rings in his mail. It will be another long night of cleaning and oiling. Can't wait on it either, lest the rust start to set.
**First things first.** He thinks, and leads his horse over to the stables. Finding a stable-hand he hands over the lead and enough coin for some oats and good currying. "Her name's Talia, though she'll perk up at just 'Tal' as well." He says, watching the young boy lead the Silver Bay Crusader off. "Watch your hands around her." He calls. "She tends to nip if you're not careful. Oh, and if you do a good job oiling the tack I'll toss in another coin for you."
Watching to make sure the boy knows what he is doing, he then heads into the inn, paying for a meal but deferring on a room for the moment. He wants to see how things go first. **One never knows who they might meet in a crossroads inn.**
Entering the inn, his stride is graceful and light, almost as if he glides across the ground. A dancers gait. He pulls off his hooded cloak, revealing a light complexion, with striking green eyes, and he wears his dark brown hair long, in a pony tail tied with leather cord. He is fairly average looking, certainly not overly handsome, but not bad, and looks to be in his early 20s. He is well muscled and trim.
He notes the man in red and gold curiously, but finds a table to himself near the fireplace where he can warm up from the early evening chill and to help dry his clothes and gear. He sets his damp cloak on a chair, pushed near the fire to dry, which reveals a short sword and long, large hilted dagger.
Dropping his pack to the floor he rummages in it and comes up with some cloth and a container of oil. Ordering a drink to go with his meal, he begins to carefully clean and dry his armour and weapons as he waits.
When his meal and drink arrives, he pauses in his work, long enough to take the edge off his hunger, then resumes meticulously cleaning and oiling. As he works, and the firelight glints of a small silver chain around his neck, he considers all that has happened to him lately. The fight with the bandits in vengeance for Killian is fresh in his thoughts. **Lucky there, and stupid. Charging so many. Should have whittled them down more first.** His eyes stray to two freshly healed cuts on his left arm. **Yes. Lucky.**
After sometime he stops and examines his work, grunting in satisfaction, and replacing everything carefully. He then sits back and casually finishes his meal and drink, taking in the room beyond as he does so.
He looks up as the others enter, first the three merchants with their female companion. Then the woman with the bow and dog. Then the small woman arriving alone. At each of the latter two arrivals his eyebrow rises higher and higher and his face takes on an expression of careful consideration.
At the final arrival, the innkeeper's daughter with her bedraggled companion, his eyes sharpen and his glance flicks to the innkeeper to see how he will react.
(OOC - Wolf, note that I typically use "quoted text" for speech and **italicized text within paired asterisks** to denote thoughts.)
The trip had been uneventful so far for the young woman. Early on she'd fallen in with some traders who were only too willing to have her join them on their travels. She was able to add to the pot at times, small things she’d noticed as they were traveling, but more importantly she stopped a few minor injuries from turning into anything more serious. And they weren't stupid. Comfrey enjoyed that about them the most. She hadn't lost her temper once, raised her voice, or been brusque at all. Maybe they were right, she thought with the warm glow of accomplishment. Travel is broadening to one's education.
She entered the Plainsend with a bit of sadness. It wasn’t the inn itself, it looked lovely – warm and comfortable. But she would miss her traveling companions, brief though their travels together had been. “Lady hold them in Your heart and healing hands,” she voiced quietly a she often did. She’d learned the hard way that an outloud voice was the best way for her to get herself in trouble… or rather, gain a mild look of disappointment from someone she held in her esteem.
She took a few moments in her room, thanking again the kindness of the trader and his sons, trying to tame her unruly mass of brown hair. Finally giving up on the lost cause she’d do her best to do a coil braid to make it presentable and head downstairs. Cutting it short would just make it worse as it would try to corkscrew in seven or more directions at once. She could practice her chicken scratches and hope for miraculous improvement or just enjoy the inn for the evening. It wasn’t a difficult decision. Chicken scratches could often wait, but the chance of hearing conversation was something else.
The plain faced woman enjoyed the meal giving the good food the attention it deserved and solemnly thanking the young girl who took her empty plate away. She gave careful, sidelong glances from her brown eyes at the two men, and a brief look of surprise at the woman with the hart meat and ruff and the other, smaller one. A brief smile of approval crossed her face. The warmth of the inn and fullness of the inn was lulling her to a gentle torpor until the door opened again and Margie and her ‘charge’ came in. Unconsciously she began to rise to her feet.
Celi slipped in quietly, having learned not to pay attention to anyone, lest they pay undue attention to her.
She had discussed this idiosyncrasy of city folk -- the tendency to move in herds and converse for no good reason -- with her erstwhile companion, and had come to no real conclusion. When she arrived, she first went to the stable to see to her solid little gray, her only real tangible gift from her Grandmother. She said tangible, because everything she was or did, was really a gift from her Grandmother, who taught her how to *be*. In the stable, she inquired as to job openings; with all the sudden rush of inn attendance, surely they could use someone on a temporary basis to help with the care and maintenance of the stock that traveled along with the people. She demonstrated her considerable gift for horse care with one angry gelding, whom she talked down to a state of calm and encouraged him to eat some of the bran mash they had by way of fodder. Fresh cut oats would have been better, but one had to make do when people were involved. The stableman was in awe; nobody had ever managed that difficult horse so smoothly. He promised to mention it to the innkeeper, and she gave him her name -- Celi -- and told him she would be inside, but she didn't mind sleeping in the stable if that was part of the job.
She didn't tell him she thought it smelled a lot better. People didn't understand that.
Inside she found a chair away from everyone else and settled in it, though she was willing to pay -- carefully counted coin -- for a meal that made her gorge rise and some milk. She didn't drink ale or spirits, and tried not to wrinkle her nose up at the offerings they called food.
Celi was clad in soft but sturdy buckskin garments that appeared to have been hand-made some time ago and well worn since, including some soft high moccasins with laces but no other adornments. She had a deerhide belt with a couple of odd kukra-like knives with well-worn hilts sheathed on it, plus a pouch for her coin and possibles. Around her neck was a thick earth-toned scarf around her neck that could be rearranged to serve as a hood. There was a wolf-skin coat rolled up on the back of her little gray's saddle, for when the Raven rolled through and it finally got genuinely cold.
Celi was very short and slim, almost childlike in dimension, but wiry and fit, and she moved with animal-like confidence. Once she had made arrangements for service, she balanced her metal stew plate on her lap and ate mostly using a piece of bread and her fingers, eschewing any utensils. She thought almost everything was fascinating, the way a disfigurement on someone else keeps drawing your eyes to it. Such was her wide-eyed focus on the goings-on around her.
The Heartwood The Plainsend Inn at the foothills of the Highgaard Reaches
Pauli glances between the newcomer ... her ruff .. to the newcomer ... to the ruff ... and it is almost as if it the big furry canine that gives the amber eyed woman her legitimacy.
"Yah lass, cover you and yours stay and handful of crown?"
Celi's startlingly pale blue eyes followed the interaction between Pauli Threeleg and the ruffwoman with rapt interest. The relationship between woman and ruff was an improvement over ordinary human behavior, she thought, though still not quite to Celi's taste. The ruff catered too much to his person's nature, which Celi found oddly disquieting.
Maybe there was some debt not obvious at first glance. Idly, she wondered how the ruff saw each of them: probably as a unique scent infusing a glob of color. The globs might appear similar, but the individual scent would be both identifying and defining. It would be very difficult to conceal yourself from the ruff.
She nodded. It was as she thought. An offer of fresh meat always seemed to smooth the way. It was a youngish buck. Much older and it likely would have been to big for her to carry. So the meat would be tender. But she had offered only the meat, not the hide, nor the hooves, nor the bones, nor the hooves, nor the small bit of antler.
"Iff'n I kin borra some cook space, I'll be about the dressin' and cleanin' of it."
A moderately tall, strongly built young man with blonde hair and piercing blue eyes walked down the stairs from above, dressed in crimson and black. He had a broadsword at one hip and a sheathed dagger on the other along with a purse at his waist. A silver necklace and disc around his neck spoke of position and means as did the quality of his clothes and weapons.
He paused on the steps and looked over the gathering crowd below and spotted the woman in white, smiling finally and coming down the steps. He approached the table and bowed his head.
"Lady Comfrey? I am Squire Lord Conrad Shannon of the Rock, come to escort you to Craigside and see to your safety and well being."
(in my attempt to keep my own time line right - remove if not needed)
Though she saw the finely dressed Squire, she ignored him as less important then the potentially injured woman. Otherwise she would say something she knew she would regret later.
Chatter was secondary to helping. She was in good health; the woman might not be.
....water from the well, just a sip. That's all I wanted.
She promised herself she would sneak only that much and then she would move on, back into the anonymity of the night, as it might her last.
Just a sip of fresh water from the well. Was that stealing? It wasn't really stealing. Right? It was a well?
It wasn’t her well though, and she knew it. Stealing was wrong… but dying was worse. She could have ignored the child. She could have knocked the child aside or worse in order to effect an escape.
No I couldn’t… I wouldn’t … ever…
So, like a snared cut-purse she found herself taking the halting steps, pulled and pushed by the small child towards the Inn and the warmth and the sounds.
Was it too much to hope that I might find a wild berry thistle or something like that as well? She didn't even know what might grow near here, as she had never been near here before. But hunger and fear conflicted and she didn't dare come closer to the PlainsEnd Inn that she saw only from the relative safety of the growing shadows of night. A bustle of activity and the smell of something cooking, maybe a meat... and bread. Bread? Oh how she desired bread at this moment. Truth be told, she would eat anything, even a water-logged crust discarded in the muck.
If only she could have summoned the will to risk being seen, she might have just entered the place and asked for charity. But, she no longer knew who friend or foe was... What if 'THEY' were here, waiting, or relaxing in the thought they had left her to a miserable death. As long as she still clung to the hope that she would survive, she didn't dare act reckless and risk anyone knowing she was near... near, but all the while dying slowly and in desperate sadness.
How long had it been? The whole of it, since Trundle? And then since she was on her own? She hadn't eaten anything in, maybe, a handful of days. At least it seemed that way. They all ran together in the dreary grayness of the coming Raven.
Not a penny had they left her, when they abandoned her along the Dirkwood Road. They probably didn't believe she would last, but being free of her somehow absolved them of their guilt. Yeah, who was she fooling? They felt no guilt. Several just wanted to kill her, maybe bury her never to be found by anyone by stray feral ruffs too hungry to care. She had heard some coins jangle but in the scuffle to drag her from the cart, the kicking and flailing and weeping and begging, she must have lost them to the mud and the puddles. For too long she had simply sat there where she had been tossed before accepting that this was her fate. At first, before the elemental onslaught gave her a reality check, she was certain that it was a bad dream within the whole nightmare. By the time she felt the cold biting sting of the rain, sleet and driving wind, the coins were gone to her by then.
It was a true indignity and a crassness of character to treat anyone that way but she was...
What was she? Really?
Who am I?
All the finery and frippery didn't keep her hands and feet warm. Diction and manners didn't do any service to the thinness of her garments nor buffer against the sleet. All the education didn't keep her skin dry nor her hair from the pasted tangle it had become. And pennies, fished out of the mud, would have been small consolation for the realization that at least they had decided killing her might cause them more trouble later. She didn't even have that.
Trundle on the Hill was too far to go, but it was Home. And it was where she desperately wanted to be right now. More than a FullHand ago her abductors had taken her down the Road East, south towards the Tarn or the distant Vales or wherever their dark hearts had as a plan. But all that changed a few days ago. Felt like days. The disc that was She rose and set and rose and set, but always the rain obscured her so the rise and set was just grey and then darkness. The moons didn't tell her much since she seldom saw them and if they were out she was too busy trying to get something, anything to eat, and any drink from any source of water that wasn't some muddy puddle. She had lost track of the exactness of time.
When had I last slept? Not even as a captive did she really sleep more than a fitful hour or two at a time. Sleep was a comfort for those at peace. She had been stolen from her home, bound and spirited out of the Imperial Palace proper, under the very noses of those sworn to protect and defend. Since then, sleep was fleeting and too expensive a commodity to risk among the brigands and ruffians who didn’t hesitate to discuss the consequences for disobedience or troublesome behavior.
And then, after she was abandoned she didn't even have the threadbare burlap sacks that smelled of tuber roots and dirt to wrap herself in anymore. It was hard to sleep knowing that the gales of wind and slashing rain that were lit only by peals of lightning and drowned out in rolling thunder crashes would be the only comfort you got. In that dangerous light she found herself scared to move for the fear that anything and everything from within the fell Dirkwood might slither up, snake you in a ravenous grasp and drag you into the darkness as a meal.
Some meal would I make. Hah.
Drinking puddle water had caused her no end to misery from her insides now and she threw up the grasses she had finally been able to force herself to eat, and then the real anguish began in the cramping and nausea.
There had been a few brief scant moments when she first put it on, spinning around to see it flair, relishing the moment that she could actually wear such a pretty garment, but it was short-lived and now a distant memory. The full length purple over-tunic had black and gold checkerboard trim at cuffs, skirt hem and key-style collar. Beneath that was a light red, not pink, under-tunic. A long black belt cinched her waist and hung along her right thigh. The soft leather boots were so comfortable, hard soled for walking the streets of Trundle or the halls of the Palace.
But mud caked the boots, and they were so water-logged now that each step made a squishing suction sound. Absolutely ruined. And the same could be said for all of her clothes. Torn by hands and brambles, spattered and splattered from falls and tumbles, layered for inches at the hem by mud and the dung of the road, stained and soiled by herself… even some blood.
If desperation hadn't already overwhelmed her she might actually feel shame standing now as she did, just inside the threshold of a tavern she had been too fearful to approach. Dirty, wet, beaten down by weather and weariness, with the last slivers of Hope crushed and slipping from her grasp. All she could do was shiver and shake and drip water about her like so much weather beaten thatch.
She could feel the warmth now, but it wasn’t her warmth. She was an intruder. But her body ached so badly, so deeply to the bone that just moving caused her pain. She hadn’t much feeling in her fingers and hands and cheeks any longer, just a deep aching in all her joints. Being drawn, pulled and pushed by the child towards the tavern as though she were some livestock animal to be herded added to her sense of desolation. She didn't deserve this effort, even from someone so little who probably didn't fully understand her plight. And yet, she couldn't deny the child the effort either. What might await her could certainly be a quicker end than what she was experiencing now, or... it might actually be some rare and unexpected kindness that she had no means of affording.
She didn't even know where she was, all she could smell was the bread. That alone invaded and occupied every sense, but her fear and shame had rooted her into place like some prey animal in the sights of Khannish the Hunter.
Not daring to look up at those inside the inn, she stood stock still, aside from the shivering and shaking that is, hands and arms and face blanched from the exposure to the cold brutal elements, unable to flex her fingers or relax her stiffened posture. What if the noises and voices she heard were her captors... what then?
There would be time for her later to know why whatever it was happened. There would be time later to think through the other inngoer's reactions. But for now she saw a shaking, shivering person, harmed by the elements and perhaps other forces as well. Even the outfit was of secondary importance. It didn't matter. The person did.
She took several strides forward so she and her Lady's whites could be seen.
"Come, sit, let me see to your injuries." Her tone was not the hasty or impatient one it often was. This was the caring tone that had first attracted the attention of the village healer. Whether the girl had coin or not was of no importance. not to Comfrey, not now.
Last edited by Raven; Sun 30/10/1101:31 UTC. Reason: spelling
The woman was young, maybe very young, maybe old enough to know better than be outside in weather like this, especially this time of year.
Brilliant blue eyes, and though the rain had soaked her through and plastered her long blonde hair to her face, it was easy to see she was very fair in complexion.
She swallowed hard, feeling the weight of her tunic and self-conscious of the water pooling around her muddy boots. Then came a sniffle and small hacking cough that she tried to cut-off... unsucessful though.
Her cramped hand didn't even make it to her face to shield her coughing as was an apprpriate gesture for civilized people.
Just shivering and shaking with darting eyes, trying to see everyone. Afraid to move, hurting to the joints, she glanced back at the woman speaking to her and then looking around her again. Another swallow and an attempt to push the strands of tangled hair from her face... unsucessful though.
"Sorry," whispered in a hoarse voice. Perhaps she couldn't manage more than that. But still she resisted moving further into the room. "I'll clean..."
The movement of the woman in white caught her attention for a moment, just long enough to glance back and see who she spoke to. A single thought left unspoken. Prey.
She returned her attention to the innkeep, waiting for his answer. The kitchen would be best, secondary would be the smithy kiln.
The Heartwood The Plainsend Inn at the foothills of the Highgaard Reaches
"Kitchen's through the door ... and ..." Pauli's words came to a halt as both the lady in white and at the dripping scene at the door. 'Mother ... get us a big bowl of stew and a blanket."
With a Lady in the room, charity comes natural.
He then looked back to the huntress.
"But there's a rack under the eaves outside so you can hang it to bleed. Should be ready for morning?"
“Aye,” she answered with a short bob of her head without seeing the need to explain it wouldn’t take till morn.
She turned then to tend to the matter but paused and watched Longtooth’s movements knowing he could ken some things better than she. She noted the person that garnered his interest, making note of clothing and movement. She would have to watch that one.
Darian laid a hand on the back of his head, just between his ears, gave him a bit of a scratch. His size meant she could do so without bending or even leaning. She spoke to him in low tones, meant only for his sharp ears. “Ye stay inside, me friend, dry and warm. I not be long.”
The ruff lifted his head a bit to look at her as if he were deciding. Then he padded towards the fire, there to dry his fur and warm his bones. He chose a spot, made a couple of circles before settling his great bulk on the floor. He laid his head on his paws but did not close his eyes. Though in repose, he was ever vigilant.
A corner of her mouth turned up as she noted he had placed himself in such a way as to watch for her and to still keep the other in view. He truly was her friend, the only one she had in all the Heartwood. With an understanding look passing between them, she turned and headed back out into the night, managing to slip by both the child and her weeping find. They were none of her concern.
Outside in the light of the sputtering torches she easily found the rack. Slipping the hart from beneath her cloak, she quickly trussed it to the rack and set to work. Silent words were spoken as she began. Her movements were quick and sure and reverent. A bucket was set beneath to catch the blood, platters were retrieved from the kitchen to hold the meat and those parts that could not be eaten by people were put aside for Longtooth along with meat from a haunch.
Once the edible parts were stored in the kitchen, Darian moved the skin into the smithy to dry by the heat available there. A quick curing would have to do. Perhaps the traders would be interested in it, though, more likely they would want the smaller pelts. Musing and hide hanging done, she returned to the interior by way of the kitchen. She gathered up the meal for Longtooth and a bowl of water, seeing to his needs before her own. She set the food and water before him then retrieve stew, bread and mead for herself.
When she came back, she put her meal down long enough to divest herself of th cloak and hang it over th back of chair to dry. Her packs and bedroll went on the seat. The bow and quiver tilted against it. She lowered herself to the floor next to the ruff. She leaned against the chair, one leg pressing against the big ruff’s side. He had waited until she had returned to his side and settled herself before beginning to eat.
She observed the happenings in the common room with the curiosity of one learning their surroundings. Her amber eyes did occasionally stray to the one who had aroused Longtooth’s interest, wondering what it was about her that he had noted. What or who had he sensed?
Celi finally spotted someone who looked more miserable than she felt. Which made her a possible roommate, reducing the coin Celi would have to carefully count out. Celi much preferred her own company, and always traveled alone. Well, alone as far as human company was concerned. But she did not have an unlimited source of funds. She had hoped for at least a temporary post in the stable, what with all the people coming in, but apparently that was not in the offing. Unless she got a job, which so far was not looking too good, the cost of a room and food was going to challenge her funds. The girl in the wrong clothes also sounded a little under the weather; that cough was iffy. But ...if she was sick, not to worry. Celi could do something about that when they were out of the public eye. And maybe she would feel financially grateful.
She rose to her feet and dragged over another empty chair, intending to weave her way through the room to the woman's side and share her stew and milk, and invite her to have a seat; but about that time, the innkeeper's mother bustled over with a blanket and a bowl of stew. Celi cursed herself for not coming in looking more bedraggled, and thereby saving the carefully counted coin she had just spent for her meal. She plunked back down in her chair. Something might still be possible, but she was a terrible solicitor, so all she could do was try to look pleasant -- not that easy a task -- and keep her eye on the wet woman, in case she showed some interest in a place to sit or more..
The squire did not take offense as the Lady got to her feet and went in a hurry to see to the comfort of the young woman. It had been what he planned to do after presenting himself anyway and the proper thing for an acolyte of the Lady to do.
And so he turned and followed Comfrey over to the wet and miserable young woman, taking in her torn and stained clothing, the quality and cut of them and her boots marking her as a woman of station.
Conrad pulled the chair up for her and took the blanket from the innkeepers wife to gently place around the girl's shoulders while Comfrey attended to her.
She was already in front of her new charge, and she was crying. Without a thought Comfrey would move to gently enfold her in a careful hug and get her to sit down. Crying creatures often needed it, but she'd not take it amiss were it refused. That happened too sometimes.
"Ssshhhh," she murmured softly, "you are safe now. We have food and aid for you, and for cleaning? That will be dealt with too. There will be a place of safe rest too. We must look to your hurts, yes?"
Comfrey had a lovely room and warm blankets thanks to her friends. Even if she hadn't, the was always enough to share. That's what her coin was for after all.
So many faces, all of them staring. Not all them at her, but still there was an intensity in this place. The young woman couldn't manage her physical composure any more than she could stop the flow of tears. She felt the pressure and warmth of the embrace from the... A real Lady of Attera? For a certainty, that is what she must be. She dressed as one but appearances could be contrived or manipulated to deceive. The manner in which this Lady conducted herself was the more convincing truth.
At least that was the hope as the scared and cold woman, little more than a girl herself, accepted the comfort and embrace as she wrapped her arms about the woman and pulled her as tightly to herself as strength would allow.
"I do not mean to intrude," she whispered in a raspy voice. She hadn't had anyone to speak to in days and the effort to hear her own voice would have been wasted energy better spent on keeping warm or finding something to eat. "I am not worthy of such kindness..."
Her shoulders sank and she returned to her seat, covering her embarrassment by setting her stew and milk on the second chair as if that had been her intent all along. She always took too long in trying to parse human interactions. They did not come naturally to her; she had no autonomic reactions where other humans were concerned. Fight-or-flight situations? She had those. Ordinary kindness? She didn't understand it, so she had to reason through it, and that meant she was always a step behind everyone else, even when she came to a correct conclusion. Things were a lot easier on he road.
Just about the same time Celi stands up to bring over a chair, the young man sitting near the fire also stands. He reaches over to pick up his cloak, intending to offer it to the young woman who is clearly chilled to the bone, but about that time the young girl is swarmed upon by a woman dressed as a Lady of Attera, the man, 'Squire Conrad of the Rock', and the inkeeper's daughter bringing a blanket.
**Well met, that.** He thinks, about the healer. **Be nice to get some confirmation that the rot has not set into those cuts.**
But she is busy now, and he knows well the Lady's Handmaids beneficence and would not think to interfere.
He stands a moment longer, holding the cloak, then re-hangs it on the chair near the fire where it was drying. As he does, he turns his head towards the small woman not too far from him, at a table on the other side of the fire, who also stood as he did. He shrugs at her, offering a small smile and a wink. As if to say, 'Oh well.'
About then he sees the big dog, a dog about whom he suspects he knows it's origin, especially coming in with the woman in forest garb with a hunter's bow, come walking over towards the fire and settle itself into a spot about midway between his table and that of the small woman.
He wonders about all these women. With Cameron's Light Horse there were no women. In fact they were in the field so often that the occasions he had to interact with women, since his mother and sister died, were few and far between. Other than the occasional Lady of Attera they could find to heal wounds, but he never really thought of those as 'women'. He always tried to be as honourable as he could on those few instances, trying to not do anything he thought would embarrass him to his mother. Still, it was not like he had extensive experience at it.
So after seeing he was apparently not needed to help attend to the bedraggled woman, and giving the small woman across the way a smile. He sits back down and picks his glass back up, sipping at it as he listens carefully to the commotion around the woman in the dirty, but seemingly well made clothing.
**There's a story there worth keeping an eye on.** He muses.
Celi realized her attempt had caught the eye of the young man by the fire, which elicited the usual cautionary behavior on her part. No good thing ever occurred from being noticed. They saw you, then they noticed you, then they decided you weren't like them, then they decided you needed punishing for being different. It was always the same.
He *was* healthy-looking, though: well-formed and graceful. She had looked away at his smile, but she sneaked a glance back to watch the play of muscle beneath his garments. People could actually be attractive, if they cared for themselves and lived a life that kept them fit. Too many of them became enamored of the trappings of civilization -- the clothes and weapons and finery. This one was clean-limbed, with a broad sinewy back, a narrow tapered waist, powerful haunches. Abruptly she realized he was looking at her eyes, so she quickly looked away, blushing at her own carelessness.
"All are, do not belittle yourself so, hmm?" Comfrey returned the pressure, but gently, gently so as not to cause any more harm. "Nor are you an intrusion."
"Now, you need out of those clothes and to get warm. Food is already here it seems," she smiled her thanks as the stew and blanket was coming. "Both can be done at once I think. The cough and others things will be dealt with too, but I'd rather your teeth not chatter their way through my fingers."
Blankets could cover much, and stew could fill nicely.
She'd look her over as well she could. things needing immediate attention would be dealt with but otherwise, the woman needed to be wrapped in warmth and wrapped around her food.
When the young girl looks away, and he sees the slight rise of colour on her cheeks, he pauses a moment, unsure.
**Did I offer insult?** He wonders worriedly.
But she does not look angry. More..., well perhaps annoyed is the best term he can come up with. Almost as if she thought not to be noticed? But then why did she stand and draw attention to herself? Although, as he looks around it seems he is the only one who did notice. He's always been quick with his peripheral vision. It's saved him from more than one ambush.
**Well, no need to rub it in.**
He turns away, glancing to the girl in forest dress who has now sat near her ruff, not too far from him, and close by the heat of the fire.
"Nice ruff." He says to her casually. "I had one, back home. Named Hammer, after the spring stars. A big dog. Not as big as yours, though." His voice has a bit of a melancholy tone to it, and has an accent of the area around Brockman's Holdfast. "He died one winter. Protecting our milker. It was Midwinter's night, and everyone was at their revel. A Coven Wolf came off the High Tarn to take the milker. Hammer gave it what for. Chased it off, but he didn't make it to morning. Good dog."
She looked up towards the light complected man, having learnt that others tried to find common ground when trying to share conversation. She sipped at the mead, enjoying the warming sensation from it as well as from the fire.
"He is called Longtooth though he is not mine."
She pauses as if considering, almost long enough to give the impression she will not speak again.
"It is nice to make your acquaintance." This last is said as if it was something taught to him by someone and he's been saving it up to use. It is almost as if he is 'tasting' the words as they leave his lips, and as he finishes his mouth twitches upwards briefly in a private smile.
"Not yours?" He continues, nodding towards the ruff. "I note you travel together. Are you his then?" He smiles.
(OOC - Ividia - jpeg notwithstanding, as in his description, he is actually light complexioned with green eyes and dark brown, almost black hair, worn long in a pony tail. Was hard enough to find a good pic, so my bad if it doesn't match his description.)
She glanced to the squire who stood waiting near a chair with the blankets brought by the child. A busy little girl she was... And the squire? She looked at his tunic and then his face and back again. She didn't know where she was and knowing the Squire's affiliation would help her. Of course the answer wasn't going to solve her problems, and might actually make it worse. There were enemies out there and she didn't know who they were.
The idea that she would strip down, regardless of the state of her clothing, added a new level of anxiety. It wasn't proper. Maybe women disrobed in front of men in this area, but it wasn't the way of things in Trundle on the Hill.
She allowed herself to be led deeper into the Inn. But...
"These... These are the only clothes i have," she said with some obvious discomfort concerning her modesty.
"Well met." He agrees pleasantly. Glancing between the ruff and the girl he says, "Traveling together I understand. A bit like Tal and I. She's my best friend. Only real friend now that Killian is dead. But Pack?" He tilts his head inquisitively.
"My mount. Silver, bay, crusader. Talia in full. She's in the stables having a nice bucket of oats and getting her coat curried."
He smiles again. "She's somewhat spoiled, but I indulge her. She's saved my life more than once."
He looks to the ruff again. "Longtooth, though. He looks like he's a bit...., more, for some reason."
He pauses, tentatively reaching out his hand, but stopping before getting within biting range, and looks to Darian. "Do you think he'd mind a scratch behind the ears?"
The Heartwood The Plainsend Inn at the foothills of the Highgaard Reaches
"Well lass, that you not be worrying for ..."
The barkeep nodded to his daughter,
"Margie, go get one of your mother's tunics ..."
Tunics are simple, and one of the nice things about them is that as long as they are not too small, they can be made to make do. The daughter scampered off, quickly coming back with a bundle of sturdy tan broadcloth.
If you wish, you may, in a single post, vanish away for a little bit and then returning, cold wet clothes exchanged for dry ones and a place at the fire. The intent, as this is a conversational thread, to keep people all together in the general discussion without hiccups.
He completes the movement of his reaching hand, giving Longtooth a thorough scratching behind his ears and the top of his head, and even under his chin if he seems to want it.
As he does he continues the conversation with Darian. "Well, Tal is not a possession. She and I have been through a lot together and she is friend and confidant. In fact, considering how much time I spend pampering her I'd say most of the time she gets the better end of our travels together."
He gives a final scratch, then looks Longtooth seriously in the eyes. "It is very nice to meet you as well, Longtooth." He nods to the ruff, then sits back in his chair.
"Milady, perhaps Lady Comfrey might have something. Otherwise I do have some warm clothing that you may use while your garments are laundered and a warm cloak to help rid you of the chills." he offered.
He wears a signet ring on his finger and a silver chain and disc around his neck. From all signs, he is a squire of Lord Ramos.
He laughs, a light friendly sound. "I suppose not. Cameron's Light Horse was not like other troops either, but I think that's not what you mean."
"So, Darian. Are there others in your Pack? Besides you and Longtooth I mean?"
He puts down his now empty mug and looks to see if the serving girl is free from helping with the Acolyte of Attera. If so, he indicates he'd like a refill and turns back to Darian. "Would you like a drink, Darian?" He adds.
"Before you do that though, something for helping those injuries." She raised her hand and said quietly, "Lady, aid this one please."
Comfrey's voice and prayer was sincere, but her words were lacking the adornments many seemed to have. A white glow began and would reach out to the girl's head, arms and legs to soothe the physical pains and minor open wounds of the bump and other injuries.
The Lady of Attera held her up, to offer prayers for healing. She had never seen a Lady of Attera before. Not ever. And yet, this far from home, she not only sees one but somehow earns the favor of the woman.
She felt the tears welling up again. No one had ever prayed to the Gods of the Imperial Court on her behalf before. She wasn't worthy of this. She stood there, accepting the kindness, lower lip pushed out, trying to stifle her newest wave of tears.
With reluctance, the young woman accepted the the fact that she needed to shed the clothes she wore in favor of dryer and warmer garments. She allowed Lady Comfrey and the Squire to escort her to a private place. Anything else was Improper and Immodest.
Even in the privacy she was afforded she felt uncomfortable with the Lady of Attera seeing her undressed. However that issue was resolved, she would change from her wet tunics and into the tunics offered by the innkeeper's wife.
Returning to the common room, again the the escort of the Lady and the Squire, still cold and numb and very hungry, she allowed for the possibility that she might actually find her first safe haven in more than a FullHand of days. Maybe.
"You are all too generous. You don't even know me. I don't deserve such favor..."
Now barefoot and still moving slowly, she returned to the larger company of the crowd gathered in this roadside inn. She had been able to dry herself and now it was obvious she had very long blond hair that had a tendency to fall in loose curls.
She still looked lost and cast glances about her as she returned, trying to make sure she knew where everyone was at. She allowed her escorts to guide her wherever they felt was best.
Unconsciously she twisted the silver ring on her left middle finger. Ever since seeing the ring on the squire's hand, she was reminded of her one possession and what it represented it. It was odd that the things that brought happier memories had such a power to inspire hope in times of despair.
Conrad had helped support the wet and worn lady to the room and left her in Comfrey's care, standing guard outside of the door with his hands clasped behind his back as he protected the ladies.
He thought of his charge, the alcolyte of Attera as he stood there. She seemed caring and kind as all of the church he had met had been. They had not exchanged words yet but at least he had found his charge and he could now proceed with his duty after almost four days of waiting in this small inn. Conrad would see her safely to Craigside and the good care of the Ladies there.
Escorting them both back to the common room, he turned to look at the girl as she spoke.
"You were in distress and we could give you aid. It is the way of our orders. I am Squire Lord Conrad Shannon of the Rock and this is Alcolyte Comfrey. May we know your name?" he asked, his sharp blue eyes taking in her unconscious twisting of the ring on her hand.
Politely she turned her back, or would even step out if that seemed the best to do while the young woman changed. The faster she was getting a bowl of stew in her, the better as far as Comfrey was concerned.
As they went back to the common room her temper started again at the words of the Squire, but she ruthlessly trampled it down. He did not mean to be patronizing and speak for them both. It was his way. A lowering of her eyes was all she allowed herself. Her teacher had taught her that trick.
That her way would be different was not important now. That the once waif ate and wrapped herself in the blanket was. She would move their group towards the table where the stew awaited and smile again at the innkeeper and the one who'd brought the stew and blanket.
One might save her life and the other might see it sacrificed.
Didn't the Lady of Attera deserve honesty from her?
Yes. Even accepting the word of the squire, and she had no reason not to, he also deserved honesty.
But... any of these others could be agents of the conspiracy that put her on the Road East in the first place, abducted from her home. taken from the Imperial Palace. She had no way to know how far this plot extended, nor who's words, no matter how innocent or in-passing, might bring the agents of these enemies to this very place. What harm they might do to the kind family who ran this establishment, or any of these others... especially the Lady of Attera... surely compelled a particular course of action, and no matter how it might cost her in terms of burgeoning relationships, she had to protect them. Her actions and decisions right now could bring harm to either these people or those she left behind in Trundle.
Truth or Duty?
They couldn't co-exist. Those same careless words that might bring harm here, could very well re-ignite the agents of chaos to become more brazen...
She stared at Squire Conrad, matching his deeply blue eyes with her own of Azure, and opened her mouth to speak, and then closed it again. Her eyes seemed to find a place at the center of his tunic and she stared into some distant point in her mind. Finally she looked up at him again, but still seemed no closer to speaking. The squire, directly in front of her was faced with a young woman trapped in a moment of torment.
Tell the Truth or do her Duty as was her place...
"Kris..."
One syllable was all she manged to choke out before she cut herself off and clenched her jaw.
"Camelia," she said, and immediately she regretted saying anything at all.
He gets up from the chair and kneels down next to Darian, so he can be at her eye level as she sits on the floor next to Longtooth.
"I am so sorry. I too have lost my..., Pack. Both of them actually. My first Pack. My family. Are all dead. Killed, directly or indirectly by those damned..., well anyway they are all dead." He absently fingers the silver chain around his neck as he talks.
"After that I was accepted into a new group. But the leader decided we could not survive together anymore and sent us all away to try to make it on our own."
"I've been doing that for some time now. It gets lonely at times, and I dearly miss my family and my friends, but you learn to take enjoyment where you can, and while it is no substitute, there is some satisfaction in self-reliance."
He grunts acceptance of her answer. **Perhaps she is unused to others different than her?** He muses.
Based on her earlier answers it sounds like she spent almost all her time with those like she is, and he suspects that means out in the woods and not near cities or towns where there'd be a variety of others to meet and interact with.
"They wore grey and their picture for themselves was stripes of grey. They called themselves ... Mon-ta-gue."
She had difficulty pronouncing the name and there was distaste there.
"They have no --"
She stopped and looked up, unsure. He could be friend to them or in their employ. Her eyes searched for a clue. Longtooth did not react poorly to him, but others were here, could overhear....
His tankard falls from his hand, hitting the floor and spilling the rest of his drink. Luckily it is a metal tankard, likely made here at the local smithy, glass being much more expensive than metal. Harder to find and make as well.
Darian can see several expressions fly across Mikal's face, and if she is versed at reading such they are clearly surprise and shock, followed by anger and little disguised hatred.
Those pass quickly, and his face colours in embarrassment. He glances around quickly to see how many noticed, and then reaches down and picks up the tankard, and when the serving girl comes running over he takes her rag and wipes up his spill himself, taking those few moments to compose himself.
He turns back to Darian, speaking quietly so others cannot hear. "My apologies. I did not mean to...., well..., in any case, it seems we have something in common Mistress Darian. A shared sadness. My family. My pack, as it were. Were killed by the Montague. The Grey Men. My Father and Uncle were taken to their mines at Juleston, and were never heard from again. My Mother and Sister tried, with my help, to work our farm, but it was too much. They both died, within a week of each other. In the winter. It was the sickness, but I think much of it was from broken hearts. I had nowhere to go and was lucky to find a Troop of Cavalry who took me in. They disbanded several years ago, so I am on my own once more."
He holds out his hand, offering to clasp arms with her. "I suspect your pain is much more recent than mine. If you have need of help, let me know and I will do what I can. Little as that may be."
Her eyes do not miss the expressions, especially the ones that resonate with her own feelings. She had followed her Master's wishes, his last edict to her and left him behind to fight the Grey Men alone. Her time since had been spent traveling, surviving, near constantly on the move.
If not for the oncoming storm, she would likely still be on the road, yet she could not in good conscience subject Longtooth to such. And he would be within his rights to leave her if she had continued on. Now, having time to sit, speak with another and reflect even, grief thus far refused began to surface.
She ducked her head, became very still except for the hand that curled in Longtooth's fur. She would not cry or show weakness, not here among those she did not know. Darian gathered herself about her, forcing those feelings down and away. Tension set into her shoulders and she took a long, deep breath.
When she again looked up there was extra moisture in her eyes yet none fell. She set down the tankard and clapsed his arm.
"Mikal we call friend for enemy shared. I would have stayed and stood with my Master, yet he forbade it lest all the knowings be lost."
"I think we should take the stew and talk privately Lady." he said to Camila. "I have not heard your particular name before but I do recognize its lineage." he said, looking her in the eyes with open honesty on his face.
She frowned and shook her head. It wasn't just what she was about to say that determined her answer, but the way that the young woman had shared what sparse information she had. "The stew is already getting cold," she said firmly. "Come, we'll sit and eat. Maybe you should get something as well, Conrad?"
She smiled at Kris, Cemelia, whomever and said gently, "As my mother would say, "Eat, eat you're too skinny.""
"If we are to be friends, then best we are open with each other. My name is Llugh D'Allyne. I am known as Mikal. It is an affection. A nickname, sort of, though I gave it to myself. Still it is what I am known by. And it seems Mikal has a bit of a reputation, though it was not my intent to create such when I struck out on my own."
He shrugs. "I suppose it is rare enough for men to honour their word, and to pass by better paying work, for that which is of greater good to those who need it most, that some may have gossiped."
He looks at Darian curiously, doing his best to ignore the moisture at her eyes so as to not embarrass her. "I wonder, though, do you have a goal? A destination? Or are you still running?" He glances towards the door, as if armed men of Montague might burst in any moment. She can see the look in his eyes is almost one of eagerness.
"Llugh... D'Allyne," she repeated trying out the unfamiliar name then shook her head. "If Mikal is your choosing, I will use it."
"Darian is the only name I have had."
There was a bit of puzzlement as she followed his words about honor and the greater good. She supposed she would understand what he meant eventually. It seem very foreign to her.
"A goal? Yes, to find new territory. A destination? No place known to me."
But the last question made her sit back and her brows drew together. "Running? I do not run, I chase and hunt."
Her eyes widened. His face was kind, but his words could mean anything. In the open, among others there was some small measure of safety. Maybe. Going away from that, with him did scare her. She reached out with delicate hands, wrinkled from exposure to the rain and winds, blanched whiter than her already too fair complexion. She trailed her index finger across the medallion.
"Rames... the Protector," she whispered. Like adding a layer of understanding to what she believed.
"Alone?" That softly issued question sounded more like a check of her own will and resolve to accede to his request, competing with the desire to run away into the cold night again.
The Lady of Aterra was interceding though and while some of her words seemed drowned out in the rush of thoughts churning in her own mind, she could feel the tone and the meaning of her presence now.
The Stew smelled so powerful... and she realized that it was part of the maelstrom in her head, screaming at her, reminding her that she was starving for nourishment. And Bread.
Still she had no coin to pay for any of it, and should she be offered some it would have to be accepted as charity, and offered as such.
Squire Conrad's words were gentle, but he did carry a sword. And only those who were simple-minded fools would do such without knowing how to use it. Squire Conrad didn't look the fool.
He wore the colors of the Imperial House of Faast, but there was no checkerboard collaring at the cuffs or hems. Her own thoughts returned to the clothes she wore. She had already said too much, and revealed too much.
"I would, M'lady," she replied with eyes lowered now, "but I have no means left to me."
"Mikal is what I've come to be used to." He smiles and nods.
His smile grows a bit wider at her last comment. **She must be very good indeed with that bow then.**
He bites his tongue to avoid making the typical jest used in the cavalry about 'We're charging in a retrograde direction', to avoid saying the word 'Retreat'. Still he thought she'd said her leader, mentor, whoever he was, had told her to run while he did a rearguard action. That sounded like running to him.
**But then what do I know?**
"Alright. No running. But also no destination? Hmmm. Are you any good with that bow? Good at hunting?"
"It is a finding of territory... I have heard others call it... Quest?"
The last word was definitely a question, Darian not being sure if she had the right word.
"I will know it when I find it," she said with utter conviction.
She tilted her head at him quizzically and Longtooth turned and did the same. Her eyes went to his armor then his weapons. Then she remembered that even among her own people, it was rare for the women to be counted among the Hunters.
She smiled a little, a brief flash of teeth.
"Are ye any good with the weapons ye carry or do ye pretend?"
"The food is here, it is brought for you. Your means are the same as my own." She was trying, really trying. The young woman was obviously nervous and shamed and she really shouldn't get annoyed at her.
Comfrey smiled at her, "Please, I can't eat so much, and we should share, yes? There's a warm fire, and I have plenty of room in my room for you to rest later on should you wish. At the very least, consider me in your debt for helping me balance scales of things given to me."
"And, it's Comfrey, please. The titles are due to My Lady and the kindness she shows me." Hang formality if this would help. Besides, it was true.
Last edited by Raven; Mon 31/10/1119:23 UTC. Reason: added
"As Lady Comfrey says, do not worry about such matters. It is our duty to help those we can. A table near the fire and perhaps a warm loaf of bread and some butter and perhaps something to drink?" he asked, going to hold out the chair for her.
He chuckles. "Well said, and I accept the rebuke without rancor. Though I have known men to carry weapons they could barely use so others would think they could." He holds up a hand. "Not that I meant that I thought that about you, ...." He shakes his head and sighs.
"I am making things worse. Let me start again. I ask because more often than I would like I have been on lonely trails and forced to eat roots and berries when my supplies ran low. A companion who was also a good hunter would have been a blessing."
"I also ask about destination as I have come here seeking to find suitable work before my coin gets too low. If none is to be found, with the worst of winter closing in, I will need to find a place to pass it. My offer of help was an honest one. If we happen to be traveling in the same direction I think I might enjoy talking more with you."
He grins. "And I'd not turn down a nice bit of hart every now and again, were it to be provided by a friend."
She offers another brief smile though this one stays a bit longer. His discomfiture puts her more at ease and some of the tension visibly leaves her.
"There be hart in the morning meal. His pelt dries at smithy kiln."
She glanced down to Longtooth who had gone back to observing the room.
"We travel east until we are turned another way."
It was as much of a destination as she knew. Th Master had said 'far from here', but how far was far. She felt she had traveled far already, and a view of a map would likely agree. Yet, it was not far enough. She would know her territory when she came to it.
"Comfrey," repeated the young woman, as though the very act of saying it gave it meaning to her. She nodded in acceptance of the undeserved charity.
"Thank you... M'la... Comfrey."
The Squire was speaking as well, more words of comfort, and yet she could only hear the general tone. Her own mind was lost in the currents of the many days and nights she languished while hope diminished. That she might see her home again, her mother... And these last few days were a pure driving force of her own will to stay alive and grasp the last slivers of that fleeting hope.
Bread, with butter he said. Bread was more than nourishment. It was a gift from all the Gods there were, and with butter and a warming fire to add, it was like a harvest of bounty. Truth be told, she would eat a cold potato under a sheep shed's overhang and call that a blessing right now.
Allowing herself to be directed to the chair that the Squire proffered she tried to manage a smile along with a gracious nod, but it felt as though she more than curled a lip and maybe looked as though she were in bowel pain. Maybe just her imagination as she had no looking glass or polished silver to see herself. Still, her appearance was now a far cry from the lofty standards she once tried to maintain.
"My mothe... she said much the same thing... once or thrice... too skinny."
Indeed, the young woman was slight of build and not very well filled out nor overly endowed in either a womanly manner nor a manner sufficient to see her through a hard cold winter.
"A little water, please kind Squire," she said as she tried to slowly lower her tired and aching body into a position that might allow her to relax better. There came that pained expression again, although this time it wasn't a smile.
About her she took in the faces of those others taking shelter in the comfort of the Common Room. She lingered over the wild ruff for a moment, and when it regarded her back, she looked away quickly. best not to draw the ire of him. His owner, or companion or whatever she might be called in these parts was keeping quiet conversation with another, an armed man though not garbed as the squire. More weapons. The woman had a weapon as well, nearby her. Dangerous that be, not conventional where she came from.
Any of them could be an enemy, or become one at a wrong word. She didn't know where she was, nor who had abducted her. She glanced around at all of them. She would never make it back through the door again. A choice she made, and likely a selfish one. What if agents of her abductors or the ones who hired them came in, what then? Where to run? What danger had she put everyone in?
The Squire wanted to talk. What could she say? What in her name sparked his interest? Which name? Too many questions. She watched them all still, finally taking in the last of the patrons. It was hard to hold this one's attention as though she were the most feral of them all. Given she knew little of hunting, the gaze made her uncomfortable, and rightfully so. In this room, she was little more than a curiosity to some and weak prey to others.
Suddenly she looked back and forth between the Squire and the Lady of Aterra.
"Yes, Water," she repeated, unsure of whether she had spoken this request aloud or not.
"Cony, or fowl, sounds great." He shudders. "No fox, though, please? Had it once when it got caught in a trap. Too tough and gamy for me, given a choice."
He looks up as the trio re-enter the common room and take seats at a table across the way.
He looks back to Darian. "So. What do you think of those? Girl had the look of wearing finery. Bedraggled and abused finery to be sure, but not clothes for the trail, certainly. Wonder where she came from? Looks to be some hard traveling too. Lucky she's in one piece."
"Well, as to pelt and furs I'll defer to your expertise. Don't mind cony fur, but a good fox pelt will get more coin, true. As to meat, I never found predator or scavenger meat to be better than prey. But maybe you'll prove me wrong one day?"
He glances at the trio across the way and grunts an acknowledgement of Darian's reply. "S'pose that is true too. I tend to look at things less as worries. More as...., well as opportunities."
He chuckles softly. "Well, something has got to sit at the top of the ladder, doesn't it? Something everyone is afraid to hunt?"
He pauses, glancing again at the table. He tries to listen to what is being said there, but for now he is hesitant to approach. He doesn't want to get on the bad side of the Lady's Acolyte, and he doesn't know how the Squire will react, so best to wait and watch for now.
"Opportunity? Hmm. Well, let's see, how to explain? I make a living from helping others. For coin, of course. But the chances to help others, the opportunities to help, are sometimes fleeting. There one second and gone the next. If you don't grab them..., shoot at them when they stick their heads out of their burrows", he grins, "they can disappear back down never to be seen again. A chance lost. A lost chance both for the person needing the help, and for me to earn my living."
"Of course. If you will give me just a moment." he said, going over to the innkeeper or his wife to arrange for bread, butter and both water and wine for the table, handing her the appropriate amount.
She really looked around the inn for first time since she'd began helping Kris...Camelia...whatever her name was. It was an interesting mix of people she had to admit. Some were talking with each other, another seemed off to one side. Maybe later they'd be interested in talking.
Then she turned her gentle regard back to the young woman and smiled encouragingly. "Eat," she repeated. "He'll be back with something to drink shortly. For now you are safe here from whatever it was that put you in the situation when we met. And should you be willing to speak, perhaps more may be done." She shrugged a bit. She would do what she could, and help as she might. The next step would need to be the young woman's.
The woman who called herself Camelia watched as the squire left. She couldn't help but wonder if he was going to come back with others to take her into some custody or abduct her. She swallowed hard and then snapped her mind into more clarity and looked to the Healer.
"Why would you do this? Help me like this, I mean."
She nodded again to the stew in case she hadn't been understood the first time. She's exhausted, and hungry, and cold...probably isn't thinking right.
"Would I not wish aid if I was in need? Are there not times we all are? I have, you do not." Comfrey had a hard time finding the right words. Even if she didn't serve the Lady, she would help those in need. Mother and Father put up with her crow long enough when she found it and brought it home to tend. It was just her.
She smiled and her plain features lit slightly. "I could mumble things at you I suppose, but truly? It's the right thing to do."
The young woman you called herself Camelia followed the nod towards the stew and it was desperately desired. But still she listened. Already Squire Conrad was coming back with bread she hoped and she could see he carried a flagon and a wooden cup.
The Lady's words seemed genuine. The right thing to do. She understood that. All she had to do was believe the words she heard. All she had to do was trust that this was charity without a cost to be sought sooner or later.
Finally her hunger won out and she quickly and rather unceremoniously snatched up the bowl, fumbling at the spoon. Bringing both of them to meet her mouth she shoveled the bites in greedily, nearly choking herself as she did.
Lowering her voice so as not to embarrass the young woman with the bowl she said softly, "A few bites and wait for your stomach to adjust. It will help."
He decides it's not worth pushing Darian, if she doesn't follow. It was mostly a curiosity anyway.
Instead, he returns to the main question. "Yes. The forest would be if traveling due east. Stay on the road and you'll come to Cragside. That's my goal, for now. It's the biggest place in that direction and my best chance to find work before winter really hits."
He looks at her curiously. "Are you intending to visit there as well?"
"Do not intend, but if it is on the path, then will," she said simply. "Will need shelter as well since we have no more den to winter in."
She paused, offered another quick smile.
"We, Mikal and Darian and Longtooth and...Talia?, will run together to this Cragside. When we come within a day or two, ye tell me, and I will hunt extra to have meat and pelts to trade."
"I am pretty sure we're only about a day away now, Darian. Inns like these are usually placed about the end of a good days travel so people have a logical place to stay, and if I judge my own journey well enough I expected to hit Cragside pretty soon."
He pauses in thought. "How many days do you think you'd need for hunting? If we're that close, are you better off just going on to Cragside and then venturing out from there every day for a few days to hunt and get some pelts to sell, or would all the city people scare away the game?"
He was indeed coming back with the flagon and cup in hand, putting the cup on the table and pouring fresh water into the vessel.
"The bread and butter will be here in a moment." he said quietly. He pulled out the chair next to the girl for Comfrey, offering to seat her as proper before finding a seat for himself, back to the wall. He planned to say nothing more until the girl had eaten her fill and replenished herself.
The young woman who called herself Camelia did slow at that point, trying to swallow the large mouthful she had, chewing and chewing at the hunk of meat in her mouth, unwilling to surrender it. The irony here was that it would be unlady-like to take the food back out of her mouth and opt for a smaller effort. So she acted the wildling and kept at it until she could horse down the over-sized portion already in her mouth.
"May I," she then said with a nod to the wooden cup. Resting the utensil in her bowl, she took up the cup and drank until she had emptied it. And then she set back for a moment. She wanted to eat more and more, but the Lady of Aterra was right. Slow. She had eaten little but some roots and grasses and that ended with disastrous results recently. She didn't want to gorge herself in haste only to lose it because she ate foolishly.
She would wait a bit and forcibly slow herself and that would give the squire a chance to speak. She dreaded it, but it was inevitable. To get the food she had to sit in their company. To warm herself she had to be near others who wanted to do the same. She liked people and loved hearing stories. But hers was not one she was looking forward to telling. Perhaps the Squire would do most of the speaking... he looked as though he might have things to say and a want and desire to hear them said.
"So close? Is good. I had thought to trade the hart hide with the traders," a nod of her head towards those other folk, "but a tanner would offer more."
"And maybe we will get some small game on the way."
Seeing all was well in hand she smiled her thanks at Conrad and figured it was time to get to know this person a bit better. Besides, it might take some focus from Kris... Camelia..whomever.
To him she asked, "I know you had introduced yourself earlier but umm... I was a bit occupied. Might you share why you came to greet me before?"
"No." He shakes his head. "Spent most of my life on the High Tarn. Lowside and Highside. A bit more along the edges of the Dirkwood. Probably seen most of the small villages between the Griffin Hills and MacMurphy's Tavern. This is my first time East of there though."
He gently poured the water cup full again before addressing Comfrey.
"Of course. I was dispatched to provide you an escort from here to Craigside. The roads can be an uncertain place and the church wanted you to have protection." he said. "Do you have a mount of your own?"
The young woman put her empty cup down, with a glance to it's insides and then took up her bowl again, still holding it close to her face. Still hungry she fought the urge to shovel in food as though this might be the last meal she would get for a long time. Trying to keep her head down, she did manage to look up and over the edge of the bowl at her two current benefactors. Soon enough they would turn their attention back to her, but for now she was content to let them get to know each other.
"I not know this Griffin or Mac-Murphy. We denned in Yagherspring. It was north of the Grey Men village. We followed the edge of the Dirkwood when we left until it turned back west and we found the wide trail. I have seen many new things."
"Hmm. We lived not too far apart, I think. My family's farm was near the Silk Creek ravine. Um.., a little bit northwest of the Grey Men village. I too have seen many new things since I left home. Some good, some bad, but mostly just new. Still, all-in-all I'd rather have never needed to leave I think."
He sounds just a tad melancholy, but shakes it off quickly.
"So, tell me, what new things have you seen? Or better yet, tell me of Yagherspring and you friends and I'll tell you about my family."
"Yahgerspring is no more. It was burned and those who stood with it."
"A winter sickness took many of the pack...two hand-full of years ago I think it was. All my year-mates and she who birthed me. Those left were many hand-fulls older or younger. Only friends were ruffs, now only Longtooth. We are last."
"When I heard of my master's death, the farmer also said a ... mill...is made where Yahgerspring was."
A quick sidelong glance confirmed what she'd thought. Time from needing to talk was a benefit to her charge. time to get more clarification.
"Really," she asked with an upraised brow. "Tell me more about this. What makes you suitable to this task? Whose squire are you?" She smiled at the end of her questions to soften any roughness in the asking. He needed to talk right now. And her mother had told her once, when they were still thinking of a dowerless marriage and her need to attract based on personality, that most men liked to speak of themselves. Besides, it might be his duty to do so as well. She admitted to herself she hadn't listened to those lectures as well as maybe she should have.
"As with my home. Though I burned it myself before leaving to make sure the Grey Men would get no use of it for themselves. I took the clothes on my back and a small token to remember my family and just started walking. I was lucky to find Killian. He took me in before I died of exposure."
He nods. "More we have in common, Darian. But I did not mean for you to tell me of Yahgerspring now. I meant for you to tell me about it as of old. How it was when it thrived. When your pack was full. Before the sickness and the Grey Men came."
With her half-formed plan for splitting room expenses holed and sunk before her eyes, Celi decided not to wait for fortune to smile on her as far as the stable was concerned.
FIrst she presented her completely empty (and thoroughly cleaned by finger and bread) bowl and milk cup to the daughter who was collecting empties, then approached Pauli Threeleg as deferentially as her somewhat independent manner would allow.
"Sire, I would have a word, 'an you can spare the time for it. My name is Celi, from near Dirkwood on the High Tarn."
The mention of what had once been home still evoked mournful memory; but it had been a long time since she'd walked the tall grasses split by the dark rush of the Blackwater.
With her stew near it's end, bread was delivered to the table on one of the rounds that the young girl seemed to make in a near constant display of motion. When this little girl wasn't rescuing strangers from the chill of wet nights, she certainly kept busy with other chores.
But when the quiet one got up and moved to speak with the kindly man, whose injuries were obvious and time worn, and she couldn't help but watch her, that is so long as she didn't get caught doing so by her. So many people and all of them so different. It was like walking the streets on a Market day or festival day in Trundle. But on those times, she was always in the Imperial Procession and well under guard, kept at a distance.
"There was laughter and singing and celebration of good hunting. We traded with farmers and traders, pelts, hides, meat, feathers, beads and tools of bone. Sometimes those from our Pack would go to another and theirs would come to us. She who birthed me was from another pack."
"I had six year-mates, all but one, female. Some were being groomed to go to other packs until the winter sickness came."
He glances up as the girl he had winked at before finishes her meal and gets up to go talk to the innkeeper. The other girl is also finishing her meal, so perhaps with supper coming to an end the atmosphere in the common room will turn a little more relaxed.
Many of the roadside inns he's been to on his travels featured some sort of after-supper entertainment. A singer. A dancer. Musicians. Story-tellers. One even had a magician of sorts. He wasn't very good, but it was a novelty. Sometimes the visitors entertained themselves. Sometimes that was even more fun. Mikal himself had recited poetry once or twice when no one else would step forward. He had his mother's bedtime stories to thank for that.
He turns his full concentration back to Darian as she begins to speak. He listens carefully, noting again how different this girl's life is from what he knows.
He nods in agreement as her story brings back some of his own memories of home. "That is what to remember. The happy times. Not to dwell on the sad. I remember my mother singing me to sleep. Telling me stories of heroes, ladies in distress, knights in shining armour. The Lullaby of The Tarn. The Flowered Path. The Battle of Jeminy's Hill."
"I remember the once or twice we managed to get to Findal's for Midsummer's Day, dancing around the town square. Laughing. My father throwing me in the air when I was too small to mount a horse by myself. My Uncle teaching me the ways of wood tools."
"That is what I try to keep in my heart. It keeps me warm at night. The rest is best locked away. To be taken out and examined from time to time to stoke the smoldering fires of vengeance. But kept locked up, lest those fires burn out of control."
She knew the farmers did things like he described. Jacob had had a family; she remembered that. His grown son and his family had come to visit once. The children did not play the same games as the Pack children. Jacob's son's woman thought them too dangerous.
But she grew puzzled again when he told her that the memories kept him warm at night. And this vengeance...she was not entirely sure what he meant, but she had an idea.
"I have hart hide and furs to keep me warm. I have some for trade if ye be interested."
"This ving-ance...I heard some talk of it...a trader said it is payment for harm caused?"
He smiles softly. "It is not that kind of warmth I mean. It is the feeling inside, in your spirit, your soul, that happens when you remember the good times."
"As for vengeance. Yes, it is like that. Payment in kind, though only return payment for bad things done to you."
Another sip of mead before a flash of white teeth.
"Ah, like a good hunt and pack mates to share the kill with. Those were good days."
Her expression became contemplative.
"Maybe that is what the Grey Men sought when they came with so many the last. Or maybe they just wanted some to come back. I wonder how many Master took in hunt."
The thought caused her eyes to light with excitement that dimmed as she realized she would never know.
"It would be a grand tale worth much honor. I am sad I will never know it."
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."
"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."
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?"
"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.
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..."
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
"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."
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.
"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 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?"
"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.
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."
The Heartwood The Plainsend Inn at the foothills of the Highgaard Reaches
Pauli didn't immediately answer, he first looked among those gathered in his commons. One to another and another until he finally ends upon the House Shannon Squire.
He takes a breath, once, twice, before consciously taking up his role as a host and turning back to Celi.
Longtooth made a rumbling noise, and Darian looked up again. The one he had growled about before was in motion once again. Her eyes followed as many thoughts circled. She also looked to the others now.
The sellsword. The healer in white. The fancy Red Man. The prey. The innkeep and his woman and girl child. Her mouth twisted as she thought. She had questions she wanted answers to, but there were too many here.
"Perchance on the road," she said to the ruff at her side, "perchance to find answers of a thief."
As she had intended to keep only a bench or a stretch of floor in the common room to allow Longtooth to remain near the fire, she settled herself further. Still watching, she pulled a a pouch from within her pack by feel and a sharp knife. The pouch was filled with whole feathers, and she set to splitting and cutting them into smaller purposed pieces.
Once in awhile her mouth would move as if she were saying something, but there was no sound.
"Thank you, your lordship. I was in your stables earlier, and observed the amount of trade you handle in such high-travel times as these, and ... you see, sir, I myself am competent in the care and maintenance of all animals.
"Umm, 'All' meaning, all them as you are required to care for in your stable. Would you be having any openings for such help? Sir"
She stood straight and looked him in the eye without hesitation, though clearly such was not her most comfortable manner. She was more about not being noticed than she ever was about being direct.
She winced a little at the open use of titles. That gave her a moment's pause, and it took that long to summon her courage again to speak so boldly.
"Just a short time ago, you asked for my name and I answered you... and then you... then you said you didn't know me but you knew the lineage of my name. What did you mean by that?"
There she managed to speak her mind and ask her question. She felt a small measure of relief. Food and water and warmth that had only now just begin to seep into her body. She was feeling a little stronger and a little more confident.
The Heartwood The Plainsend Inn at the foothills of the Highgaard Reaches
There's a quick shake of the barkeeps head, almost before Celi can even finish her request.
"If'n I were rich enough to be hirin' folks off the road my stables would have walls, lass.
"That and Jessup, who looks after them, is the son of a good an proper family whose farm is just over the hill. Are you suggesting I tell him to stay home so some stranger from ..."
There's a sharp pause as he checks his words,
" ... far, far off ... can take the few pennies he earns?"
Again, a second holding of his words.
"Dawn, She is coming early now. Best you sleep and be on the Path first thing."
OOC: Let us assume that the clothing she was wearing when she arrived is set out for drying and visible, since she changed and is now wearing a much plainer tunic as offered by the Innkeeper's wife.
******
The young woman relaxed a little.
*Of course, the clothes...*
She nodded to the squire in appreciation for his straightforward answer.
"House Deynekko," she said as she too looked to bundled garments, so badly in need of cleaning and mending. Perhaps she might see to that herself. It was Handmaiden's work, but...
"It was the clothing I was wearing when I was abducted, and spirited through the streets of Trundle on the Hill. I had nothing else to wear, but had I, then I would have abandoned those garments long ago. It is too dangerous to wear them, and if I am to enter Cragside, then it might be best to go without drawing unwanted attention."
She glanced about the room. There were quite a numberr of people. Some seeking employment to see them through the winter, others with tasks and destinations already appointed them. Cragside for them... But perhaps Cragside would be the best for all... The more of them she kept about herself, the less likely her unseen enemies would be to strike in open fashion such as on the road to Cragside. Of course, any of them could be an enemey, but since she had already wandered into the place more or less announcing who she was with that damnable Imperial checkerboard cuffing she might as well attempt to keep all of them about her so as to watch them.
*Too much time in the Court,* she allowed privately. *Muddles the brain and makes you suspicious of everyone and everything.*
What was it that her Mother said... **"We are always the ones buying time ...**
The young woman never understood what that phrase meant, but it was important, and in it's own way she found an understanding that made some snse to her.
Right now she felt as though she were buying time... from who and for why, she didn't yet know.
When she is finished, he rolls back down his sleeve and stands up. "I thank you for your time, Lady Comfrey. I do my best, but it is always better to get the opinion of an expert on such an important matter. Well, important to me anyway." He grins.
Then, more seriously. "Yes. Bandits. Not terribly far from here either. They killed a friend of mine so I took it upon myself to make sure they did not do that again." He glances briefly down to his arm. "Took those couple of cuts for it, but could have been worse."
**Yes, it could have you ninny. Charging so many.** He muses internally.
"As for the weather", he flicks his eyes over to the woman conversing with the Squire. "Will she be alright? She looked more than a bit worse for wear when she came in."
"We will get you clothing for the trip. Perhaps Lady Comfrey might have something or perhaps the innkeeper's wife can mend something to fit you." he said. "Would it insult you if I do not call you Lady Cameila for our journey? I would not use your name without your permission."
"I have no way to express my gratitude except in simple words," she replied. Perhaps it was an embarassment for her to be in such need and to have to seek the charity of others, but the woman who called herself Camelia found it hard to meet his eyes at this moment. "Thank you... It is not enough I know..."
She paused to consider his question. She mustered the resolve to look him in the eye. She wasn't particularly short in stature but she was rather thin of build. Perhaps her perceived delicate nature was represented in the name she offered.
"There would be no insult, in fact I would gratefully prefer you not call me Lady at all...Camelia is sufficient."
She smiled again at Mikal's comments and nods. "It is always time well spent. Not checking could leave for worse to happen, no?"
"The weather isn't always the best for those not out in it in proper attire. I see no lasting harm that time won't heal."
Comfrey hesitated a moment, not sure of how much to meddle, and erring on the side of what felt right. "Perhaps you would like to give your well wishes yourself? They are both here."
She chuckled softly. It seemed to her the young woman was worried about many things. Perhaps this could aid in less worrying, and the squire was right there.
Celi was disappointed, but refused to let it show. It had happened before and would likely happen again. "I thank you for your consideration, sire. Ah, I don't suppose you offer a reduced rate if I were to bed down in th' stable? Tis no hardship and if Jessup has trouble with the bay stallion, I could calm the big fellow ... again."
He nods to Lady Comfrey, and at a break in the conversation he turns to face the Squire and other woman and says, "Your pardon, Squire and Lady. But I wanted to offer my wishes for the Lady's health. I know with the ministrations of the good Lady Comfrey such is no longer an issue, but I hope you did not suffer too much in the elements? The weather lately has been unpleasant."
He pauses a second, then goes on, "In any case, I do not wish to interrupt, other than to mention that if you will be traveling towards Cragside on the morrow then perhaps you might suffer my presence, along with Miss Darian and Longtooth", he nods towards the girl and her ruff sitting near the fire. "We are traveling that way tomorrow as well and having recently run into bandits on the road I'd think there's safety in numbers."
He turned to look at the man speaking to them, eyes narrowing as he weighed and judged the man.
"I will be accompanying these two ladies to Craigside. I have no trouble with you traveling with us if you wish and if the ladies do not have any objections."
"I have none," she replied. "I am grateful for an escort, but I do not see myself as more than a guest of this trip as it is. And so, as for the others, I am in no position to voice objections."
She looked towards the fireplace.
"I would like to sit near the fire though, warm my feet upon the hearthstones."
She drew the tunic hem in just enough to reveal that she was barefoot.
"Hopefully, before the chill sets in deeply now and I catch a fever, I might feel them warm again. I would not turn away company."
Due to the Lady of Aterras ministrations, Camelia was reasonably sure she wouldn't come down ill, but several nights in the cold with wet clothes and no food and so little water had taken it's toll. She could feel the weight of her journey weighing her into a torpor. She had eaten food but still her joints ached deeply.
She smiled a bit as she heard the planning for travel. It was good that Conrad approved of him. It might be soothing to Camelia to have more. But for now, the fire would be more soothing.
She thought a bit. She didn't have shoes but warm socks? That she did have. "Sock! I'll be right back," and she headed upstairs for the sock, muttering at herself in her mind for not thinking of it sooner. She could move quickly when she wished though sometimes it was hard to remember decorum while doing it.
She saw the innkeeper and the small woman talking and briefly wondered about what. She smiled at them both as she sped past.
Celi restrained the urge to jump up and down in delight. Something finally had gone right on this journey. She unknotted her soft leather purse and extracted two pennies from her slowly shrinking supply, examining each carefully to be sure they weren't something larger, or two somethings stuck together, or anything other than the proper denomination, then handed them over with the solemnity usually reserved for paying off the manor's mortgage.
"You are most gracious, sire. Should Jessup encounter any emergency, I will be happy to provide whatever assistance I can."
She reknotted her purse, slung it at her waist next to the rightmost of the brace of workmanlike kukra she carried, rearranged her scarf to cover her neck and head, then turned and made her way with graceful ease through the crowd to the door, and out.
She tucked away her fletchings, rolled up the pouch and put it back in her pack and reseated the knife into its proper place. Rising with the grace of a born hunter, she pulled her cloak from the chair back and settled it around her shoulders. The eyes of the ruff followed her movements.
"Checking the hide," she told him as she moved her pack from the chair to lean against the wall.
He rose to his feet to accompany her as she headed towards the door. She smiled a half smile. Together they went out through the kitchen and the door in back. Going that way, the two did detour to the stables first to find the girl clad in skins.
Longtooth stood at Darian's side, the amber of the ruff's eyes nearly the same shade as the woman's. She had a hand in his fur and the other hooked into her belt by her thumb.
She stated simply and as a matter of fact, "You should probably wear normal clothes... or else you are NOT sharing the trail with us."
Celi had found the stall where her little gray had been put up, and had tidied a corner for her use. She did not appear to have overmuch in the way of gear, save a cold-weather coat made from wolf pelts, currently rolled up around a small package of personal effects and more normal clothing.
She considered her reply, then said mildly, "These are the most durable of my clothes, and I made them myself from a deerhide I took myself, so they are also the least expensive. I have other things, but nothing so durable and I was hoping to make my things last. I take it ... that is not something I should do?
"I beg your forgiveness, most heartily. I will change immediately ..." she fetched her bedroll, untied it, pulled out ordinary homespun trousers and a tunic, and proceeded to change right there, behind the obstructing breadth of her gray pony. As she pulled the tunic down and re-wrapped her scarf, she said, "I beg you, instruct me if I do aught to make you uncomfortable, or render our amicable passage together on this path the least bit hazardous. I ha' been on my own only a short time, and I am trying to learn how to pass unnoticed during my travels."
"Should I leave these behind?" she pointed to the leathers and the coat. "They are all I have..."
[ooc: Fixed, and thank you. I had read the CHR sheet, but I thought the generic possessions would be adjusted according to the CHR's background as I imagined it.]
An eyebrow rose at the claim this girl made about taking a hart herself. Darian could only imagine it must have been sick or old if it was true. Hart might be prey creatures but they were uncanny at avoiding the hunter.
She was backwoods, yes, had never been off of the High Tarn before, but even she knew better than to dress so, she who had more cause than any but another of her kind. She spoke slowly and clearly, to be sure she would not be misunderstood, "You draw eyes to yourself, dressing as such. There be many eyes as we come to this Cragside, Imperial eyes. Imperial eyes do not lightly suffer those who follow the old ways. Anything ye do that declares ye to not be one of them puts ye and all who travel with ye in at greater risk."
She shook her head. "No. If ye do, and they are discovered, harm would visit the inn and all those in it."
Darian looked about, considering. "Ye should ne'er wear those again."
"Enough words I say. We go now."
With that woman and ruff turned and left the girl to her own devices.
When the huntress had made sure of the hide she returned to the interior of the inn, and she and her companion once more availed themselves of the warmth of the fire.
She shrugged. The Lady's patience was infinite. Hers, sadly, was not. A quick rummage through her pack and she found a lovingly knitted pair of warm, thick socks. She'd been given a few sets once for helping a woman's first grandchild be born. They would do. Stitching hide to the bottom might even make them something wearable outside of just under boots or shoes but that wasn't the intent right now.
She returned triumphantly and offered the socks to Camelia.
Seated before the fire, perhaps a step or two to one side so as not to block the randiant heat from the rest of the Inn's guests, Camelia settled onto a short wooden stool and placed her feet upon the hearthstones. She truly believed she could absorb all the room's heat and still not banish the chill in her bones. She never wanted to feel that cold again, and yet the cold winter was closing in quickly.
Camelia's quiet reverie was broken when the hunting woman rose and her wild looking ruff did the same. Camelia had seen ruffs before. For hunting and tending flocks and such. This ruff wasn't like those others. Camelia watched and was certain the woman was speaking to the animal. Those the distance and the crackling fire made it impossible to hear the words. Still, Camelia was observant. it was important to be so where she came from. In that observation, Camelia surely imagined it when it looked as though the ruff understood her. More than just followed her, but actually seemed to accept her quiet words for the meaning they imparted.
And Lady Comfrey was back with socks, and Camelia diverted her attention to the healer and smiled with appreciation.
Camelia held the socks in her hand as she sat with her feet flat on the flatstones around the fires. She knew she should put the socks on, but the direct transfer of warmth seemed to go through her whole body. The socks would only improve things, but she would have to move her feet to do it.
Already her hair was drying, and showing itself to be a very flaxen blond through which the light of the fire showed brilliant natural highlights. Her worn and torn clothing hung nearby, drying. The purple over-tunic with the imperial Checkerboard edging of Deynekko and light red undertunic dripped themselves dry, and the heat of the room sped that process. Camelia couldn't help but think back on her many days away from home. She was afraid, moreso now that she could actually consider more than her imminent death from exposure and thirst. So far from trundle on the Hill. She did what she had to do. What she needed to do. It was who she was, who she was raised to be. The pain and fear had toughened her, but not before breaking her down and then rebuilding her.
Just then, the words of the Healer brought her back once again. So easily she was drifting into her own thoughts as the night wore on. She did want more food and maybe some harvest cider, but how could she ask for that. Comfrey's generosity thus far, the Squire's as well, was more than she could have hoped for in coming this far.
She shook her head so as to not seem gluttonous. It was a regret in doing so, and that was evident, but she felt that she shouldn't tax the means of her benefactors.
But then a small idea struck her...
"I might offer some recompense, all that I can offer. You have been so kind to me... Perhaps, if you might indulge me this pale effort?"
She smiled back and nodded. "I would be happy to accept, once we get another bowl in you." And with that she moved quickly again going to the innkeeper for another bowl and returning with it. It was quick and her body blocked a clear sight if coins exchanged hands or not.
Comfrey was happy to help someone "balance the scales" if they felt they needed to, but she was going to see some more food into her patient.
Last edited by Raven; Sun 06/11/1100:37 UTC. Reason: clarification
"There is no need to worry Cameila. I am well financed by my organization as well as being of a noble house." he said. "I would consider it an honor if you would be my guest until I can find you suitable safety."
Comfrey brought her more stew and the sight of it widened her eyes as surely it would stretch her belly to eat that much. Being hungry taught her things she never knew or experienced in trundle on the Hill. And lessons like that didn't come cheaply either. She survived it and gained a whole new appreciation for people who had to scratch out a living in harsh places during harsher times.
With a gracious smile she put the socks in her lap and took the bowl.
The Squire made it clear she would not want for provisions and made his own offer of helping her find provision. It all seemed to be so much kindness. They didn't even know her... How would they feel when they did?
First things first though, she had made an overture to provide them and all who might care to gather near some small compensation.
"I know an old song, from the Age before this one," she said softly. "There are many ways it is told and sung. I learned this one from my mother..."
There was a long pause as Camelia affirmed her courage to do this. She had only sung in the presence of a few people and none of them were here right now to encourage her. Those that were in the room might not think kindly upon her efforts, and then again, her voice might give out... She might forget the words... any number of things might happen.
"It is one of my favorites... There is sorrow in the words, but even in the sadness of the loss of this tale, there is joy. The flowers still bloom and though time moves on, the memory endures. I guess it's hard to explain... The flowers I mean."
And she relaxed and exhaled, staring into the fire for a long time. The dancing flickering flames would be her audience. She had only herself to please.
In the space of a few heartbeats she seemed to lose herself and the words came forth soft and sweet. Her voice wasn't strong at first, but it was clean and clear. She had obviously trained a gift and as her confidence grew, she projected that as much as she did the song itself.
There's a far away valley, enshrouded in doom, broken and twisted and barren. Save for the hill where the daisies still bloom, and dandelions blossom forever.
It was a long dark harvest, planted in blood, The years upon years were ending. Down the East highway, bones mixed with the mud, the darkness slid down from the mountains.
It was early in Dragon that Torandal fell, three bridges burned behind them. In the next town the darkness did tell, the East was now on their doorstep.
Then under nights cover the farmers did flee, not a man remained in the village. But twenty of Risha's children there be, tied by their vows to the valley.
There's a far away valley, enshrouded in doom, broken and twisted and barren. Save for the hill where the daisies still bloom, and dandelions blossom forever.
To defend the defenseless two handfuls did stand, ten swords to face the dark magics. Captain Jeminy Kilkenna led the brave band, Ten souls to match a dark army.
There was a circle of stones on a little lost hill, it was there she laid her defenses. Then she gathered her fighters and then spoke her will, an oath sworn to soft Risha's people.
"The East, they shall come and on morn they'll be here. and its certain we'll fall before them. But I swear by the stars and of all I hold dear, we'll all die before they shall harm you."
There's a far away valley, enshrouded in doom, broken and twisted and barren. Save for the hill where the daisies still bloom, and dandelions blossom forever.
And when She arose, the very next day, The East vanguard was upon them. Clashing steel and silver announced the melee, death echoing across the valley.
Jeminy Kilkenna was the first to die, She didn't live to see nightfall. By noon not alone did her broken form lie, and tighter was drawn the defenses.
When night finally fell but a handful remained, Battered and bloody and desperate. Through the night conflict raged unrestrained, till morning poked over the mountains.
There's a far away valley, enshrouded in doom, broken and twisted and barren. Save for the hill where the daisies still bloom, and dandelions blossom forever.
Young Kisa Allaine stood alone that red morn, her sword stood as tall as she did. Only fifteen short years since the day she was born, and now she stood bloody and wounded.
From behind Risha's folk,they begged her to run, but Kisa was too scared to listen. And the Eastern spear men toward her did come, shouting and laughing and taunting.
About the hilltop lay those she held dear, lost to fulfill a fell promise. Her fear so strong, but her duty was clear, and she turned to meet the dark spear men.
There's a far away valley, enshrouded in doom, broken and twisted and barren. Save for the hill where the daisies still bloom, and dandelions blossom forever.
Kisa Allaine lay pierced to the hill, five spears tore her body to pieces. and yet with her last breath she stung the East still, for she kept Kilkenna's last promise.
There's a far away valley, enshrouded in doom, broken and twisted and barren. Save for the hill where the daisies still bloom, and dandelions blossom forever.
By the end of the song, she felt the emotion filling her and yet she kept control of her voice. She gently swayed as she sang, allowing the melodic harmony fill the room. She wouldn't apologize for the tears that welled up in her eyes. Joy and Sorrow combined in her heart and her mind's eye could see the lonely hill where there Daisies were in bloom and the Dandelions blossomed forever.
She smiled as she heard the words and half closed her eyes to better listen. Comfrey knew her own strengths and knew her voice raised in song wasn't one of them.
After a verse she opened her eyes again and scanned the room surreptitiously. The song seemed to aid Camelia's confidence, at least if her voice was any reflection of that. She was curious though to see how others reacted.
He nods to the Squire, noting the man chose not to introduce himself to him, but then he is a Squire, probably of a famous knight. He turns to move back to his table and sits, seeing Darian and the other girl leaving the main room.
He picks up his drink as the other woman, whose name he heard mentioned as Camelia moves closer to the fire and begins to sing.
He immediately recognizes the tune and a small smile lights his face as he nods his head along with the words. Until somewhere in the middle, when a frown crosses his expression.
After the woman finishes, he finishes the drink, stands up and moves closer to her. "Pardon, Lady, but might I ask about your version of the ballad? It is much as the one I've learned, though one passage differs."
He quietly sings the phrase to her. His voice is a nice tenor, and though clearly untrained, it is also clear he has sung before:
Young Mikal Allinna stood alone that red morn, his sword stood as tall as he did. Only fifteen short years since the day he was born, and now he stood bloody and wounded.
"I noted you sang 'Kisa Allaine'. I'd not heard that name before."
She didn't want to make eye contact for fear she had offended the man. She listened to his song with deference to it's personal meaning. This man, a few years her senior, had introduced himself and that name was Mikal. His version of the song included a young warrior for which he had been named. But, she could only sing the song the way she had. She had heard several versions and when she proudly presented her newly learned song to her mother, she was taught the version she had just sung and had promised her mother she would always sing that that version.
"I do not mean to offend you... I was told there are many versions of that ballad. It is a song from a previous age at the time of the last coming of the East. Perhaps where you are from... That is how it is sung."
"Oh, no offense taken, and forgiveness is not needed. I was merely curious. I learned the ballad from my mother, as well as many others, and I'd not heard the name you used before. As you might guess, that name has personal meaning to me."
He turns to go back to his table, but pauses, and looks back. "It is interesting, don't you think, that all the rest of the song is identical to that I learned, other than that name? You'd think if it was a matter of time and distance creating different versions that other things would have changed too."
She listened to the conversation, being so close. They were raising interesting points, but historical songs and their accuracy weren't one of her studies. Cleaning up mess they made of themselves after some people took offense to each other's songs was more up her alley.
She had enjoyed the song despite, or maybe because, of it's difference. She rather liked that the hero was female. Darian raised a cup of mead in toast to the singer then drank from it.
Just because she sang a version of the song her mother said was the original and the truth, to which Camelia made a promise to preserve, she didn't see a reason to provoke a deeper conversation wherein this Mikal had to defend himself and his upbringing. It would be fruitless, and actually counter-productive.
She believed her Mother when she taught her the true words, but she had no way to prove them any more than Mikal would his own version. But he was right, it was interesting all the same.
"Well, perhaps it will give us something to talk about during the ride tomorrow?" He replies, acknowledging her nod. "Oh", he says a bit embarrassed. "I neglected to introduce myself, and my mother would tan my hide for my bad manners. I am called Mikal. It is very nice to meet you." He pauses a moment to see if the Lady will likewise introduce herself, but he doesn't stay long enough to make her feel uncomfortable should she choose not to. He then moves to return to his seat.
Mikal had previously introduced himself to her, while she was speaking with the Squire and he had asked of her well-being then. She had shown him her bare feet. Probably a little too forward of her but it was an honest answer. It wasn't worth reminding Mikal that not long ago he gave his name, for that might be his best way of greeting people and it would be impolite to show him up for a lack of social grace. That act would prove she herself had none, and that wasn't true. Humility was harder to come by for Imperials. Fortunately she had a better grasp than most of them she knew in trundle on the Hill.
"You may call me Camelia," she said. "Like the flower..."
As Mikal departed the Squire was returning to close off the access to where she and Comfrey sat near the fire. He intended to speak privately in a Common Room. She revealed a slight turn of the corners of her mouth at that bit of irony.
"Squire Conrad," she said, in her soft speaking voice, "You have been so kind thus far. I would defer to the judgment of those offering hospitality and charity and gratefully accept whatever is offered... but only until I can find means of my own, I promise you."
She had no idea how she would manage that, but tomorrow was a new day.
She looked to Camelia and said in an almost diffident tone, "I would like some company if you'd not be against it. My last travel companions well, they were very kind but felt a tent alone was their best way to be polite."
"My last... travel companions... they weren't good company either," she replied trying to find as pleasant a way of phrasing it as she could given what she endured in captivity. She even tried to smile, a weak and wan effort at best, but it was her best effort to keep things light.
Fool, she raged at herself for picking a poor way of letting Camelia know she'd be welcome company. Thrice blasted, benighted fool. Surely there would have been a better turn of phrase, or thing to say. But that was all she could come up with.
She didn't let this show outwardly and instead smiled her thanks. "No, thank you." The Lady provided even for the unexpected. She'd wondered at the size and generosity of the room. Now she knew why. Though even a small, bare room would have been the better for company.
"Then if you two have had your fill, I would suggest retiring for the night. I shall try to get the room adjacent. Call out if I am needed." he said and offered his hand to help them up.
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