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She pauses.

"Nothing is not well which has not, in some form, been not well for me in a long time. So nothing truly new is not well."

Mikal

His face clearly shows his disgust at the prior conversation.

**Hiding behind walls and hoping the enemy will please, please, just go away and leave us alone. Maybe if we don't bother them they won't bother us..., much. And he has the gall to call himself a professional?! A professional fishwife, maybe.**

He is so consumed by his disappointment at one who calls himself a Swordlord, where he'd hoped after Donner there'd have been an improvement, that he is almost past Darian before his mind absorbs her call.

He stops suddenly and turns back. "Darian? Sorry. How goes it?"

Darian

She does not miss the expression on his face. Of all, Mikal was the first of the group she had met. The had a thing in common but a response that was different. Still, she thought maybe one more commonality.

"If Mikal face be sign, Darian same as Mikal. Mikal return inn?"

Cesare

He responds to Bekkah first.

"No real plans. Just bought this crossbow with Mikal's help. Last few battles suggested my daggers had limited range, so Mikal is going to teach me to use the crossbow. And in exchange I am going to make him a weapon. Thought I might be able to do something to fashion some bolts too."

He puts his new purchases on the table and pulls out a bolt, studying the end of it for a moment.

Then he looks over at Kadri, some confusion on his face.

"That sounded like clever words. Alas I am not clever enough to understand them."

Mikal

"Yes." He sighs, releasing some tension. "Seems as hard as you try there are some people who cannot be saved from their own stupidity."

"But how was your afternoon? I hope it was not as frustrating as mine."

Darian

"Not so many words as Mikal, but ..."

She glanced back the way she had come with a scathing look as they walked along.

"He forgets our ways. So yes, better talk to rock."

"Seem want bite hand that feed...want hunt one that help."

She shook her head once again in disgust.

The Heartwood
Bordertown
Afternoon
Attaday, The Twenty-Third Day of the Month of Crown of Ice, 2623

Daxia and Garrick and Dominie

Dominic just listed, and Garrick just nodded.

"You are welcome, and some of us do appreciate that shadow no longer over us. Some will not. In some ways I am worried. We probably had a bit of protection; while they were their attentions were focused on the ruins ...

"Not the town."

He ten chuffed out a short, sharp breath.

"Of course not.

"It was the one thing we all agreed on.

"She would not have stopped with the old temple.

"She would have torn the town apart to take out the the true shadow ...

"Those who wanted to keep them there."

Mikal

He nods. "They have forgotten why they do what they do. Rather than a means to an end, the doing has become it's own living and breathing thing. It is soulless and I cannot believe it is what the gods intended."

He sighs and begins walking towards the inn. "Let's go find the rest. But what do you mean by hunt? Is he a threat to us? At least mine will be happy to see us leave and probably forget about us as soon as we're out the gate."

Darian

"Say want hunt ghost, is valuable prey," she shakes her head as she says it.

"No make sense. Prey only valuable if provide much for Pack; meat, fur, bone."

The Hunter looks to the sellsword. "Threat? Maybe. Darian ask if ghost prey or those between ghost and him. Say, if aye, then start with Darian. Darian watch, wait. Darian no prey. Darian protect pack."

Daxia

She sat silently for long heartbeats, her face betraying nothing of the thoughts that flew through her mind.

"Politics," she said. Simply. Softly.

The Dayalan met Garrick's eyes, a flickering of the same rage that he knew Dandelion Koromov would have felt.

"I do understand your concern. While the Avatar is gone, and there are fewer Chaos Riders... the town is the only target now. But the hatred that was focused at the temple -- or rather, at those within the temple -- has been slain. I won't pretend to know more than I do of the Chaos Riders, but I suspect it will take them some time to... make the appropriate sacrifices to the One they serve to determine who will be the next to lead them. And... successors are not always as powerful as those they replace." She paused a moment before continuing. "The One I killed had seven generations of hatred to fuel his power. That's a reasonable argument for thinking the next and the next and the next will be manageable for three Jvrillian troops and your town guards."

She shook her head and took a deep breath. The time for tears -- for this fight, for this Curse -- was over.

"I feel... grateful, I suppose, that there were some who advocated for breaking the Curse. As for those who wished to keep them there, I'm afraid my feelings for them are the same as my Temple Sister's would be. That those held in the temple were only Swordbitch and Witch is a coward's excuse. They kept two women suffering a torture no man," she spit the word out like a curse, "of their company could endure for a fullhand without going mad. Yet Tashka of Darkdown and Linette of Corliss Fields endured for seven generations -- seven generations! -- their faculties intact and tongues sharp as knives."

Daxia smiled softly.

"Fortunately, I am young and fairly inexperienced... and I know that I am. I do not have the wherewithal to tear your town apart looking for the pestilence that allowed the Curse to remain for so long."

Then she smiled slyly.

"I heard rumors, talk and mutterings and whispers as I walked through the market this morning. Rumors that said a different outcome would have been seen yesterday had the Dark Mark been in Bordertown, and not on a Korie errand in Cragside."

She looked down at Dom Dominie as if, perhaps, two friends sharing a good joke.

"Probably wouldn't be a good idea for those who count on the Mark's presence to know there's a very tiny chance, a small possibility, well a hint of a suspicion of a possibility that I and my gang might have been in Cragside and, just may have left the Mark only thinking they were watching the prize the Kories so desperately want."

Daxia shrugged.

"All that might just be rumor, too," she said innocently.

Mikal

"What, or who is this ghost?"

Darian

She tilted her head at Mikal and quietly answered with not a name but a description, "Man in forest try use ghost get big friend. We stop."

Bekkah

She smiled at Cesare and looked at the crossbow and then smiled again.

"If he says it is a good one then I would take his word for it. I certainly can't add anything to that. From what I understand it's fairly simple, you load, pull back, aim and fire. I guess that's the principal behind all bows. I suspect the aiming part is what separates people."

Mikal

He frowns a bit as he tries to work out the answer in his head. After a minute he looks at Darian. "Do you mean Romana? Yes. I suppose that makes sense."

[ooc so much for being circumspect ]

Darian

She gave only a short, quick nod.

"I have some old problems surface again, but I will make sure they are not YOUR problems."

She smiles quirkily.

"I can let my tongue get ahead of myself."

Art, may I make a request that you not quote the entire post of the person to whom you're speaking? It's extremely distracting. At first I thought this was Gypsy's post because Cesare's name is at the top and your character's name is nowhere. Perhaps if you do something like

Kadri to Cesare

instead, it would make for easier reading. Thank you so very much.

Cesare

He grins at Bekkah.

"Well I hope it is simple and I hope that I have a good eye from my knife-throwing which will help me learn quickly."

He takes another pull on his ale whilst he regards Kadri, before speaking.

"So far, one person's problems have generally involved others in our group.. and I would like to think by now that we look out for each other.. hence me buying the crossbow. So if you are having 'problems'.."

He gives this last word some emphasis.

"..I think it best we know about them so we can help or at least be prepared. I know you mentioned issues with family before. Is this connected?"

Kadri:

She looks to Cesare, and shakes her head.

"Comes to that, I vanish rather than put you at risk."

She pauses.

"Father wanted to marry me off. Didn't want to be married, left. They don't like no as an answer, so they want to make me give a different one. And don't like being shown up by a slip of a girl. "

She sips her drink.

"Apparently they believe this quite fervently after this long."

Cesare

"So you have heard something recently?"

She must have if she knows they still have the same view.

"And can I ask you a question? If I was in trouble, would you help or expect me to disappear?"

This sounds as if it might be more than just an idle question.

Kadri:

"You? Help. Have to do what my conscience says. Conscience says you're a good person, so I do what I can. Conscience said that girl needed to be free. Conscience said that those in the temple could not be allowed to suffer. Conscience said that these townspeople should not live under the shadow of a scourge they didn't create. Conscience says that good people deserve to be helped."

She shrugs.

"But I don't expect others to have to pick up my problems. The world owes me nothing. I owe the world nothing. But I owe my conscience ... everything. And I pay that debt."

The Heartwood
Bordertown
Afternoon
Attaday, The Twenty-Third Day of the Month of Crown of Ice, 2623

... when a pebble is dropped into a still pond, it takes a while for the ripples to reach the shore and then reflect back to their starting point ...

Mikal - with Darian (OOC - You didn't say anything about being circumspect to Mikal)

"Hmmm. I don't know that she is permanently attached to our group. She just sort of travels with us. Has come in quite handy so far, I'll admit, but dangerous too. As you just pointed out."

He walks quietly to the inn with Darian, stopping first at the stables to see if Daxia is still there.

[ooc besides pointedly Not using Romana's name? ]

Darian with Mikal

She frowns at Mikal in puzzlement. Being the intended prey does not make one dangerous.

"Darian, Longtooth go eat. Mikal too?"

The Heartwood
Bordertown
Afternoon
Attaday, The Twenty-Third Day of the Month of Crown of Ice, 2623

Daxia and Garrick and Dominie

"The real problem ..."

Dominic spoke up from Daxia's lap,

"Is not that the Mark is missing, and how loud they will yell or how angry they will be when they discover they've been out foxed ... not even by a tod, but by a passle of vixens ...

"Heh.

"They may just blame your hired sword just to save face ..."

He then lifted his head, high enough to look over to Garrick.

"Is that if you do let him back, he is older, sharper, and a lot more cunning that Donner's second, isn't he? And unless he gets into a nasty fight, the Mark now outnumbers the Swords."

He then flopped back down, getting himself comfortable again.

Garrick just frowned.

"Ja. The moment Harry Mohlkavin returns we need a small thing with Kary and Marrennen. On one hand it'd be nice if we can keep one of the other merchants from offering him a contract again. On the other hand, if he's here, he's not a hungry pack with need for food and coin let loose across the Tarn."

The Sheriff looked back to Daxia,

"And ja ... in the long run, this may not have been the smartest thing we have ever managed to do.

"But the town never took me on to be smart. They took me on because when things get messy, they can depend on me to do the right thing.

"No matter how much that makes Emeraldsson or Hysthainian cringe. But they live with it. No matter how crooked the games are in Brandreth's tavern ... as long as the town is at rest, they make their money.

"My father used to tell me one person makes do by themselves. Two and you have a partnership. Three and you have politics.

"Bordertown has three threes ... merchants, mercenaries and the rest of us."