Logtro

Logs of Loandroval RP on Lord of the Rings Online

[salutetotherigging]

Rigging stumbles out of the way of the doorway and grumbles something about Orronn’s face before moving to embrace the towering oaf, “You look terrible, m’dear.”

Orronn wraps Riggs in a tight hug, daring to lift the girl from her feet, “And yer lovely.” He responded, all smiles, “I’ve missed ya,...

[lotrologs]

The First Plunder Event

Characters: Calanto, Camaendes, Caragh, Cisse, Eriok, Estienne, Estorn, Iswaran, Lissae, Livwyn, Neyarra, Orronn, Rhoane, Rigging, Ringwe, Theridin, Timore, Triswynd, Wudugast Setting: The Kennels in Combe Summary: The first meeting of sellswords. ### Chat Log: General 07/11 11:39 PM ### Eriok entered the cottage, sparing the masked woman only a passing glance as he brushed by. The large Rohir smelled of horse and rich pipe tobacco that still clung to him as he descended the stairs into the cellar. A woman was perched near the kennel and it was to her that Eriok presented himself. The red haired man inclined himself stiffly, knowing well the company with which he had chosen to keep this evening. "I am Eriok." He stated. "I have come to offer you my services." The tall man straightened, settling a hand on the pommel of his ancient family sword and stringing a thumb loosely in his leather belt. Rhoane |Sturdy, curveless, and cut of rough angles, a quarried crop of the North Down’s hard earth, Rhoane stood waiting. Mud-smeared leather plates fell from the wide-belted hips propped against the empty cage. She wore no gold, but a better sign of plunder was the mix of maille and tight dwarven scale she wore beneath her bear-pelt mantle. “Eriok.” It was a stern greeting, as cold the long black nights they would soon endure in the wilds. “I am Commons. You are more punctual than your soon comrades.” Estorn comes down into the room, nodding to Rhoane. Eriok | The Rohir noted the sound of movement from upstairs, likely the arrival of others who had come just as he had. "Perhaps." He answered. "What is the nature of this endeavor and what should I expect in return for my assistance?" He paused only briefly. "I will make it clear to you now that I will take any man's life, though I will not harm women, nor will I harm any children and I will turn my sword on you or any other who would carry themselves thusly. I have come seeking plunder, and little else concerns me aside from my own aims." Rhoane |The northerner turned her muddied eyes on Estorn, and beckoned with a hand wrapped in wool beneath her bracer, the hem of mail tied with trinkets and ribbon written with runes. “We will discuss all of that. I am expecting more.” Smirking, she rubbed a smudge from her bared knuckles. “Are there children left in the North Downs to kill?” Estorn enters and spares a glance to Eriok, apprasing him before his blackish tinted eyes turn to Rhoane, ''Shall I call my Company down here?'' Rhoane lifted her head, her grin widening in gratitude the subject was finally breached. “Your company. Tell me more about them.” Estorn says, ''You pay me, I pay them and they do your work.'' Estorn adds on, ''What else do you need to know?'' Wudugast steps closer. His voice, a growl of gravel and sand, whispers harshly. "We work with individuals, we want to know every man, woman or beast that travels with us." Orronn clomps his way down to the kennels, "Check one for beast." He cracks, pointing to himself. Estorn looks behind him at Orronn, his drops his face and he sighs. ''Damn it.'' He looks back to Rhoane. Eriok had no answer for the dark haired woman, thus he met her response with only silence. By his reckoning there would be little left to kill in the Downs other than those that had dragged the inhabitants away in the first place. Who could count the number of youths dragged away in the night or killed within reach of their families. The dim light of the room afforded him little, though with each new arrival he felt the hounds stir in their kennels. It was almost unnerving. The large man briefly stole a glance at the other's gathered, but he could not have recounted their features. Wudugast hacks a ghastly sound that may have passed for a chuckle. "He, Estorn, is known to us." He jerked his wool-garbed head back toward the hulking armoured form of Orronn. Rhoane raised a hardy black brow. "Disappointment. Estorn, this does not bode well." She chuckled, twitching her chin up to gesture the scrap-clad Gondorian further into the rusty light. "Wudugast has the right of it. I am not in the business of hiring companies, but Men. They can join, but as equals under me. You will not be a captain under my command." Orronn lets a boisterous laugh, crossing through to nestle by Rhoane's side smugly. "Yer boy." He motions to Estorn, "Doesn't like me much." The rusted sellsword settled back after his words. Estorn hmms, considering this for awhile. He slumps down onto the bench, one arm moving over to top rim. ''I don't feel to.. Assured, by disbanding the form that my Company was founded on. I've hired these men and women, I pay them. And in return they obey my command, I am there Captain. So it seems we'll need to come to a compromise.'' Timore descends the stairway with a mild smirk and a faint amusement on him. Camaendes takes her place against the wall. She looks around at those gathered in the room with a blank expression, and crosses her arms. Wudugast rounded on the man as he slumped. "We pay, you follow, goes for each of the company." The harsh, strangled ruin of his voice low as it could be. “You do not follow on this venture as a company, you’ve all got the time off.” Another hacked laugh, and the woodsman seemed pleased with his response before turning to the newcomers. “No masks…” He hissed. Triswynd looked about to ask something about hoods counting as masks, then notices the man's own hood. Rhoane chuckled, her eyes roaming over the warped roots of her band. “Is Bree so small you all already hate each other?” Catching sight of Timore in the stairway, she motioned to the wood-ghost, clad in leathers and arrows, and turned back to her recruits. “When you read the poster,” she raised her voice. “It said Plunder shared amongst equals. Here we are all equals. I am the only one you take commands from, unless I say otherwise. Estorn, command your company to follow me, and that is as far as it will go, unless you can –prove- yourself otherwise.” Timore ignores the Wudugast, arms crossed and looking towards Rhoane. Estorn says, ''I'm not a fan of 'commands'. We are the Free Company, and each one of us is free.'' He stands and moves over to his members, ''They are free to come and go as they wish, and as such they are free to make their own choice in this matter.'' Wudugast stepped closer, a hand on the worn, wooden hilt of a long-bladed hunting knife. "I said...." He hissed. "No masks, orders of the lady..." Rhoane leveled her eyes on the masked intruder. “Wudugast is my voice. What he says, I support. Now, your mask.” Orronn spots Cisse across the room, and would waggle his brows at her. Rhoane turned back to her company, her lip twisting at the useless distraction the newcomer imposed. She plucked a coin from the scraps twisted and tied around her arms, laced with silver arm bands. “What Estorn says is what I mean. You are all free under me. You earn your equal share, and there will be much of it. That I can promise.” Timore turns and says "The difference between the masked mercenary and the unmasked one, is when the mercenary's uses are up.. The mask says the life, and the unmasked one is hunted. You don't trust masked men to guard your back with a shield wall? I don't trust strange employers. I am under the employ of Estorn, not any other." Cisse watches the exchange with mild amusement before refocusing on the sound of Rhoane's voice. Triswynd snickers quietly at Timore's complaining, then turns back to Rhoane. Eriok took a place against the wall. His instincts would not allow him to have so many at his back. Quietly, the large man leaned his heavy frame against the wall and crossed his arms one over the other. His eyes swept over those that had gathered hear in the crude light. His stoic features gave away little as he measured each of them wordlessly. Orronn kneels down, letting the others swabble like children over simple orders. He sticks his fingers through the bars of the kennels, giggling quietly at the pups that came near. Wudugast |A smile, crooked as the man who wore it flashed across the scarred patchwork of the man's face. "Then piss off back to the midsummer's dance, or wherever else you took that mask from." He spoke in his harsh tone. "Here you answer first to Rhoane, then to me." He jerked his head back toward Estorn. "We do not hire companies, but men and women, folk that we know." Rhoane folded her arms, rattling maille and the bear-pelt that clung to her shoulders. “Then you may leave.” Lifting her hip from the kennel, she planted a boot on the floor, and only barely dragged the second foot behind her so all in the room could watch. “You are all here because you want something, be it plunder, or the chance to cut down orcs. I admire all your reasons, but I do not offer you these things freely, yet not in servitude. We will be a warband, at war.” She held up the coin, dwarven gold, stamped with some head of an ancient king of those kind. “A bag of these who follow me to Trestlebridge and follow my orders. In war, orders keep us alive, long enough to see the gold.” Estorn growls at Wudu, ''Respect is earned, not demanded..'' He turns and moves to Timore, putting a hand on his shoulder. Timore turns, "And what do any of us know of you. I do not bow or bend knee.. You are few, expecting to raid Orcs. You could leave us for dead at anytime, or kill us at the end. You hire mercenaries, and with the company that I know your Lady keeps.. Why should we blindly follow everything?" Timore eyes shift to Estorn.. Wudugast snorted aload at that. "A failed watchman and a fool..." He stepped aside to allow Estorn room. "Speak of respect, while insisting on insulting the wishes of a paymaster?" Estorn says, ''Timore, shut-.'' He looks at Wudu as he speaks, turning to him fully for a moment and then back to Timore, whispering. Triswynd crosses his arms and leans back against the wall, merely watching the other melodramatic folk bicker. Timore makes a face and walks past Estorn a few steps, removing the mask while getting closer to Wudu. "Remember the face.. Woodsmen. Because come time, if you cross any of us.. The Vulture will pick you dry." Cisse made her way over to make a chair out of the pile of sacks. Clearly, this would take awhile. Triswynd looks amused as they exchange idle threats. Cisse arched a brow. "Did you say you have a vulture?" Estorn hmms, he takes his spot next to Tris. Lissae leans against the wall and crosses her arms. Orronn |Settling his amusement with the pups, he moves on to bother Cisse, settling in next to her. An arm would try and snake around her waist. "Long time no see." He mutters, as to not distract the drama unfolding before them. Rhoane sighed, her eyes narrowing, pinching the lines dug into her temples. A heat in her eyes bubbled and drudged up the darkness like a dead pond’s stirred silt. Impatience bit her tone. “Have none of you been in a band before, that the idea of coin and command is so outlandish to you?” Lissae sidles to the right on the wall... Wudugast raised an eyebrow, a small smile creeping across his features once more. "All look upon Timore's face, for it is..." He rasped as loud as the ruin of his throat would allow. "The face of a potential brother in arms, or one you in turn may have to hunt..." His tone lowered to a growl, "For a vulture to pick me dry, I'd need to be dead first boy, and better men than you have tried." He offered a bow, unclear to it's sincerity or mockery. "Apparently this company truly if a Free one, if they think themselves outside the command of a paymaster." Timore says in a gruff tone, "You don't know what kind of man I am, nor what I am or am not capable of.. So I wouldn't make any wagers just yet." Eriok settled his deep blue eyes in the direction of the conflict and remained statuesque, and mused to himself in silence. Were he a younger man, and without a family, he may have aligned himself with the old woodsman. Eriok could not afford to draw his sword without the intention to kill and he did not kill needlessly. A hand reached up idly to scratch at his wiry red beard. Estorn rubs his chin, he looks at Rhoane and remains silent. Cisse edged away from Oron's embrace. "I try to keep it that way." she teased. She craned her neck to glimpse Timore's face again, in case his death was indeed ordered as previously threatened. Lissae glances at Timore when he stands at the wall, then forward at the others. Rhoane watched the dust settle and the salt fall off the man’s shoulders, her fingers fiddling with the coin as she counted them all with their backs against the wall. The North Downs might even do them some good. “Who here is ready for war?” She took one more step into the room, proving she cared nothing for who could slip behind her, and dragged the next step til she was sturdy again on both feet. “These are not brigands we fight, but orcs, bred for death. There is a hard living to be made north of the Span, but there is no Justice there, and there you will be truly free.” Estorn eyes Rhoane for a long time, remaining silent still. Timore calls out "The question is have any of you been in any real wars?" Orronn |At the sound of war, Oron raised his hand. "Lost my nipple in war. Who wants to see?" Estorn says, ''I agree, I will not stand. Nor condemn any man, to stand next to this man.'' He thumbs behind him at Orronn. Estorn says, 'He can hardly beat up his pillow' Orronn grins wider at Estorn, "I got one good thing I can beat." The man then, grabs his crotch. Timore mutters "Well, at least we know you don't find any bed warmers.." Estorn shakes his head, ''Must be hard to find it under all that armor, is that to compensate for what you supposedly ''beat''?'' Cisse snickered at Oron's comment. "We'll let you show us if you can shut that one up." She nodded her head towards Timore. Timore looks to Cisse, "Save it," he points to the Woodsmen. "I'd sooner shut that one up first." Wudugast stepped forward once more. "All start somewhere." Eyes glinted in the candlelight as he rasped on. "We have all killed, all run from killers and all lived through it to stand here tonight." He gestured about them with a leather-clad hand. "This is no war we march into, like prancing lords beneath banners, but a different sort of fight." Triswynd looks amused at each of the participants of the current discussion, though still silent. Estorn motions for Livwyn to come join them. Eriok | The frown that decorated Eriok's features deepened and caused unnatural lines upon his features. He, a man of mirth, whose features were unused to distaste, looked inordinately displeased. He did, however, make no voice to his thoughts. Livwyn quietly enters the room and goes to stand next to her company mates, ((sorry)) Rhoane beat through the banter with a hard voice. “Are you through?” She stared at each of them, questioning the swords that hung at their sides. “Wars in the north are not given names. They are not sung nor recorded, but they spill blood, and worse. If you want your names sung by pretty men with harps, go to Rohan, or better, Gondor. Here, we forge our names from harder stuff.” Timore steps forward a few feet as he spoke, "No.. We'd be walking into a flood of anger, rage, and bloodlust. A sea of blades, chipped, worn, and painted and stained by blood. No mercy, no compasion, simply put; death in form. Likely we'd be outnumbered ten to one.. So again, I'd ask what true battles, what 'heroes' I am to be fighting alongside." Orronn roars with laugher, "Listen, boy, if you have to insult my cock to feel better, ya got some issues of yer own. But.. since ya want to see so badly." Oron's hands move for his belt, and would begin undoing his clasps. Lissae facepalms and sighs. Triswynd rubs the side of his face. Estorn rolls his eyes at Orronn, he looks at Timore. ''Timore, stand down and shut up.'' Cisse 's smile fell and she reached over to give Oron a thwack across the chest with her arm. "Leave it." Wudugast glanced between them, eyes settling on Timore's for a few long moments before he once more hissed an address to those gathered. "Rhoane has the right of it, Timore speaks some truths, but we do not go to wipe the man of the North clean of stain, do we?" He paced across to the yew bow that sat against the wall. "This..." He rasped, is not something to try and take the north with.” He held the weapon high, cream sapwood against honey-yellow heartwood, it was a finely tillered weapon. “This, in our numbers would be ill used in Timore’s baths of blood.” With a soft whistling sound, he bent the bow and nocked it’s hemp chord, stringing the weapon. “This is a weapon to bleed the enemy, one or two at a time before vanishing into the hills, it is a weapon to strike fear into a marching column, none knowing who next will sprout feather and ash from their chests…” An arrow, of those same materials was nocked then onto the string, callused fingers holding it taut. "It is a weapon to destroy morale, to bleed an enemy dry or rip the heart from him in a single loose, and we shall be such a weapon.” With that he released his arrow. It would whistle a foot clear of Timore’s head, striking the door frame. “Hm, missed.” He winked at the man, and loped back to stand at Rhoane’s side once more. Estorn takes a long breath, many different thoughs running through his head. Timore eyes Wudu, "I have been in many skirmishes across borders of the Far South, to the lands of the Horse-Lords, and even a few in this land of Bree.. Several dozens up to a few hundred. However, with our numbers, what do we intend to strike? Small camps? Nothing will protect us in those Northlands.. Have you experienced being the target of a Night Raid? It's terrifying.. And with few numbers, stealth and speed are important. I wonder just what we'll accomplish. I have looted the dead Uruks' for weeks.. It's meager gains, unless you assail a large encampment." Estorn crosses his arms, looking over to Rhoane. Expecting her to speak. Orronn snickers, having closed up his pants. He eyed the arrow above Timore. Cisse flinched at the sound of the arrow-strike. "Right..so who is it we'll be plundering then? Last I checked orcs weren't exactly the type to warrent plundering." Estorn nods in agreeance. Rhoane steadied her voice to the timbre of the gallows drums. “You want the truth of it. I will not hide my goal.” Her gaze clipped the arrow embedded in the oak, its head buried in splinters. “Orcs are not our only target. There are caravans in the North, and tombs, and fell families worth raiding. The land there is barely tendable except by those who have held it hundreds of years or more, and who betrayed their kinsmen and neighbours to keep their farms. It is the we strike and seek to supplant.” Trinkets from a dozen lands hung from ribbon and twine in every rivet of her armour, but her eyes, brown as rain-soaked earth, held true the heart of the Downs. “Do you want to stay in Bree? Growing fat and soft until the orcs in the north build their numbers and swell down the great road like a flood? Do you want to hide in this gutter of a town from the Redcloaks who claim dominion here? Is that preferable to you? Or is cutting for your own a life worth remembering?” Eriok noted another silhouette in the dim light, though he could see little passed the previously masked man. The Rohir made little more of the new arrival and continued listening from his perch in the corner. His gaze occasionally fled to movement in the corner opposite, though he himself remained still. Estorn gives Rhoane a bit of a glare, he remains silent. Timore scoffs, "Honorary Grave-Robbers.. And there's complaints about a mask? Quaint!" he starts laughing and puts a hand to his face. "Glorify the deed by justifying it through Uruk-slaying. Very well, fine, we'll go with that.." He places his mask back on. Orronn looks down at his gut, then to Rhoane. He let out a whoop, then knocked his gauntlet onto his chest, clanging the metal. "I like you two. Damn good words." He wagged a finger between Wudugast and Rhoane. Cisse bit her lip in thought. "But why attack the orcs at all? If they don't attack us first, and have nothing of value, should we not just leave them be? We don't know how many are out there, or I don't at the least. I'd rather not go poking at a hornet's nest." Wudugast hacked another laugh, lips curled. "Masks are for enemies, not for those you fight and raid alongside you fool." Timore says, "Until fruther notice, you're not friends either." Estorn looks over at Cisse, ''The moment orcs find out we've crossed the span, they will come for us. Wether or not we have anything of value, but because we are of the race of man.'' Estorn says, 'They must go first, before anything.' Cisse smirked. "Come after you, maybe. I'm not a man." Timore mutters, "Then you've a much worst fate perhaps?" Estorn nods at Timore, then looks at her. ''Then our deaths will be considered merciful, compared to what they will do to you.'' Cisse laughs. "If you say so." Wudugast cleared his throat, for all the good it did. "The Orcs raid, we follow, attack them when they are sore and bloodied from battle." He shouldered the warbow. "We take what they have taken, and whatever is left in the ruins of where they took it from." His hand fell to the blade at his side, and he remained silent for a moment but for the soft padding of leather as he paced. “The men of the north are fighters, even their farmers, it's in their blood, they and the Orc's will weaken one another." Estorn himself plops down on the bags. Neyarra walked into the room and blinked at all the people there. "Hullo," she said to no one in particular. Timore looks to Estorn. "I told you, it's just simple plundering.. Nothing glorious or noble. It'd be no different than raiding Trestle.. Let the people die, kill the Orcs, reap the rewards. Kill the people, steal their things. Ambush some Uruks, loot. I had told you, did I not?" Orronn throws his arms up, "Short stuff!" He greets Arra loudly, moving to wrap the girl in a hug. Estorn 's silent glare looks from Timore to Rhoane. Cisse 's face brightens as Arra's small frame appears in the doorway to be engulfed by Oron. "Don't worry," she said to Timore, "If it gets too dangerous for you we'll have Arra guard you." Estorn looks at Cisse, then to Arra. Neyarra squeaked in alarm as she was suddenly enveloped, her arms hanging awkwardly at her sides for a moment before she returned the hug upon recognizing him as the man who had, on numerous occasions, funded her slight addiction to alcoholic beverages. "I'm not short," she protested. Rhoane matched the sellsword’s glare with the unyielding will of one born to the purpose she described. “Do you not have the stomach to kill a Man? I said before. The battles worthy of song are sung in the south. Fight there if you do not want a taste of real war.” Estorn looks back to Rhoane, ''I have killed the likes of the people standing in this room. So do not question my will.'' Orronn looks back to Estorn, "Couldn't kill me. Tried. Failed. Badly." He pats Arra on the head. Estorn looks at Orronn, ''Fortunatly for you, my red-cloak forbade me from it.'' He stands and glares at Orronn, ''But no longer, so you should speak softer to an unrestrained man.'' Timore says, "Well, I am just a Vulture afterall.. So, Boss, what's the word?" Neyarra rolled her eyes at Oron, then shot a look at Estorn. "Shut up." Timore says, "The short girl should take her own advice.." Estorn looks at Arra, he thumbs back to Tris. ''This man here will use you as an arrow shield without a second thought.'' He glares at her, before looking back to Rhoane. ''Your Company so far has some distateful people, one who I would not trust to stand beside me. Which you so surely proclaim is so important to have.'' Triswynd laughs quietly. Eriok strode forward and took a set his feet, taking a place near the old woodsman. The Rohir looked over them all and crossed his mighty arms one over the other. His glare seemed to mock them all even before he spoke. "Is this why you all have come?" He questioned rhetorically. "To measure each other's wars and squabble? It would be foolish to any of these urchins not to stab each other in the back as soon as they are outside civilization." He paused briefly. "Keep silent and listen, or leave. I have come for dark business, not petulance." Orronn turns to Estorn, wagging a finger, "Attackin' a small girl, real good." Triswynd murmurs softly, "Barely into the first gathering and it's already gone to hell..." Timore says, "Having your way with every woman you know.. Real good. I guess it's little girls that you're fond of." Wudugast chuckled to himself, more a series of crackles and rasps than a chortle. "The man speaks the truth of it, and as for Orronn." He narrowed his eyes then, red-rimmed blue slits. "He came when called, it is Rhoane's coin and her choice who stands with us." Rhoane muttered in the dust trail of Eriok’s warning. “This is what Breeland breeds,” she said, her lip turning upward with bitter taste. “The next Man,” she said slowly, and for Cisse’s benefit, “or woman, who insults another at expense of what is discussed, will receive half the deposit the others receive on arrival in Trestlebridge. Is that understood?” Orronn looks to Rhoane, nodding, "Aye, understood." Timore says sarcastically "Let the games begin." Estorn says to the room. ''As always, the members of the Free Company are free to choose their own path in this regard.'' He turns and begins to leave. Timore mutters something to Estorn as he passes.. Timore walks towards Wudu. Wudugast drags his right foot back, hand dropping once more to the hilt of the hunting blade. "So Timore, am I taking it you are riding with us under the pay of Rhoane?" Timore says, "Show me what you're made of-" he roars, taking a step back and putting a hand to his hilt. "You want us to fight with you, show us what the Voice of the Lady can do, Hound!" Triswynd rubs the side of his face. "Idiots... all of them," he mutters. Livwyn follows Estorn out, deciding better then to get in a pointless fight. Rhoane |”ENOUGH!” A warhorn voice shook the chains in the chandelier. For the first time she took a step so far it was impossible to ignore the limp that dragged with it. Her left leg, weak and mangled under the leather armour that hid it, dragged through the kennel filth as she came to a halt before the crew. Seething, she pushed an accent born and aged in the north through her teeth. “I have seen what the Men of the North Downs can do,” she confessed, with each movement her body creaking under scar tissue. “They have no honour, but we do. We will look after our own. If you are not ready to join such a band and test your spirit against the wars of the north, then you may go your way. Those who stay, and those who ride with me, I will never call coward, and I will reward, and I will show you the heart of this earth that cannot be found in another land.” Wudugast cocked his head to the side, lopsided grin forming. "What a strange one you are..." He rasped. "I kill, Timore, I stand a hundred paces away and send iron-tipped death into my enemies." He shrugged his broad shoulders, bow coming to hand. "If I do my job, they do not even know who killed them." He stepped back then. "I do not play at fighting to probe a point." He stepped back, making to retort, but then fell silent at Rhoane's words. Caragh winced as she kept a watchful eye upon the knot in the center of the room. She watched Eriok for any cue that she should leave but he gave none thusfar. She blew out a slow breath as the tension grew. Timore stands upright, the hand coming off the hilt. "In the end, without your bow, and a safe distance, you will not fight. That proves point enough.. An archer in full, and an injured woman, A fool, and a proud southerner.. What a band." he turns to walk away. Estorn turns to Rhoane, listening to what she has to say. ''I was a puppet for far to long, I made this Company to be a free man. Who will lead free men, not to become someone elses. You know where to find me when your offer has changed upon the standards I have just set.'' Lissae gets ready to leave once everyone else decides to...her hands lay over her satchel at her hip. Cisse watched on, rather impressed by Wudu's handling of the situation and the fool who charged him. "So, do we need to sign anything?" she asked, bringing herself to her feet. Orronn looks to Estorn, "So, puppet turned puppet master. Doin' what happened to ya onto others." Neyarra shuffled away from Estorn as he stood near, preferring the company of a man who called her short over one who once wore a red cloak. Her gaze shifted to Cisse at her question. Estorn spares a glance to Orronn. ''As I have stated earlier, this is a Free company of Free men. You might've heard it, if you were to pull your head out of your ass.'' He looks back to Rhoane. Neyarra rolled her eyes at Estorn. "Free to do what you tell 'em to do, y'mean." Rhoane lowered her voice, tilting her chin to match it. Her eyes were on Estorn’s. “If you think I will make you a puppet, then you have no real regard of me. I am not born of Breeland.” She raised her chin, a light like the glint off a swordswing in her eyes. “I am no slavemaster, but I do lead, and will the way I will. If you follow my cause, follow it. I will change it for no Man.” Wudugast called over Estorn, attempting to bring the banter about to the matter at hand once more. "Then free folk of Estorn's company, should you wish to take coin for blade work, you know where to find us." He paced forward, bow hanging in hand. "Paid as equals from the spoils and the pocket of Rhoane here." He gestured toward the limping woman. "Think on it, and send for us if the northern road suits you." Timore turns and walks towards Rhoane. "How will you lead? You can hardly walk. You can't fight.. End the farce. You are few and nearing none by the minute. You will lead from the rear. If you lead." Estorn says, ''Timore, enough.'' Wudugast made a half-step toward the man, placing himself between the totem-draped woman and Timore. Orronn pats Neyarra on the head. Timore mutters softly to Wudu, "Give me a reason.." Estorn steps forward, ''I am the Captain of this Company, these men are under my command. They are free to come and go as they wish, but while they are here they are mine. Agree to this, and we will fight, bleed and stomp through the mud with you.'' Estorn goes silent, his nuetral expression unwavering. Rhoane |”If you lead…” Decked in armour, wrapped in spoils, but always with her limp. Spitting a curse unnamed she spat at the filth around Timore’s feet. “Command your Man.” Her fingers, nail-chipped and filthy, found the bone pommel of a knife hung at her hip. “The last man I disliked I flayed alive. Does he want the salted skin as proof? Send him away. I want no one here who insults me." Timore says, "Let us see if you can do it, woman.. But first, let me have at your little voice.." Estorn looks at Timore, ''Enough.'' He says with a harsh venom in his tone. Wudugast shook his head sadly. "Why fight to your strength over mine, does needing to stand so close make you a better killer, do boasts and a mask make you a better leader than Rhoane?" Here once more he gestured to his limping master. "Estorn..." He rasped, tilting his head as he spoke to the mercenary commander. "I think time tempters were left to cool, don't you?" Timore turns, "A lack of a mask doesn't mean there isn't one, nor that they are trustable. I, at least, am honest.. And say what needs to be said up-front." He walks to the wall. Lissae tinkers with something in her bag, then leaves it, closing the bag. She looks around briefly, then towards the stairs with a frown. Cisse pricked an ear at the word 'flayed', remembering the crime she was wronfully accused of and the horrid grin of the man whose flesh had been taken. Perhaps she really would get to shake his flayer's hand after all. "So...orcs, farmers, and tombs. Is that it? Or is there more to know? When do we start?" Rhoane dragged her lame leg with her, trudging up past Wudugast so it was clear her hound was not also her shield. “If I did not know the minds of Men so well,” she warned, eying the trinket she had gifted Estorn to wear on his person, as a symbol, and one that few wore. “I would think he’d rather fight on the other side.” In answer to Cisse and the patient sellswords gathered, she kicked up her tone. “We ride for Trestlebridge. The men there we will make our allies, and until we have stronger forts in the north, it will be our home. From there, all the lands from the span to Angmar’s southern ridge are ours for the taking.” Estorn bows his head to her, ''Safe travels to you, and may the grace of all races go with you.'' He turns and looks at the man in the doorway, ''Pardon me, sir.'' Wudugast flashed a wolf grin at Rhoane as she spoke. Theridin steps out of the way. Timore says, "Next time we meet, who's to know if you'll be greeting by blade or word? Maybe the next time we meet, it'll be in the Hells.. Wence I come, long after you're depature from this world." Estorn moves up the steps. Livwyn gives the room a final sweeping look before taking her leave. Lissae eyes Estorn as he leaves. She then glances to each of the other company members, before following up the steps, carefully. Triswynd pushes off the wall. "Damn it all..." Cisse watched as the others left. "Never seen that method of sorting out riff-raff." She shrugged. "Effective. Which one did you plant?" Wudugast sighed heavily, shoulders heaving. His knuckles relaxed their grip on the bow's broad belly, turning from white to scuffed red and pink once more. "Plant?" He choked a laugh. "If only." Theridin glances sideways at Cisse. He mutters softly to her before Rhoane speaks again. Rhoane turned her back on those who remained and those who lingered in the hallway, fearing no dagger or arrow to follow. She ambled towards the kennels, her brow heavy as the hounds yipped at their bars. Plucking up a cane from against the wall, she turned to those left. “You…are here for your own purpose, and for that I admire you. If you have complaints, voice them now, or else I will detail our course and reward.” Orronn stays quiet, not having a complaint to voice. He looked down to Arra, then back to Rhoane. Wudugast raises his own voice, for all the good it did. "I'd say find a big bastard good at blade work up close, I'm not the sort to take on that masked one this close." Wudugast hesitated, apparently considering Orronn for a moment. "I'm not saying for him, but should that sort of thing happen, it's good to have muscle at your side and not just a, hound was it?!" He choked a laugh, shouldering the yew bow a second time. "Other than that, well done." Neyarra watched the Free Company leave, then met Oron's gaze and rolled her eyes at the scene that had just occurred. "He's just mad he lost a toe, I bet," she murmured, her attention then shifting to Rhoane and her hound. Cisse shuffled closer to Theridin so as to speak quietly. "Estorn and that masked foo from Bree were about with some of theirs. The woman says we'll be following orcs after they pillage farmland and take what they find, then sift through the rubble. She mentioned graverobbing as well." Theridin nods slowly to her words and does not speak further. Theridin glances towards the stairs at the sound of steps. Rhoane , soured by the state of Breelanders, sets her lips tight and nods to each in turn. “I thank you for your interest. We meet in Bree in a fortnight, and ride to Trestlebridge in one force. If you have any questions about my leadership, or the ordeal we are about to face,” she kicked the cane up and ambled towards the wall where a wineskin hung from a hook, plump and waiting. “Do not bother showing your face.” Grumbled with the last of that, “or whatever part of it you aren’t coward enough to hide.” Wudugast turned, making to speak. "We must consider." He growled, then stopped as Estorn returned. "Welcome back." He spoke in a tone as flat as could be with a ruined throat. Estorn gives the room a tough glare, he grumbled all the way down the steps. His eyes turn to Rhoane. Cisse watched the woman as she moved, the light of curiosity in her eyes. "Which part of Bree?" Orronn lets out a rather feminine noise of excitment, spotting Rigging. He crossed over to her, settling to her side with a grin, "I didn't know ya were coming with." Theridin looks between Rhoane and Estorn, brows raised. Rhoane unhooked the wineskin and turned to the doorway. She paused, then flicked the cork open and swigged its innards. Passing the mead to her ‘hound,’ she wiped her mouth with calloused, ruined knuckles. “Alright,” she allowed, and motioned for Estorn to follow her, limping, towards a corner free of hounds, human and canine. Rigging The most platonic side hug possible was executed as she leaned a head into his big, smelly chest, “Oh I had nothing else to do, but nobody is stabbed yet, which is miffin’ me. Brought all my healing supplies and everything.” Keeping an slung around him she looked over at the subconference happening in the corner. Estorn follows her with a sigh. Orronn returns the hug, wrapping an arm around her waist. "Almost had one, missed a good bit o'drama. Better than any actors." He chuckled, eyeing the two in the corner. "I'm glad ya came.' Cisse watched the two by the cage before shooting a puzzled look towards Din. Rhoane |”You came back.” It was the most obvious observation, but several more questions implied. The tap of the cane ceased and she leaned on it, barely, her twisted leg so recently insulted as steady as her well one. Rigging | “I’m glad I could brighten your day, sweetheart.” Making a sound of realization, she reached for her breast pocket and pulled out a small flask, “I separated out some of my special brew for you. Since you took a fancy to it last we talked. Not enough to kill you hopefully as I know moderation isn’t your strong suit.” Estorn takes a deep breath, ''Clearly.'' He says in a slightly annoyed tone, with an expression to match. ''My coffers are growing empty, and I need your coin. So lets figure this out for the betterment of us both.'' He says to her, quietly. Wudugast accepted the mead readily enough. He drank deeply, holding it out to Orronn and the dark-skinned newcommer. "Ah..." He rasped, scar-flecked brow raising. "I see you've the sense to bring your own too." Theridin lifts a shoulder in uncertainty. His gaze moves from Estorn to the dark-skinned newcomer. He assesses her quickly. Orronn grins wider as /two/ drinks were offered to him. He took one with each hand, first a swig from the wine-skin and passing it to Riggs. Then a swig of the devilish brew the woman made. He sputtered, still knocked down from the drink, before offering it to Wudugast. Rigging | “It’s not your little woman drink…” She jested with laughter filling up her grey eyes as her head tossed back and she leaned willingly into the man at her side, “Be careful you boys don’t burn your tongue off…” Looking sideways to catch Theridin’s gaze, she flashed him a wink and glibly teased, “See something you like?” Wudugast took the flask. Sniffing it with a wrinkled nose, he shrugged and tipped it to his mouth. The sound he made was akin to that of a wight from the stories of old as it rose from the ground. "I can almost feel it in my throat." He winked, offering it back and smacking his lips. Once the vessel had been taken, he would step closer to Rhoane and the former watchman. Rhoane turned, her cane grating against the stone. “Estorn,” she uttered, her soft voice a rarity, like a brush of snow on a hard mountain slope. “You have heart, but you barely use it. You have people, but you do not advance them.” Her fingers slipped into the empty cage, imagining what hounds her own family had once kept, and how the action would have cost her more than her hand. “Breeland is barren, the North Downs worse off. Barely a dozen answered my call. I do not want to lose your support, but I am ready to, if it is not me, and ultimately my cause, that you support.” Estorn listens to her for a moment, ''And what is your cause, to burn the north and crown yourself atop its ashes?'' Theridin watches her for a brief moment longer before answering, "Jus' takin' a look at the new company, lass." He tips his hat to her, though his expression remains stoic. Orronn takes the flask back from the woodsman, not daring another sip before offering it out to Theridin. "Just a sip, it'll hurt if ya take more." He warns with a stupid grin. Theridin shakes his head. "I d' not mix business with pleasure," he states. "Mebbe once all this business is seen t'." Cisse turns her attention away from the crowd in the corner and onto the dark-skinned woman in blue. "What's in the flask?" Rigging | “Not your company… Not yet that is. Though I’m thinking the little thing at your side may protest if we were thinking about becoming acquaintances.” Turning her attention to the woman in question, she tilted her head and shrugged, “Little o’ this, little o’ that, something I made myself. It doesn’t have a name, just like the best sorts of things.” Orronn shrugs, "After then." He offers the flask to Cisse. Rhoane turned to Estorn, her lips a hard line that quivered only at the edges. “To build the North.” She narrowed her eyes, her focus clear and somewhere off at a distant goal, an enemy. “The North is already ashes. It is from those ashes I want to reclaim what I can. Yet, no one seems to understand that. In their lands it is only the orcs who are worth fighting.” She sighed, the sorrow then lining her voice torn away. “I will not abandon it, not now, not for anything. I will claim it back from those who still ravage it, orc and Man alike. If it takes a northerner to do it, and no one else.” She glanced back at the horselord, the one southerner who had joined her, wholeheartedly in her campaign. “Then so be it.” Cisse grimaced at the words 'little thing at your side' before taking the offered flask and turning it up to pour into her mouth. "I'm no one's -thing-." She held the flask back out for someone to take it. Estorn cracks the lightest spark of a smirk, the first true emotion he's showed the whole meeting. Besides his rashness towards Timore, ''You have spirit, but that won't be enough. We'll join you, but I want something else from you when you've completed your goal.'' Wudugast stepped closer then, lip curled to a snarl. When he spoke however, it was with a softer hiss. "Now you see, if we hire a company the loyalty does not lay with Rhoane, but the man she has hired, we need all beneath the same banner." Orronn would snatch the flask back up, tucking it away for later. He nestles back into Rigging, glancing to the corner once more. "Seems we're gonna be spendin' a bit o'time together." Theridin answers Rigging in the same even, stoic manner as he spoke to her the first time. "As I told yer friend, I don't mix business with pleasure, lass. This includes those I work with." Rigging |Chuckling with a mouth full of bright teeth she shrugged and murmured, “Every Northern woman is someone’s thing. And you look delightfully Breeland born, dearie.” Distracted by the shift of Oron’s frame against her from baiting the other further, she leaned back against the oaf and rolled her eyes, “What a dull bunch. Obviously not used to working with those you plan on dying with. Loosens a person up.” They were now beneath her focus, and thus could be discussed as if they weren’t actually there. Rhoane splayed her fingers behind her in a manner to calm Wudugast. She was easier now that a room did not seek to sink their teeth in her veins, now it was only Estorn and Wudugast in their little corner. “Wudugast,” she explained to Estorn, “Is the one I trust most, of all, of all time. He knows my mind, and he speaks more true than I do. I cannot call you forth with men under you, if they owe no loyalty to me for the gold I give. I do not hire middle-men, Estorn, and I know you to be better than that.” Theridin glances once between Cisse and Rigging, but keeps his thoughts to himself. Estorn tilts his head, ''Very few people know me,... Know me truly.'' He corrects, ''What do you want from me.'' Cisse snorted. "Clearly you haven't met all of us. I'm no one's thing. I don't plan on dying with anyone I work with." She took a few steps closer. "Unless...you plan on dying during this venture?" She looked the woman up and down. "Dibs on your belt if you do." Orronn chuckled at the two women, yet held his tongue. Rigging | “I’m not so arrogant to plan anything, m’dear.” She responded cooly, tossing her shoudlers up in a shrug before reaching to unbuckle her belt and sliding the two swords off and holding out the tattered old leather, “I mean, your taste is terrible, but if ye’ need something to hold ye’ pants onto those nonexistent hips, don’t have to wait for me to die for that.” Rhoane |Her North Down born eyes grew, her head tilted. None had color like them, as plain and born of earth. “Leadership,” she promised. “Proven. You will never know me, nor I you. But we will know each other in combat.” She displayed the empty fingers, her knuckle ridge mounted in callouses, dirt her permanent complexion. “I have nothing more to offer than what I already have. I need people, not companies. Do you know what it would mean for me if one day, you took your men and left, killing us by half? I cannot afford that. You will condemn us.” She turned, inviting Wudugast into their minor ring, though she still spoke to Estorn. “I cannot risk it. I care for those who stay with me, and your…eventual abandonment will not justify your previous investment. I think it is time you leave.” Cisse looked down at her belt. "I'd rather just wait till, after you die. It shouldn't be too long." Theridin lifts his brows at her words, but again remains silent. He turns his attention to Arra and tips his hat slightly to her in greeting. Rigging | She reattaches the belt and smiles sweetly, “That’ll be shit luck for you then, since it looks like I’m the only one that can stitch up wounds and keep the fester out standing here. You get far enough North and there are no apocatheries about. I didn’t come here to fight. I came here to keep you all on your feet fighting. But for you, I can make a special exception.” Wudugast loped between the pair, mouth a grim set as his blues flickered between them. Thumb tucked into a worn belt, he seemed poised on the outcome of the conversation. Estorn rubs his chin, his face keeps his normal, calm but stern demeanor. His mind working, calculating every word and every action that leads to a different outcome. ''This is your final decision, than?'' Neyarra returned with a mug in her hand...and tucked in her arm somehow, and another balanced on top of the other. All of them looked as if they really wanted to tip over, but only through the luck of the girl holding them did they stay in her grasp. She sipped at the one closest to her face, not really paying attention to the room she had just entered just yet. Cisse shifted her attention toward Arra. "Where did you find drinks?" Neyarra blinked at Cisse, as if the answer to her query was blaringly obvious. "...The Wattle. Why d'ya ask?" She held out a mug to her. Rhoane nodded, set on her course, whatever the outcome. “It was my first decision. What becomes my band, is mine to keep, to protect.” Theridin 's gaze moves again from the two bickering women and to the newcomer behind Arra. Estorn hmms.. ''Very well then, I am... Upset, to hear that we couldn't come to an agreement, then. You can find me easily enough if you change your mind, I wish you well.'' Wudugast held up a gloved hand. "Individuals, Estorn..." The gravel tone went on. "Those who come to us as men and women may still find a place in our ranks." Estienne concluded her descent in silence, content to remain a step or two above the stone floor. Scaled arms creaked softly as they folded cross plated chest. She assumed a casually stance, half-leaning upon the wall as pale eyes fell upon the ruddy girl. Rhoane turned after the spurned shoulder. “Including you,” she punctuated Wudugast’s promise. “You and your Men will all have gold. If they wish to give it to you as their leader, that is not my concern. I hire those who would aid me, I offer spoils to those deserving.” Estorn says, ''I will have to consider this, I've put quite a bit of coin into what I have now. If I were to drop it all and follow you north, and the spoils turned out dry. Or the mission its self fails on its first assualt, I will have lost everything.'' Cisse sighed and took the offered mug. "You're an odd one, Arra." She took a small sip from the mug before sending another glare towards Riggs. Rhoane frowned, her brows a low delving. “What have you built? Here, in Breeland? There is coin to be made in the calm farmfields beyond the town?” Rigging decides that the other potential adversary was a lost cause, after all, she had the last word. And with a slight lift to her chin, she slung the swords back along the belt and buckled into place. Looking over her shoulder to the man at her side, she pushed up onto her toes and whispered something into his ear. Wudugast shrugged, clicking his tongue. "Your empire from what I've seen covers the same bounds as Barliman's tavern, and a sellsword should take his fate lightly, the money comes and goes." Neyarra rolled her eyes at Cisse. "I'm not odd, you're just too lazy to go to the Wattle and get stuff, you dummy." She moved out of the doorway at last, sipping at one of her two mugs. "Hullo," she said to Theridin, recognizing him with a slight smile. Estorn says, ''I have built myself a hall, a nice one at that. I have made myself a powerful man here in Bree, I have 13 swords under me. Enough to cause immense damage if I wanted to do so. To throw it all away and simply travel north to my possible death for plunder that might be there is.. Not promising.'' Orronn looks down to the woman as she whispers sweet nothings to her. He shakes his head muttering back with a nod towards Rhoane and Wudugast. He gave her a squeeze. Theridin tips his hat to Arra once more. "Lass. Good t' see ye in better health than last." Iswaran says, 'Vamu west folk!' Theridin raises his brows at the two newcomers. Iswaran says, 'This is correct place for meeting, is Izwarz correct?' Iswaran says, 'I am Izwarz! I hail from the Red Mountains to the east...I am without a home. And this is my companion from the land of the Dundlings... Ealdred!' Calanto dips his head, his creban perched on his shoulder. Cisse handed Arra an empty mug. "If you need me, I'll be at the Wattle." Theridin 's brows remain raised as he eyes the two of them... and the bird. He tips his hat to Cisse as she departs. Iswaran says, 'Who is the one we must speak to then eh? Who is to speak with Izwarz and his friend of the wild?' Iswaran 's accent is thick, it reeks of khuzdul and an eastern spike. Calanto looks about at the others in the room. Theridin nods his head to Rhoane, who seems to be speaking in the corner with Estorn. Iswaran says, 'Many thanks to you and your kindred west man...' Iswaran bows deeply before Theridin. Iswaran says, 'Vamu vamu...' Iswaran bows deeply before Wudugast. Wudugast turned slowly to look to the newcomers. "Rhoane will speak..." He hissed, his voice scratching in his throat. "As soon as she can..." With that he took a step back, eyes flitting between his companion and the odd newcomers. Neyarra smirked at Din and raised her mug in greeting. "Yeah, not in jail anymore." Iswaran says, 'Ah yes ah yes you seem confused...I am a Stonefoot dwarf! My brother recently passed through these lands and now I follow his footsteps. I am Izwarz...and this is my wildman companion Ealdred!' Iswaran says, 'He told me of this meeting and so I came with him!' Calanto speaks in a deep, slow voice, with a heavy Dunlending accent. "I am Ealdred of Dunland." Theridin nods slowly. "Ye takin' t' the words I spoke t' ye, lass?" he asks of her. Rhoane narrowed her eyes, but soon placed an arm on the sellsword’s shoulder, brief and indicating no excess familiarity. “We will talk further, in depth, and over better wine.” She reached towards Wudugast for the skin of mead she had gifted him, her eyes still steady on Estorn. “I have a room in the Wattle. We can meet there. Ask Lizbeth for me, and I will find you.” Wudugast glowered a little at the introduction. His hand removed from his belt instead found the hilt of his blade. "And what brings you here?" He rasped. Iswaran bows to the man and motions to the wildman to speak. Estorn bows his head, ''Very well then.'' Neyarra nodded glumly, obviously not happy with the advice even if she saw its merit. "I'll stab Vini in the face someday." Theridin says softly to the girl, "Someday, lass. When the time is right and ye are ready t' handle him. Have ye been trainin'?" Calanto says, 'We need plunder... Don't you know my homeland fights against the pale-haired folk? We need resources.' Iswaran says, 'Indeed you said reclaim lands.' Iswaran says, 'I have no land anymore.' Iswaran says, 'This could be land my own.' Calanto says, 'And my folk reclaim their own from those straw haired brigands!' Rhoane set her hand on Wudugast’s shoulder, stomping by as her second leg dragged wretched behind. “Calm yourself,” she warned the Man, a brief glance only for his dwarf companion for now. “We are not claiming all lands, but one. That region north of here which the orcs have claimed for their own. What wars are south, we do not trouble ourselves.” Estorn bows his head to Rhoane and dismisses himself. Iswaran says, 'Yes but this land is called Tresltebridge, no?' Wudugast |A sickly grimace crosses the man's scar-flecked features. "That sounds terrible..." He rasped, the grin as thick as curds. My own homeland too suffers from invaiders." That said, he slowly drew back his own hood to reveal straw-coloured locks. Iswaran eyes widen a tad. Neyarra nodded. "Yeah, lots. Anyway, I'm gonna get more ale. 'Cause I ran out already. Weird." She tipped both her mugs upside-down, and nothing but a couple of drops came out. "Bye!" With that, she rushed out. Rigging Attention had shifted to the conversation occurring in the corner of the room, and as everyone revealed their hair color, she snorted out a peel of unfeminine laughter, “Oh goodness, that’s going to be awkward.” She muttered. Theridin murmurs to himself as Arra leaves, "Wise, perhaps," as he sees a very potential fight erupting. He leans against the doorway, crossing both of his arms casually. Calanto narrows his eyes and spits on the ground. He holds his tongue though. He then looks at Rhoane, showing he can restrain himself. He still holds a scowl on his face though. Theridin glances at the silent woman on the stairs for a moment, before shifting his gaze again to the room. Iswaran says, 'Now there we go...very good. People do not like eachother but they do not stab each other! Very good!' Iswaran looks to the woman with a grin over his face "Now tell me...if you would grace me with your words. What of this...Trestlebridge? Hm?" he perks up his eyebrows at the 'hm'. Ringwe shouts, 'Hey, Ox-Brain! Where are you?' Ringwe pokes his head in. Wudugast Looks to Bastrom as he entered. Ringwe says, 'Don't tell me you're gambling again. What is it this time? Pit fight by the looks of it.' Rhoane ambled towards her fair-haired keeper as she plucked a grin from somewhere beneath her patience. “Trestlebridge is North. They are soon to be our allies, if we can convince them.” Leaning against a stained-ash stave propped under her palm she called to the rest still waiting. “Come closer, if you want any news. What is known here of the North Downs?” Ringwe taps his foot impatiently. Orronn murmurs down to Riggings, "Wanna braid my hair after this?" Iswaran says, 'So you mean to tell me...Trestlebridge is our...ally? I heard tell we would plunder said place?' Iswaran says, 'That is what this.../wildman/ told me at least.' Ringwe says, 'You know what, I don't want to know.' Ringwe says, 'Ealdred, I'll be outside.' Rigging |A giggle really shredded the sensitivity of the situation, even though she attempted to stifle it behind a row of fingertips. Nudging him in the ribs with an elbow she purred against the tender skin of his neck, “Wait? I could braid your hair here. Not like we’re doing much of anything else.” Theridin also takes his leave, silently. Orronn nods at that, then moves to sit in front of Riggings like a small child. Orronn sits down. Estienne descended the last pair of steps, bringing her to stand just behind Rigging. She drawled low, tone tinged with dry mirth - a tone oft reserved for her most ill-suited employee. "I do not pay you to braid hair." Calanto exhales. "What I heard was, bloody work needed in Trestlebridge." Wudugast curled his lip to a feral snarl, pale blue eyes not leaving those of Calanto. "So you prance about and and pretend to work spells in the dung, do you." It came as a rasped statement rather than a question. "You've the look of one of them." Rigging |If she had any shame, it wasn’t evident. In fact, she was peeling off her gloves, readying to run them through his hair and untangle the golden curls as suddenly a voice cut into her focus and… She jerked back taking his hair with her. The sound that escaped her throat was a twisted yelp, ridden with a few choice Dundling curses as she wavered for a moment, as if considering running for the steps if her hands were not ensnared in blonde hair. Orronn yelps as his hair is yanked back, "Damn it, pull my hair when we're naked." He hisses, looking back in confusion. Iswaran turns to look at those behind him with a grimace then back to the woman before him. Estienne spared nary a word of greeting for the girl, but fixed her with a glacial look that imparted such cold disapproval. In an instant, Estienne's interest exaporated and she turned casually from the girl. She turned her back on the lot and began a slow ascent up the stairs. Calanto snarls as well. "I came to offer my pets as spies and lookouts for your band..." He then spits on the ground again. "At least I don't sleep with my horse in the stables." Rigging wavered for a moment, still half cowering as if expecting a blow as she finally managed to stir from the cold that had fixed her in place, “…I…uh…I have to go…” She managed softly, stooping at the hip to kiss Oron’s brow, before slinking after the heels of the woman that had inspired such fear. Wudugast hawked his own foul gob to join the growing puddle. "An old gem, that one." He rasped. "You settle for sheep, oxen and from what I hear of late, Orcs." Orronn rubs the back of his head, standing up, "Yeah, see ya." He offers, watching the woman part in confusion. Rhoane waited for the offers to roll in, but none came. Her jaw set firmer than a mold, she spoke to Wudugast over his shoulder. “Give them trinkets. The rest we will deal with.” Her fingers touched his elbow, but slid off as soon as they landed, and only the angle her chin lifted away implied affection. “Do not tarry. I have other business to deal with.” Orronn disapears like someone announced a pregnancy. Iswaran says, 'But am I to be clear on this...no plundering?' Ringwe says, 'You're blocking the door.' Rigging |”It’s a wide door…” She hissed, tailing the cloaked woman with shoulders folded forward and making a show of inviting the man to pass in the available space. Ringwe says, 'Really, Ealdred, we need to go.' Ringwe sees the Rohirrim and sighs. "Well that explains the delay." Iswaran says, 'Eh? He is busy! Can you not see that with your tiny useless eyes?' Iswaran says, 'Respect is a virture west man.' Calanto turns to address the man, he begins speaking in a fairly loud voice. "You leave us alone! We have business to see to here! And this, straw-haired fool is delaying progress!" Ringwe says, 'Who in Tulkas' name are you?' Iswaran says, 'Who am I? Who am I? I am Izwarz!' Iswaran says, 'But tell me..' Iswaran says, 'No plundering?' Iswaran says, 'Is this what I have gathered?' Ringwe says, 'Plundering. Figures.' Calanto glares at Talagand, and in as commanding a voice he can give, "Get out... Before my creban feasts on your eyes." He then turns to Wudugast. "The same goes for you. Fill us in, we have preparations to make." Rhoane ‘s fingers fell against her sheath, a leather scrap tied with broken coins and stamped with runes. “Plunder?’ She grinned, waving off the question while answering it at the same time. “Of course. Why would I advertise something I did not intend to produce? Plunder there will be. On my life.” Iswaran says, 'Of Trestlebridge?' Ringwe folds his arms, but goes nowhere. Ringwe says, 'Why bother plundering Trestlebridge? They barely have enough food to live off of.' Wudugast hacks a rough laugh. "I'll turn him into fletchings and stew." he leered at the bird for good measure. "You arrive late, send for Rhoane Commons if you'd make money for blade work in the north." Ringwe gazes at Wudugast from under his hood. "I'm here to make sure my Dunlending doesn't get himself impaled on a Rohirric blade." Rhoane shook her head, her features settled into a stillness after a righteous storm. “Beyond Trestlebridge. Those of the span-town will be our allies.” Iswaran nods "I see...I will be about this village for a few days more. Then I am to leave. You may find me here." with that he leaves. Calanto gives a death stare to Wudugast as he also leaves. Ringwe nods to those present, following the Dunlending. Wudugast turned on Rhoane, another heavy sigh heaving his body. "That could have gone both better, and worse..." He grunted, peering over the woman with curiosity.

[lotrologs]

Agamaran and Haneth - The End

| The water on the Starmere Lake was rather calm as the sun crept across the sky. It would be sundown soon. The gentle wind was a compliment to the rather hot day and it felt as if the land itself was cooling down in anticipation for the oncoming sunset. Agamaran stood amidst the ruins that overlooked the well-hidden lake. His boots were clean, as were the rest of his clothes. His hood was thrown back, showing off the curls in his hair--he had bathed as well. His weapons and pack were tucked away next to a tree where his horse remained untethered. He glanced at his paint horse as it chortled. He spoke in the gentle language of the Elves to him, as if he was reassuring the horse more than he was himself of the words: "She will be here. She will understand the message."

  | The ridge over Starmere just turned pink when Haneth’s horse crept down to the water. She had not had the same luxury. The day’s work slicked her neck with sweat and musk clung to her skin like a faint heat off of bread stone. Her hips swayed with the courser’s ambling until he knickered and dipped his head to the water. She slipped from the saddle, and picked her heels up the moment they flattened the grass to stride towards him, throw her hands into his curls, and kiss.

  | He quietly watched her as she strode towards him, and before he could speak her lips were upon his. He took her in then, breathing in deeply at the unexpected display of strong emotion, before a small voice in the back of his mind reminded him why he asked her here. Slowly, his face came apart from hers as he held it within his hands. "Haneth," he said quietly, and then he seemed to be rather dumbfounded as he couldn't find any other words to say.

  | Her head rested in his hands, for the moment with eyes hopeful, trusting him to treat it well. A smile escaped across her lips and she rose up on her toes to kiss him. “Agamaran,” she whispered as her cheek, course with scars, rested against his.

  | "I must speak with you," he said suddenly, and his voice seemed to waver somewhat. He cleared his throat quietly as he brought her away from his face once more to look at her. "It is important," he said, this time more firmly and a little more confident. His eyes complimented the seriousness of his statement.

  | Her smile ebbed. “What is it?” Her eyes mirrored his severity. “What’s wrong?” Her grip on his shoulders tightened as she grew desperate of the space between them, fearing he might flee.

    | He swallowed as he gently took her arms down from his shoulders until his hands filled her own and held them. "There is no doubt of our love," he began, and his face grew soft as he seemed to find the confidence in his words. "It was a surprise, but it was a well-welcomed surprise. I often..." He shook his head then for half a moment as a small sigh escaped his nostrils. "Haneth," he said, and the tone held the candor that he often shared with her. "'I am yours and you are mine;' we have said this to each other as often as the sun sets, and we have more than proved it when we lie with one another to confirm it. But," and as he said the word, he took in a deep breath," There is yet one thing I have not done to honor you."

  He slowly came down to one knee then, and he looked as if he was to swear an oath to her. He let go of her hands for a moment as he held his own aloft in the other. The silver signet ring with the inlaid sapphire gleamed amidst the setting sun. The figure of the hawk looked as bold as Agamaran often did, but now he had a look upon his face as if nothing else in the world mattered except where his eyes laid upon, and they rest upon Haneth's own. Slowly, he plucked the ring from his finger, revealing a mark to suggest that the ring had rarely been off his hand since it was first adorned with it. He palmed the ring before trading it to his fingers and then held it up to her as his other hand supported the other. "Haneth," he said, and it took all his training to remain calm and concentrated, despite the rapid beating in his heart that seemed to accelerate to his throat. "Will you be mine, forever?"

  | Not until death. Forever.

  Days before she had run from the mead hall, spurned to stallion speed by the fear of their mutual fate. Her fingers trembled as they waited for the glove to be slipped off and a ring, more binding than his seed growing inside her, to claim her empty hand. She could already feel it, the metal still warm from where it lived for decades.

  “I…” Her tongue slipped. On even bad days it bounded through three languages but at this moment, it could not remember one.

  She had told Desten she would love him forever, and she had meant it. What was she doing?

  “I…I will not.”

  A heat surged through her, like a puncture to her heart gushing blood down her bones. Her temples reeled. Panic punched a hole in her lung and she gasped for breath to replace the quick fleeting air.

  “No. No I mean I will. Agamaran…” She fell to her knees in front of him. Tears already bubbled in her eyes. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” She repeated the mantra truer than any other, and sought for his face with her fingers. “I love you so much.”

  | He waited with abated breath for her answer. As she spoke the single syllable, his eyes grew in anticipation, but when she refused him, his eye became vacant and grew numb. Time seemed to slow around him as the wind blew at the leaves. The sound was an echoing distance before it came back into focus. When it did, Haneth was grabbing at his face. It took him half a moment after that for him to notice the tears streaming down the face and what she was saying.

  But he was no hopeful youth who might believe the sudden change in heart. He had seen love before--true love, the likes of which could stretch the faculties of those entwined with it. He had feared the worst with Haneth--that he was simply an anchor to the grief of her losing her true husband, her true love. But when she demanded from him what he rebuffed from her, and when they shared one another, he became convinced otherwise. But now the doubt returned and knocked down the foundation that was built within his walls. Behind it was the mask. He slipped it on.

  "Haneth," he said, and it was the time-tested tone of a trained voice that displayed no emotion as he tried to slowly pull her hands down away from him. "Haneth," he repeated, now more firmly. His resolve was slipping now. He could feel the burning sensation underneath his eyes as he bitterly forbade himself to shed a tear. He had said her name now to catch her attention, but he seemed incapable of saying anything after it.

  | “No…” she pleaded, slipping from his hands and regaining the ground she had lost. Her fingers fumbled through his hair. Her eyes were desperate, clawing at the mask. “No, don’t go. No, please. Please don’t go.” She scrambled on her knees to be near him. She threw herself against him, and he had never felt such strength in her arms. “I love you. I love you.” She had cut open her heart, and this bled forth. “Please. I love you. I love you.”

    | He could not stop her as she threw himself against him. He didn't try to. Even in this proximity, memories stirred within him as he smelled her scent, regardless of the sweat and strain mixed within it--it was a scene he had grown to love. He focused on the strands of her flaxen hair that he was fond of playing with. And then he woke himself from the dream.

  "Haneth," he said, and his face showed true emotion and hurt as he was unable to keep his steely resolve admist her bombarding him with her own torrent of anguish, "Your first answer was the truthful one." His voice was breaking apart as he said the words, and he quickly cleared his throat as if it would serve a distraction to his own troubles in trying to remain composed. Still he demanded that he not shed a single tear, and so he didn't.

  | “This life,” she pleaded, her fingers gripping what they could, cloth and hair alike. “This life I can share with you. What do I know what comes after?” She risked pulling back so she could look into his eyes. Her scars glittered with tears. Her grip had never been stronger on any sword or bow. “Forever is an impossible time. This time – this time right now is what I know, and I give you all of it.”

  | He placed a small, lifeless kiss upon her forehead. "I should have listened to you," he began, and his voice was distant, yet it did not crack under the pressure as it did before. "When you wished for me to leave." His eyes regained their stone-like quality of revealing nothing. "I understand it is not death you fear, but the life thereafter." A beat passed between them. "And who you wait for. Who truly holds your love." He hung his head in defeat then as he avoided her eyes. "I know it is not me."

  | Her hands clutched his cheeks to pull him upward. Her gaze burrowed into his, trying to grab at something slipping away. “How can I love him less?” she begged, her voice so wracked it moaned. “How? He was taken from me in the first days of our marriage. We were not allowed to grow old together, to fight, to grow tired of each other and to dream of other things. He was taken from me in our honeymoon, and that…that is all I know.” Her hands scurried across his shoulders, not knowing where they went. “I need you to understand. Desten is fixed, like a ruin preserved. You and me, we are living. There is blood in us, there is change. We do not know what will be before us, but I know – I *know* I want to find out with you.”

  | A cold hand touched her cheek as he let himself be pulled upward. "I cannot ask of you anything, and I have already done enough to dishonor his memory." A long, drawn-out sigh escaped through his nose. "What I have done to you is unforgivable...The desire that I gave in to, mistaking it for love, when it is now readily seen as an act of comfort between one who grieves and another who has longed for love, yet has always had it taken from him." He almost absently brushed a strand of her hair as a muscle memory, but stopped himself before he carried out the action. "I cannot live with the idea that I am just the wax that fills the chipped marble of your heart. I want to be the great statue that is at your foundation, and I understand that I cannot be that." Their faces may have been inches apart, but he seemed like a world away.

  | “I only grieve…” she sobbed, her head falling against his brow. Her breath was soft even as it raced. She barely blinked, fearing even a second with closed eyes would send him away. “I only grieve…for you. Please do not take yourself from me.”

  | "I will remain," he said, yet the tone was neither hopeful nor cheerful. "I will remain as I once did--as I did in Stangard. But I will not dishonor you further than I already have. I will not ask your forgiveness in this, as I know I am to blame for the...things that we did." He tried to slowly break free from her embrace then. "But for now, I wish to be alone...with my thoughts." Again, his cold eyes looked away from her, avoiding her own eyes at all cost. But if she caught glimpse in them, they did not bare the shame that he said they did--rather they bore the look of defeat, like some soldier who had seen his last battle on a long campaign.

  | “I do not need your presence,” she sobbed. Her head slipped down his cheek and sank into the crest of his shoulder. “I need you.” Night fell upon them. The stars twinkled in Starmere like the unending trails of fireworks, falling to the water but never quite reaching.

  | Agamaran said nothing. If he believed her words, he did not show it. Rather, he tried once more to break free from her, this time attempting to stand as he tried to gently push back at her shoulders so that her head did not rest on his shoulder. It was slowly coming back--the mask. It was slipping back on. He was beginning to wonder why he ever took it off.

  | Haneth clutched at him, but her fingers had lost the chance to hold on. “I love you.” Did the words mean nothing? She begged and whispered, had tried all but shouting, and nothing could stop the cold tide from rising.

  | As he stood, he slipped the ring back over his finger before it found its rightful place. He walked to his horse slowly, setting the weapons and his bag over the saddlebags. And yet he did not look back. After he had packed his gear, he looked over the saddle and at the lake. He watched the reflection of the stars dance across the water that was subtly disturbed by the wind. He thought of the many Numenorean statues on the shores of Evendim--their inscriptions worn or broken, and who they represented long forgotten. And so they too were forgotten, yet remained a forlorn watchmen over a crumbling state of affairs. The way he stood still almost made him seem like one of those statues.

  | Haneth could not see him as in his noble state. She had bent over, her forehead pressed against the lakeside muck. Her hair tangled in the reeds as she sobbed into the earth. Her arms wound around her, clutching her stomach as if holding her insides from spilling out through a gash in her chest.

  | He listened to her anguish as he stood next to his horse. The soft sound of her cries brought a torrent of memories they had shared--the troubles they overcame, the confessions they made to one another, and the time they spent together in happiness. And so Agamaran could not hold back the demand he made of himself, and shed silent tears as his chest heaved in its own torment. He quickly mounted his horse and kicked off, tearing out of the scene as fast and far as he could, or, at least, as well as he could see.

[lotrologs]

Celebarn's house - Rambroke, Arra and Celebarn.

Neyarra l Squinted eyes peered out from under a mop of rusty hair at the tall and worn Arnorian statue standing vigil in one of the cluster of yards which made up the collective neighbour-hood of Rambroke. A mud-covered rock, still damp from the storm earlier in the day which may as well have never occurred, by the sight of the shining mid-spring sun and the sound of birds singing their songs, found itself gripped by a hand equally as dirty, until it was released by the girl and flew up to strike the statue in its nose with a faint sound, only to fall once more, leaving hardly a mark in the aged stone countenance. Arra scrunched up her nose at her handiwork and bent down to scoop up another stone with her non-injured hand.

Celebaeron slid effortlessly from the bare horse's back and stood running a hand through the animal's mane for a moment before uttering a quiet word in Quenya and nodding toward the Rambroke gate. He stood watching the horse trot off then turned, slowly un wrapping the faded blue cloak from around his shoulders and draped it over an arm. "You must be Arra." he said, offering the woman something of a sad smile. "I've seen you when you were sleeping but I do not think we have actually met. Celebarn at your service." bowing his head a little. "That statue is a very old you know."

Neyarra paused, rock still in hand, and shifted her gaze to the sylvan creature speaking to her. The words did not seem to register in her mind at first – she merely stared, remembering instead the stories told of his elusive kind and wondering if she was not dreaming; if she was, it was the first one in quite some time that did not involve Vinicio. She spoke at last, forgetting the rock, or at least the original purpose for which she had scooped it up, even as she clutched it. “Lots of rocks are old,” she countered, her eyes moving to look the great statue in the face once more.

Celebaeron nodded slowly. "That is very true." offering another hint of a smile as he spoke. "This one is older than many. And far; far older then you, your parents, grandparents or even great grandparents. I've had this statue for a few thousand years or more. And I value it much." he added gently, land a hand against the stone as he moved close to it. "I keep it in memory of an old friend."

Neyarra stared across the yard at the eternal being by the ancient statue which he had just said to be young by comparison. “Thousands of years?” she said breathlessly, “That's longer than Bree's been around, I bet. I bet it was all just boars and giants for miles around back then. Did you see it?” She prodded him, her only knowledge of the everlasting Elves coming from tavern-stories.

Celebaeron shook his head, quietly creaking with laugh. "Bree is old too. It may not be as... noble as other place that one existed here in the north but it is old at least. But yes I saw it." nodding his head a little as he patted the statue. "My memory goes back some five thousand years or so. Back before this statue or the people that created it lived on these shores."

Neyarra brought the rock up to her face and eyed it a moment before she sniffed at it and tossed it off into the damp grass to join the few scattered others. “Haneth told me about those people, I think,” she offered in reply. “Were there only horses in Rohan thousands of years ago? I bet so. Lots and lots of horses, like today. We went all the way to Rohan, months ago, and there were lots of horses there, and people who love horses.” She glanced at the statue. “Wonder who that guy was,” she said suddenly. “Did you know him?” She eyed the Elf as though expecting him to know the subject of the statue personally.

Celebaeron gazed past her to the statue in question and gazed long at it, his eyes shifting as if lost in some distant memory seeing not the stone but the living for of Gil-galad. "I did." he said in a voice barely above a whisper. "He was Gil-gald, and was my king. And Elendil" patting the statue under his hand. was a close friend and ally. Horses?" lifting a brow and moving his gaze back to her. "Rohan did not exist then, not in the way you no it at least. And no" smiling at her a little. "I cannot tell you that tale. It is a long one, bound up with many tales even longer. And at the moment there are more pressing matters to deal with. Like Haneth's leaving."

Neyarra had sat down in the grass, not seeming to mind the dampness, and had run her fingers through its bed of blades, all seeming to have just come fresh from the forge of nature's tears, the mark of which yet dripped from many of them and moistened the girl's pants. She had also, while sitting, listened with much curiosity to the Elf's words, yearning to hear more tales of the past, that foggy memory in the social conscience of all Men of those lands which was brought to light only by the most learned scholars and not remembered by scarcely anybody else. Her fascination lilted at mention of Haneth's departure; her heart skipped a beat, though she seemed to convince herself that nothing was truly amiss. “Leaving? Where's she going?”

Celebaeron slowly shook his head, lifting a single finger. "Not going but gone." he said sadly, nodding over his should toward the Rambroke gate. "Something happened." he paused studying Arra's face for a moment as if considering wither or not to say any more. "Something happened between her and Agamaran." he continued at last with a nod. "And she felt the need to go away for a while."

Neyarra l Curiosity was replaced by worry, and Arra stood with some trouble, her old wounds yet slowing her down a bit. “Gone?” she breathed, as though to herself. At mention of trouble with the hawk-bearing Ranger and of 'going away for a while', her stomach twisted in a knot and her fascination with the Elf and his stories became the furthest thing from her mind. “She'll be back soon,” she said aloud, in an obvious attempt to convince herself. “Where'd she go?” she demanded of the Elf, already starting to move out, with the clear intention of going after her.

Celebaeron moved with a quick step to try and cut her off, holding out a hand to stop her. "I am sorry but I will not tell you that. Nor are you going anywhere." he added shaking his head. "Listen now. I invited you into my home. That is not I think what Arion had planned for you. And now if you go running out of Bree-land who do you think his first stop will be to?" he paused for a long silent moment letting the question hang there before tapping his chest with a finger. "I can deal with him. Indeed the last time we met I think I called him an... "ignorant, incompetent, whey-faced nestlecock" But another argument with over someone escaping would not be good. Nor are you in any condition to go running after Haneth." he added, almost as an afterthought.

Neyarra stepped once more, as though ready to push forcefully past Celebarn and run...where? She hadn't the faintest clue, but she was certain it would be better to try, as futilely as it might be, to locate her beloved mentor. She choked on a word before giving up on communicating any longer. Turning her back on him, she strode, frustrated and bewildered, across the lawn and towards a nearby stream, perhaps to think.

Celebaeron paced after her for a moment but seeing she was headed not for the gate but for the stream he paused, calling after her. "Do not worry about Haneth. All will be well, I intend to see to that. I also will have the gate out of Rambroke watched." he added with a mischievous but not unkind grin. "So stay here and get some rest if you can. I will be back once I've seen Thorvall." he turned and paced not toward the road but his own front door, adding aloud but wholly to himself. "I need a drink and a smoke. It has been an age or more since I last had a pipe."

[lotrologs]

Agamaran and Celebaeron.

Agamaran trekked up the path with a sullen look and his head down low. His clothes looked weather-beaten as he led his horse up the path next to him. When he crest over and spotted a familiar Elf, however, he piqued up. He walked slowly to Celebarn. His face looked dirty and defeated. "Celebarn," he said coarsely, then he cleared his throat.

Celebaeron stood wrapped in his own worn and travel stained cloak watching the distant trees in silence. "Agamaran." he said, giving the Ranger a quick bob of his head in greeting. "I have some news, news I think that you will not like." he added then fell silent for a moment. "First though an explanation is required. What happened with Haneth?" lifting his brow as he turned to the man.

Agamaran shook his head as he walked up to the steps of his home where a package lay at the doormat. He picked it up and then turned to Celebarn as he sighed through his nose. "What do you mean?" It did not look like the impact of Celebarn's words truly registered for Agamaran.

Celebaeron turned his head gazing after the man but said nothing until Agamaran was on the steps. "I mean something happened between the two of you. She came by the little house I have in Rambroke in the middle of the night." waving a hand over his shoulder in that general direction. "She was leaving. Said I should talk to you about why."

Agamaran unwrapped the contents of the package as he seemed to not entirely listen to Celebarn. He found a half-finished cloth that wrapped a many-rayed silver brooch. His eyes widened then as he looked up to Celebarn. "Leaving?" He rushed down the steps then and up to Celebarn. "What do you mean, 'leaving?'"

Celebaeron lifted a brow "I mean just that. She was going away." he said carefully watching Agamaran's facial expressions. "You are surprised by the news. So you were not expecting this to be her reason?" he adding, nodding in spite of the question. "What happened between the two of you? What happened that made her suddenly feel the need to run away?"

Agamaran took a step closer as his face grew nervous and anxious. "Where did she go, Celebarn," he said, and there was worry in his voice. "Did she take anything with her? Nimue?"

Celebaeron paced silently back and forth in front of Agamaran. "I am not going to tell you where she went." he said quietly. "Not yet at least. No, she did not talk Nimue. Indeed that was the reason for her calling; she asked that I watch over her daughter. Now what happened?" he asked giving the man a long look. "I am concerned she left too. But you look more than simply concerned."

Agamaran | At the mention of Haneth not taking Nimue, he immediately rushed to his horse. He had already mounted it by the time Celebarn had finished speaking. "Where did she go, Celebarn," he said, and there was haste in his words. "Tell me immediately!"

Celebaeron slowly turned, watching as Agamaran moved to his horse but said nothing for a long moment. "No." he said simply at last, shaking his head. "Her tracks will be leading out of Rambroke. They will be a few hours old by now. But with some luck perhaps you can follow them. If not then she does not want you to know where she is going. And who am I to tell you if that is the case?"

Agamaran did not wait for Celebarn to finish his statement--after denying him, he immediately shouted for his steed to push forward, and it did. With a great surge, Agamaran was tearing down the road and out of sight.

[lotrologs]

Grey Eyes - Agamaran and Imoghen

There were servants to do that, why did she insist on plying thorny branches aside and pruning back the rose heads that had begun to wilt and fade? A smile never deterred him from the disapproval, but it did provide weight to her promises that she just needed the quiet and to do something with her hands. Of course, she could crochet another sock, but the monotony of that task was beginning to wear on her. So outside the walls of their home, she pulled down thick stalks with delicate fingertips avoiding the thorns, before the sharp knife slipped in between joints in the plant and dead petals fell at her feet. The process was slow and purposeful, a labor of love instead of necessity, while the large hound that was always in her company slept peaceably a small distance away where the shade of a tree could keep midday sun off his thick hide.

    "You were not hard to find," a voice rang out from a distance. A figure appeared behind another tree--the familiar figure of the Ranger that had last spoken to her about who she truly was. He eyed the dog sitting under the shade of a tree and then back to her and did not step forward. "We Dunedain are so few that we are easily marked by the natives of these lands. When I asked about a woman with dark hair, gray eyes, and a tall figure, they pointed me along the way." He crossed his arms then and looked at her, as if he was waiting for her reaction.

    The voice breaking through her moment of peace away from children caused her hand to slip, a thorn slicing up and through the pad of one thumb. Although the dirtied digit initially slipped between her lips, when she turned and realized what had startled her, she was careful to pull it out and cross her arms with the pruning knife still hanging lazily from one, “Perhaps… My betrothed is not particularly reclusive though. And neither am I. We enjoy being part of the community, so I think you could have simply asked for me by name.” It was difficult to hide the fact that she sounded mildly perturbed, but certainly not afraid. And with the beast rumbling to his massive paws and stalking forward with a few purposeful strides to put himself between his mistress and the stranger with lowly chuff, who would be? “Can I help you?”

    "Perhaps it is I who can help you." He remained where he was, though he seem to pay no attention to the dog as it moved between the both of them. "Some of the Dunedain have been lost in Eriador--whether by choice or by chance. They grow up and do not know who they are or where they come from or what they are capable of. At first, I did not know if you were one of the foresaken and an enemy of the agent, but I see you here plainly and I cannot fathom the idea that you are simply innocent in all of this." He lowered his green hood then as his cold gray eyes came into focus. "And so I offer you this--the chance to learn who you truly are."

    The hand that did not bear potential weapon, though it would hardly be of use against one of the greencloaks, dropped to stroke the hackles down on her beast’s back before lowering herself beside the graying muzzle of the brute and securing a hand around his thick collar. She had seen what the man did with a few words that sounded more like a bird song than a language, and was not about to let the poor brute lumber to his demise. Rip quieted slightly as Imoghen leaned into him, but didn’t take his eyes off the other man.

  “I understand… it must be hard for you. To be so far from those like you. To not have anyone familiar to call a friend. And I’m sorry I can’t be… what you want me to be. I am a fishmongers bastard child, no offspring of the men of Westernesse...”

    Agamaran simply shook his head. "There is no point in lying to yourself in this matter, Imoghen. You know you are different, but you do not know how. I am not the one who suffers the hardship of being away from my own people--rather that burden falls to you." He offered her a hand then, yet he remained where he stood in the distance. "I offer you the chance to learn about where you really come from and a chance to meet your kin--a place where you will be accepted and learn what it means to be of the Dunedain." Finally, he took a step forward while remaining to offer his hand to her. "Will you learn who you truly are?"

    At the step forward, Rip’s growl entered the distance stretching between them and his head dropped with the tightening of her fingers around his collar to ensure she wouldn’t be picking up ranger or dog pieces. Or both. The eyes that had landed her in this situation dropped to his hand, quietly regarding the worm palm of the leather in a fashion that was skeptical instead of fearful, before her head lifted with the pooling of black curls out from underneath the handkerchief that had so carefully kept them tied back. The scar tissue that wreathed her neck was a stark white silver against the flesh just beginning to flush with the sun’s heat, as she finally offered up hesitantly, “…Sir, I… just don’t think it’s possible.” But the defiance was slipping and instead her throat worked around swallowing the memories of men like this looking at her longer than most, following her through dark streets and trying to hale her by names that were never her own. She was Imo, just Imo…

    The predatory eyes of Agamaran did not flinch and remained on Imoghen's own. "Why is it not possible?" The hand came back to his side then. "Are you afraid?" He flung the cloak that had enwrapped him so to reveal the leathers underneath and a sword on his belt as well as a dagger. He unbuckled the belt and let it fall to the ground, weapons and all. He unslung the bow from his back and placed it against the tree and did the same for the quiver of arrows. He then presented himself as if he was offering himself freely to her. "Let fear begone from your mind, Imoghen, for the Dunedain are friends to all gentle life on this earth." He offered her his hand once more. "I can show you, if you let me."

    She thought about telling him why it was impossible. For if she was what he said she could be, wouldn’t someone had come for her when the coppers became few and the gruel thin? Wouldn’t someone have taken her from her home, when a dowry could not be mustered and so the offer of a wealthy businessman to take her hand in marriage sounded so appealing? Wouldn’t someone have raised her from those first ten years, cloistered in stifling chambers of a lake house, waiting for a man twice her age to return from drinks and with slurred words and rough hands, tell her how beautiful she was. If she was what he said she could be, none of that would have ever happened…

  Or perhaps, it was because of that she now stood here and did not fear the man before her.

  Her fingers snapped, calling Rip to heel as she turned and nodded towards the large house within the wall’s press, “…I will entertain the notion if you humor me by sharing tea. I will hear what you have to say, and I will promise you that should we reach an understanding, I will let you show me what you believe to be a part of me.”

  Then her hand released the collar and reached out to beckon him with a small smile, “I do not make a habit of running off into the woods with people I’ve only met once. I hope you understand.”

    He buckled the belt to himself once more and slung the bow and quiver over his shoulders. He walked up to her with cautious steps before he then stood in front of her. "I do not ask you to drop everything you know to immediately start a new life, Imoghen--I only ask for the chance to tell you who you are. Aferward, you are free to decide what you may wish to do." He looked at the home and then around the yard before looking back to her. He said nothing and simply looked at her expectantly.

    “Well that’s good… I don’t know how Nasib would manage with the children, but I don’t suppose he would chance to keep a woman so erratic.” Her tone had changed, trying to provide levity to the situation as she bit out a correction to Rip and motioned for the brute to lead them up the path, her feet following in his wake at an unhurried pace. As they passed through the gardens, it was obvious that both master of the home and the woman who had now sheathed pruning knife and was readjusting the wrap that kept her hair pinned back cared for the appearance of it. The door was opened for their entrance by a well-attired, simple servant and she turned to take his cloak in the foyer. “A pot of black tea agreeable enough?”

    He followed obediently, listening to her. His ears piqued as she mentioned the name 'Nasib,' but he said nothing. When they were greeted by a servant at the door who asked for his cloak, he eyed the servant over before reluctantly relinquishing it. "Thank you," he said, answering Imoghen's offer. Still he remained characteristically quiet, yet he seemed to drink in all the details in the house.

    It was the eloquence and distinction that money certainly could buy but only time could furnish. Trunks older than even the ranger himself had been used in the beams, the stone brought up from deep canyons, a rich and exotic varnish bringing out the red in the wood of each furniture piece. For that’s what they were, pieces of art, not so desperate as to require satin or velvet, but carved by a hand that knew how to bring as much beauty to each arm or spiraling corner in death as these trees had boasted in life. Distantly, there was the sound of children playing upstairs, the shouts ringing down the hallway that likely contained stairs at the far end of the main sitting room she guided them into now. Her hands were rinsed off in a pot of water that had been set out for exactly such a task, putting the kettle over the flames with a practiced motion before settling in one of the sprawling armchairs and regarding the man while gauze wound around her finger.

  Tapestries stared down at them, scenes of thin and fluid hounds that would never be seen this far North, rich reds in the threads offset by gold and indigo, colors no native plant of Bree could boast. And over the fire hung single weapon, easy to look over at first as just another piece of art, so beautiful was the care with which the long staff had been forged and stretched, wrapped and coaxed down to the single, long and curved blade at the end. Not a sword, not a spear, something far more wicked and more capable. He had seen them probably. Perhaps he was reconsidering this offer for tea.

  Imoghen was smiling though, more or less, and had set her hands over crossed legs as she nodded for him to take the other seat and spoke softly, “…I did not know my father. But I will humor you. Not because I want to pretend at being above my current station, for I am quite happy with where circumstances landed me. But because I will turn forty next month…” And she cleared her throat, letting that truth settle in the air between them before she sighed and pulled off the handkerchief, black curls spilling out over unblemished cheeks, “And I recognize… This is simply not how a woman looks at this age.”

    He eyed everything carefully as it passed him. While she offered him a seat, he remained standing. He walked around the room as she spoke, stopping at the familiar weapon hanging on the wall, before turning to her as she spoke her last. "For the Dunedain, it is perfectly normal." In the light, Agamaran's face could be clearly seen--it was hardened and rugged, yet not a single hair was found on his chin or above his lip or along his jaw. There was no indication that this was a kept appearance--there was no darkening to suggest that the man shaved. Indeed, it seemed as if he did not grow facial hair at all. Yet he seemed to be almost thirty years, strong and beautiful, yet somewhat weathered by experience.

  "I am seventy-four years of age," he said to her, and it sounded like the truth. Again, he crossed his arms and watched her, waiting for her reaction.

    “Oh…” At first, she received the information with a calm acceptance, before something seemed to sink in and she murmured once more, this time a hand raising to her lips, “Oh…” And her eyes moved from him to the door, to the children playing upstairs that she herself had not birthed, to the  man whose heels would soon click down the hall to receive their company, to the generations she could potentially see and outlive, and for a long moment she was silent. “…How long could I potentially live?” She finally managed without looking back at him, managing to steady her voice through the question.

    He took in a somber sigh as he read the signs on her face as she came to a conclusion. "One-hundred years of age, at the very least. Most live longer than that, living to be perhaps one-hundred-and-ten or one-hundred-and-twenty. Those whose lineage is less diluted may live even longer." His eyes, for the first time since meeting her, seemed to soften, yet he remained standing.

    Her hand fell from her lips to steady herself against the arm of the chair she sat on, fingers pressing into the leather until they found cool wood at the end and brushed over the familiar smoothness as he spoke. She was not quick to ask more, beginning to wonder why the Valar had cursed her, but being far past the point in her life that self-pity was anything dwelt on for more than a momentary twitch of the lips. Clearing her throat from the tears that had begun to salt her tongue, she turned composed features back up to him and met his eyes, “And children…Can we have them?”

    He took a step closer to her as he looked down at her and nodded gently. "Of course...but they would be of the Dunedain as well. The blood is strong and is always dominant. Even a single drop is enough to be counted among the Dunedain and exhibit the qualities of..." He stopped himself short then, as he knew that this was not the importance of the question.

    His approach wasn’t noticed, or if it was it did not distress her. She looked up at him with a smile, one that weighed what would be lost with what she still had yet to gain, leaving her thoughts on the bitter for the time being so as to be polite. “Ah… That’s good. That’s… That’s very good…” And she laughed softly, shaking her head before reaching up to run fingers through her curls and pull a bit at the roots. For a moment, she seemed to waver asking anything more, not entirely sure if she wanted to know what else he had to say. Waking up beside a man that would wither and die while she continued on… Burying her children… These were things she pushed somewhere far away where they could be considered when the morning was young and her head rested over the bare chest of a man she cared for deeply.

  “…These qualities, besides the appearance and the… unfortunate staying power of youth, what else?”

    "Much." He finally moved to take the seat across the table from her as he set his bow and quiver on the wall beside them. "It is a lengthy tale, as they say, but I shall not tell you it in full. The Dunedain are blessed with great vigour, as well as keen eyesight. We are also more in tune with the song of nature and can hear it much like the Elves can and sing back to it, yet not nearly in the harmony of their voices." He folded his gloved hands as he nodded along to the things he explained to her. "Some are even blessed with the power of foresight, although it is very rare amongst our people." He raised his chin then as he paused for a moment before saying his last. "Above all else, to be born of the Dunedain means to be born a servant of the Valar. Thus those who remain Faithful try to aid those who are too weak to help or defend themselves." The watchful eyes of a bird of prey returned as they watched and waited.

    A hand dropped to the scars wreathing her neck, mind passing over the other injuries that should have killed her though her pulse simply failed to quit. She had been close to it a few times, but stayed for the children playing upstairs, for the men she felt needed protection from themselves, and for a tomorrow she trusted could be better. The kettle began to sing, and she stood slowly to move towards the fire. Pulling out two cups and dispensing tea spiced with cinnamon and clove into each silver belled strainer, she poured the steaming water out before setting the drink in front of him. Her own she left neglected on the table, standing in front of the hearth and leaning quietly back against it with arms wrapped around her chest as if she was cold even in front of its blaze, “…And if I haven’t always been on the right side, what then?” And for the first time when she looked up at him, there was a small mote of fear in the corner of her grey eyes.

    Agamaran sniffed carefully at the tea and his nose wrinkled as the smell seemed to recall a distant memory in his mind. Before he could call upon it, Imoghen posed a question to him. He set the cup of tea down then and looked up to her, his head half-turned to the side in question. "The distinction between right and wrong is often a matter of dates, Imoghen, or having been told one thing when the truth is another thing entirely." He folded his hands again as his eyes searched for the truth in hers. "What has led you to believe that you have not been on the "right side?"

    |He was not a man to be lied to. And had he not been honest with her? Fingers pressed into her upper arms as she avoided his eyes, instead looking to the door carefully and moving across the room to close in with a quick step. After the heavy wood had closed with a click of latch settling into place, she reclined back in the chair across from him and released the bottom lip she had been unsure she was worrying. “I’ve lost my temper. Not often, but once quite… severely.” She swallowed down the ashes in her throat, looking away lest he see what her hand had done out of hate and vengeance instead of desperation. Clearing her throat, she continued, “I have bartered secrets with dark men when I should have chosen death instead of allowing them to manipulate my knowledge to their ends. I fell in love with a man who not only rode beside the late Kaenwynn, but was a close enough friend that I have raised the children of those fallen as my own… As well as the son of Dalrion… I will admit, it was not the darkness of these individuals that drew me in, but instead… The innocence that surrounded their destruction, which I thought I could protect.” And she scoffed at that, throwing her hands up in the air before reaching for her tea, “…Which is comical, since I know not how to even hold a sword much less protect someone with it.”

    He listened to her, quietly and carefully. He did not flinch at the mention of her losing her temper. He did raise his head when she mentioned the bartering of secrets, however. But when she mentioned the name Kaenwynn and then Dalrion, his neck seemed to come to attention like that of a bird of prey fixing its eyes on a target. He pushed the tea away from himself gently as he rose to his feet slowly. "I see what you mean now," he said slowly, though his tone was not threatening, nor was his stance. "But you also recognize the errors of what you have witnessed and the wrongs that have been committed." He strode to the wall where the foreign weapon was on and looked at it with his back turned to her. "You have a chance," he said, and then turned to her, "To redeem yourself, for it is never too late to correct the wrongs that we have made in our past. Their is forgiveness down the path of the Dunedain amidst the righteousness, as well as mercy in the hands of justice." He offered her his hands then freely. "Will you take them?"

    As he stood, her head dropped to look at the tea in her hands, as if the steam curling up and flushing her cheeks even further could somehow hold the right thing to say.  She expected the door to open, for him to leave silently, obviously understanding the error in his ways. There was simply no way that she was what he said she was. However, when his voice rumbled out and was received by the tapestries that surrounded them from foreign lands, she looked up through a curtain of black. Tucking the ringlets back behind an ear, she considered the hand and her lips twitched before she took a sip of tea and murmured, “I have already suffered for the wrongs I have committed. And I serve my redemption every day by doing everything in my power to make sure that the cycle of violence stops. It isn’t much, but it is what I have the ability to do…” She shook her head, and met his eyes fully with a raise of her chin, “I once tried to do more, and it was beyond me. I’ve always done what little I can. Even in the darkest of places, you can find something worth saving… Even if the people that spawned them are too far gone.”

    "Yes," he said, answering her in kind. "There is always light to be found even in the darkest of places, but without the proper training of the Dunedain, you may not see it, or worse--you may not know what to do with it." His hands returned to his sides again. "I offer you that chance to know of the secrets of the Dunedain, so that you may be taught and learn what to do in the face of such challenges. I tell you freely that such training may begin with a sword in your hand, but it ends with a book in the other, and the Dunedain learn when there is need of a warrior and when there is a need for words."

    |She opened her mouth to respond after a long pause, interrupted when the door opened just a crack and a mop of dark brown hair poked through as a youth who could not have cleared six years of age peered through. Imoghen cast a warning glance to the ranger, before smiling at the child and beckoning him closer, “Falrion, what is it?” She set down her tea to receive him, even as he moved quietly past the strange man standing in the room, eyes so trained on him that his shin met with the table and arrested him before he realized he had met his destination. Clearing his throat and flushing, his green eyes turned up to Imoghen who had dropped a hand to his shoulder with a quiet, “Is everything okay?”

  His head nodded, and then he pressed up on his toes to whisper something in her ear, the nature of which seemed protracted but humorous. When he leaned back to look pleadingly up at her, she was careful to steel the humor in her eyes and nod with authoritative grace, “…No that is certainly not acceptable. I’ll speak with Anryth about taking down the curtains to build goblin forts in a moment. Let me see our company out first though, we were just finishing.” And she gently kissed his brow and waited for him to leave, which he did in much the same fashion that he had entered, a little stunned by the stranger keeping company alone with his adoptive mother who bristled with weapons and smelled of the wilds. When footsteps signaled he was out of earshot, she turned back to the ranger and met his gaze before standing.

  “Let me consider it. They may not be of my blood, but they are my children, and I am a mother first before I can even entertain other pursuits.”

    Agamaran watched the exchange between the small boy and Imoghen quietly. He remained unfazed as the boy remained in the room, and when he left, he listened to Imoghen's words carfully. He nodded then. "I understand, Imoghen. It is not my intention for you to abandon the ones you love." He considered for a moment as he put a finger to his lips in wonder. "I know of a friend who would show them great kindness who could look after them. He is an Elf, and has often looked after young orphans here in Bree-land. I can introduce you to him, if you wish." He nodded slowly once more as he weighed further options. "Just as well, they can come with you to the refuge where you would be trained, where they would be cared for as if they were kindred." The finger came back down to his side. "Ultimately, I can force you to do nothing. It remains for you to decide what you wish to do."

    Her eyes blinked as she paused in mid motion to show him out, closing the door once again and tilting her head, “The refuge…? I… I don’t think I could leave. I… they have a father.” Composing herself, she pressed her lips together and smoothed her skirts before continuing, “Nasib is their legal father. He has adopted them and would care for them if I needed to be absent for any period of time. I would assume… he would not be allowed to come to the refuge?”

    He raised an eyebrow at her mention of 'legal' as he seemed somewhat confused as to the purpose of the word in Bree-land. "I do not know this 'Nasib.'" He stopped short in the hallway as she led him through then. "Are you married, Imoghen?" he asked suddenly, as he put the mention of her being an adoptive mother and Nasib being an adoptive father.

    She laughed at the question, nodding slowly before clarifying, “Yes, soon. Nasib asked me to marry him, and I accepted. We have been raising this terrible trio together and keeping the same home for almost two years before it seemed appropriate.” Realizing the admission she clarified, “Ah, platonically. As business partners. He worked closely with my last employer, Daemyn Blacke but never chose to become involved in the less savory things Daemyn was… While he held a low opinion of the brigands that spawned them, he loves the children as his own. When Daemyn left… I was trying to raise the twins…And then Dalrion dropped Falrion on my doorstep… We had… We had nothing, not even firewood. Apple trades aren’t lucrative when you aren’t fencing stolen goods, something I was ill prepared for…”

    He raised a hand as she seemed to ramble and shook his head. "Do you mean to tell me this 'Nasib' is the same one you spoke of who rode with Kaenwyn and Dalrion and even Daemyn?" He looked as if he was becoming upset or confused at the predicament. "Imoghen...what is transpiring here? By your own admittance you realize the nature of these criminals you have mentioned. What of Nasib?" The predatory eyes returned as they searched her own. "What has he done?"

    “No!” She exclaimed before catching herself and clarifying, “No, I’m sorry, no. Nasib was never a part of the terrors that those individuals inflicted upon Breeland and even farther East… He was simply a business partner of Daemyn’s, who bought out the… apple trade that I was left with when Daemyn went South…” She cleared her throat, hoping to steel any emotion in her voice as she continued, “Daemyn never came North, but he is the one who fenced whatever was stolen for the Highwaymen… He had good parts, parts that made me think he could change but…” She rolled back her shoulders and offered up a sad smile, “…It is a folly to believe some men can be saved from themselves. I see that now.”

  Imoghen offers up an additional clarification, obviously nervous and tripping over her words trying to convince him, "...The actual apple trade. Not the... fenced goods part."

    Agamaran did not look wholly convinced. "It is a strange name, 'Nasib.' From what land does he hail from?" The hawk-like eyes focused on her, waiting for her words, wanting to study them for the truth.

    “East… We don’t talk about where we come from much. It was some time ago for both of us, and neither of us remembers our homeland fondly.” There was no dishonesty in her voice, her eyes meeting his own even as she pressed back her hair once more and added, “I’m sure he would be happy to meet you, but he’s working right now… I also… I would like to discuss this entire thing with him… All of it. Your discretion would therefore be appreciated.”

    He pursed his lips then as he turned away from her. He weighed his options before turning back to her, and he did not have a pleasing look on his face. "The very nature of our existance relies on secrecy, Imoghen. I would rather you did not speak of this to anyone." A long and quiet sigh escaped through his nostrils then. "However...if you are betrothed to this man...I doubt what ever I say to you can stop you from telling him." He held up a hand with two out-stretched fingers, as if bringing her attention to something. "Consider this, Imoghen. You will never be as accepted for you who are except with the Dunedain. I would ask that you do not reveal everything if you can. I place my trust in you plainly, but I do not know your Nasib, which means I do not know if I can trust him." He nodded slowly then. "Therefore, yes, I would like to meet him, as soon as possible--before you even tell him of the nature of my proposal, even, if that is at all possible on your part." He turned as if to continue on his way to the door then. "That is the small favor I ask of you now."

    Had the fingers not been raised, she may have spoken, but she was obedient to a fault and so instead the response stilled on her tongue and she simply shook her head. When he had finished, she responded calmly, “I would rather not discuss any of this outside the conversation we have just shared. Nasib and I do not have a relationship that depends on a full disclosure and… Romanticism. We are both older and beyond such naivety. We love the children, and we find the other person agreeable. What I have revealed to you now is more than he has ever asked and more than I have ever told. Hence why we are mutually dependent on the other for some measure of…wisdom in what is appropriate to share.”

    Listening carefully, Agamaran simply nodded along at the bluntness of her words. "Very well, Imoghen, but understand this--if wisdom is what you seek, then it is what you shall find tenfold with what I have to offer. There are others as old as I am, and even older, who have lived and seen many l lifetimes and experienced much. It is true that you have seen forty years already, and while you may see this as a boon, for the Dunedain it means that you are starting late in your life of what we learn in our youth. I do not promise that it shall be fast or easy, and there is a considerable danger to truly fulfilling the rights and goals under the correct training." His brows furrowed then. "But also know this--you are already in danger for simply being what you are, and from what you have told me, it is a wonder that the criminals of the past did not kill you for what you were born to. Which is why, again, I stress one thing above all else: secrecy."

    She dipped her head, accepting without question what he was trying to impress upon her, before opening the door and moving them both through it towards the hallway, her voice casual as if continuing a prior conversation, “It’s interesting you mention that, Sir. I’m sure my betrothed has not yet looked into the security of the routes through the Lone Lands but we will heed your warning regarding the recent influx of wargs…” As they neared the door, she waited for him to recollect his cloak and smiled, “You are welcome to stop by anytime… We appreciate your service and would be happy to provide a roof for the night in small effort to repay it.” Veiled in her words was the invitation she knew he would catch. She would make herself available for his lessons if he would appear to teach them.

    Agamaran let himself be led to the front door. As he brought the cloak back over his shoulders and set the clapse to hold the cloak at his neck, he nodded slowly at her words. He said nothing, however, and left, leaving as silently as he came.

[lotrologs]

Nasib and Imoghen

As the heavens finally broke open, Imoghen’s boots pounded up the stairs with rain drops chasing the hem of her cloak. Laughing about the violent shift in spring weather with the doorman, she paused at the threshold and added to let the hounds in if thunder began. It certainly smelled like lightening may be on the distant horizon. Hanging cloak and passing off flour to the kitchens freed the woman to find one of the chairs in the parlor room and sink into the thick luxury of it with a sigh. After a pause to calm her frayed nerves, the smile on her lips that had been politely plastered back in place faded as she recalled the conversation of that morning. Her fingertips unlaced boots, setting them in front of the fire to dry before untangling her braids for a similar purpose, enjoying the sensation of the damp lifting out of her bones in the heat of home and hearth.

  Only when her trembling hand could be trusted again did she stand and make her way silently to the decanter of brandy awaiting master’s interest on rich, rough-hewn side table. It had been years since she had bothered with alcohol, untrusting of her delicate senses and how they may be manipulated by the heady rush of intoxication. But after this morning, she did not feel quite so delicate anymore, and as she sank back down into the large, leather chair in front of the roaring fire, she raised the sifter to her lips, heating the liquor in her palm as she had often seen Daemyn do with a swish. When she could smell the vanilla in it, she took a long and purposeful sip, closing her eyes as the heat poured into her chest and she closed her eyes.

  A palm soft as leather cupped her shoulder. In the corner of her eye a ruby glittered, like a wink from the firelight. His presence fell on her like a mantle, overwhelming the warmth of the air.

  “You had a visitor.” His voice was always darker when it rained, as if the wet season brought a summons. Memories of delta river silt rose with the mud, distant voices in the thunder.

  “I am curious why you him…twice.” He strode around her, keeping his hand where it had laid its claim. His eyes were rich as monsoons. “Do you care to explain?”

  He unhooked a silk kerchief from his pocket. Kissing knee to carpet, he dabbed her cheekbones, watching the white buttons fade as he lifted the pads of his fingers. He did not soothe her with words, and still the black flood swelled in his eyes. Standing, he wrapped the kerchief inside her fingers, its embroidered with rampant lions instead of initials. The chair slid easily across the carpet to park next to hers, and he took his seat, speaking only when he knew he would not have to move again. “Many years younger, but only in looks. Your soul is older than most ever grow to be.”

  His hand retreated to her knee as her fingers floated away. In their parlour only would he risk such a scandal. The spiral rope, thick as a boa, hung silent against the wall, the bells asleep, the servants gone home. Hers were the only limbs he could feel without valuing the fabrics beneath his hand more than what lay underneath. He listened, his features unchanged.

  Nasib leaned back, fingers retreating down her skirts until they reached her knee’s edge and fell off. He cocked his elbow against the armrest and touched the ringed finger to his lips. “I see.” The heirlooms of those people hung around them, silent as broken webs. “So you are kin to this man. I assume he has intentions for you?”

  The merchant turned his gaze into the gloom. He thrived in the heat, but the summer stifled the children, and so his den was flecked with candles where winter fires had blazed. In the shadows lurked the scrolls detailing the lines of Westernesse, worth to him more for their age and ink than what they inscribed. All that belonged to the Dunedain he valued for what it could amount to in trade, for the impressions it gave his visitors. And now his woman, soon to be his wife, belonged to the same collection. “Will you take the children?” His voice whipped black into the clutter of his wares. “Is what I have built you to be torn asunder and passed to the children of these dispossessed?”

  The turn of his noble jawline to consider the shadows and the wealth of what he had forged for the benefit of his children, those that she knew she would give him and those he already had raised, made her stomach churn.  When the darkness entered his tone, prepared calm met the storm in her eyes, seeking his own as she dared not intrude upon his space but instead offered calmly, “What you have built will continue for a hundred years after your passing, moved by my hand and whatever instruction you give me. Our lives are our own, and will not be forced to take the shape of the blood in our veins. Nasib, I…” And then she bit her tongue, careful not to extend sentiment where he had not requested it be weighed for fear that an admission of love at that point would only be considered manipulation. Instead, she concluded softly, “…With your permission, I would like to learn what I can of my people’s history and culture. Should you not allow it though, then I will not seek it. What you have built and allowed me to join you in developing is worth more to me than something I have never been and potentially cannot be.”

  His brow dropped as she named him, plucking sight of her from the corner of his eye. He waited, trusting her to decide right. When she paused and let the sentiment roll back to sleep, he turned to her fully. The golden collar lay heavy across his chest, muscles trained every day for war though they had not fought one in twenty years. “You may invite him to tea.” He pressed his palms into the armrests to lift himself lithely. His robes fell around him unwrinkled as if they had been trained. He softened his voice, resettling the balance he had upended. “I am eager to meet him. Then, we will talk more on the matter.”

  “I understand completely.” And she did, appreciation in her tone, for she had required the man to submit to the same formality before trusting him with her secrets. However, she had no delusions that the two would find the others company agreeable; equally powerful men rarely did, yet that did not stop nations from conversing politely when there was a mutual benefit. Watching him stand, she kept her own station unless invited to join him with a beckoning of hand, despite the way his touch had trailed over her thighs still burned with the turgid beat of her heart under the sway of fine brandy.

  The moment lingered when Nasib stood mantled in shadow, his face a rigid, iron frame. Then slowly his hand floated down to ask for hers. “You are still my betrothed, Imoghen,” he promised, his palm cupped to cushion hers.

  Her touch slid into his own as she stood smoothly, the sudden change in elevation making her head swim and reminding her why she didn’t often imbibe. An arm slid across his broad shoulders as if they were to execute the first step of a dance, the fingertips of one hand interlacing with his own as the other played across the nape of his neck with well-manicured fingernails. Pressing up and onto her toes, she chanced a kiss that was so tentative it bordered upon chaste though the way her back arched with the motion hinted this was only through some significant measure of self-control. With exhale still hovering over his lips, she murmured in a voice that finally broke, “And you are mine.” Only then did her grey eyes flit up through thick lashes to find his own dark gaze and silently beg for him to show she was forgiven.

  His thumb rounded the apple of her cheek, slipping his broad fingers along the ridge of her ear. He drew her forward with magnetic force, and kissed her, lips fit to hers like a clasp. “Come,” he commanded, his accent tired, rolling out its richer sounds. He kissed her lids to steady them and her brow between them for balance, then took her hand and led her up the stairs. Down the corridor, past the children’s rooms that separated her chambers from his, his boots padded on the carpet woven thick to his liking. He paused outside her room. Even now that they had shared each other, it was her space, hers alone. Not even the young ones were allowed past the doorframe. “Good night, my Imoghen,” he promised, drawing her against his pec-armoured chest, crowned in chains. “Good night.”

  Every intimate brush was gentle, as if he feared he would break her, not knowing how far away from breaking she ever would be again. She was no longer just Imoghen, the dockside wench, the murderer, the trophy wife, and the lucky bitch who made her way out of the gutter. She was all of those things, and they made what she had become harder, smarter, and still salvageable even after years of neglect and disuse, like a weapon that had been lost in great battle but still had a history and masterful craft evident in the dulled blade. And she was his, and only his, every part of her more capable and worthy of being his partner in all things.

  Then why did it feel like when he said Goodnight, he couldn’t see any of that?

  Clearing her throat, she tilted her chin up and hid the transitory disappointment before meeting his eyes and nodding with an initial politeness, “Goodnight…” The last breath of it stolen away as he pulled her close and she nestled in the space between chin and chest until she lost herself in his scent and forgot for a moment the complicated duress of feeling without daring to speak of such things.

    He drew her in, rubbing his hand down her spine. He kissed her temples where the hair was thick in curls and lost. “If Breeland  had a king,” he tempted, pressing his breath to her cheek. “Then you would be three times too worthy for him.” He mentioned nothing of her beauty, no reference to courtly romance. He kissed her forehead again as if implanting a jewel on an invisible crown. “Sleep, Imoghen, and we will be together again when we are both ourselves.”

    Every last vertebrae curved under his touch, pressing closer into him as if they could breathe with the same lungs and beat with the same heart in that hallway. She wanted so badly to lose herself in that moment, not from fear but triumph, holding nothing back and letting him pull apart her skin and find a place between her ribs to make a home. In time she would tell him, if he cared to know. She would tell him the other things that someone had finally asked of her. She would tell him what he held, what she could be for him, but only for him.

  But that time was not now. And as he released her, she slipped back with a gentle nod and moved into her quarters. Later the thunder would start, and she would move silent as a cat’s paw down the steps to bring Rip in from the kennels. While her fearsome protector quivered in the sheets, she buried her face in his scruff and told him everything until there was nothing left to tell and her eyes were dry. And then she kissed him where nose met between his golden eyes and smoothed over the mask that framed in his features before murmuring softly, “Oh Rip, I don’t ever think I’m going to be myself again.”

  It wasn’t as if he minded, though.

[lotrologs]

The Jail - Vinicio and Haneth

The tea had been poured down his throat cold, while they held open his gnashing teeth and he choked on the brew around laughter. The manacles had been stretched taunt first, binding him at the wrists to the cell wall, that had been when he started screaming. Not the first time he had leaned against the chains and felt them fail to forgive even that slight trespass, then he had requested politely to be unchained. Or the second or the third, even, the undeterred but progressively more desperate clang-clang-clang ringing through the jail as the chains rattled and his voice began to thin. He was so good at asking politely. Then he stopped asking. By the time they got the tea in him to sedate him, his wrists were bleeding from how deeply shackles bit for his struggles, the red spattering down his hands that flexed spastically in desperate, clawing panic.

  Nobody dared ask him why he had done it.

  Slouched forward with the sedative numbing his nerves, the heart still pounding but the muscles refusing to clench and struggle, he suffocated, he drifted, and everything blurred as he dragged down breath in ragged, rattling gasps as the healers tried to put his body back together.

    “Vini…” The voice wafted in like wind through a curtain. Haneth’s hand rested on the iron pattern of crosses, watching him with the well-lit jail behind her. “Vini,” she whispered again, trying to soothe him.

    The moment stretched long between when the name fell off her tongue and when he finally looked up. Pupils were so receded in the gold that it was hard to imagine how light got through them, the focus flitting nervously from her, to the wall that separated them, to the distant healers bustling over bandages recently changed. The corners of his eyes were bloodshot, one burst open at the edge where a bruise had bloomed across his face, a deep purple escaping lid and sipping at the honey in his irises. It was, as they would shake their heads and click their tongues while saying, ‘Self-inflicted.’

  He didn’t dare speak, couldn’t find words, the usually artful tongue failing to find eloquence as lips twitched and from somewhere else in the jail, another sobbing wail was heard. The healers sighed, one set down her linens with a glare at him and a ‘this is all your fault’ expression before moving to tend to the Black Dog’s Wife recently roused from underneath the sleeping tonic she had been administered. The sound of her cries hit him like a blow, and he sank back against the tension in the chains and closed his eyes, trying to remember how to breathe as the rhythm of inhale-exhale sharpened around a quickening panic.

    Haneth breathed soft shushes into the cell. She strode along the cage frame to block the view of the sickbay behind her, unhooking her hands and re-weaving them into the bars when she stopped.

  She was older, two years so, with a dozen new scars. Her eyes were wide as always but braced with redness around their rims. Her freckles sat higher on leaner cheeks.

  “Vini,” she urged again. Other women doled their gentle hearts out to their hair, their skin, their delicate dresses. Haneth kept her shell hard, the tenderness within.

  “Talk to me,” she urged. Her calloused fingers wound round the bars as she set her temples into the gap between them. “Come back.”

    The chains were rattling again, as he tested the distance he could find in them. When they tightened, he hissed in pain, the sound pooling into a growl that tore loose from his throat before he tried again. The sedative could only do so much, muttered the healers at their distant table folding linens. Give him another dose and he might die. It wouldn’t be the most terrible thing for an adulterous rapist. With muscles still struggling to respond to the adrenaline beginning to fire, he looked up at her through slit eyes and snarled, “I told her… I told her… And a kiss, a kiss is what she hates me for? What a stupid…insufferable…cunt.” He collected his breath in a wracking sob, the small space between lids filling with tears, “…I waited for her. I waited, and waited, and waited. I wanted her to touch me. I wanted her to lean into me instead of flinch. I wanted her to want me. Is it…” And he chuckled, a manic edge to the laughter, “…Is it so much to ask? I could have taken her. I could have ruined her. I waited… I waited…” And his lips were moving but his eyes were growing distant again.

    “You had told her,” she imparted with a gentle word. Her hands were soft on the iron like around ribbon instead of bars. “You had not shown her…”

  Ten feet or more separated her from his crucifixion in chains. She had begged the keys from the Watch, but ‘A visit is all you get,’ was the answer.

  “If you wanted to wear the mask,” she pleaded, watching him with betrayal like he had ruined all of it. “Why did you rip it off?” The secret of his soul she had kept to herself, pieced together from hearsay and conviction. Now he had thrown all the dice on the table, and she was left to defend him.

    “I didn’t…” He spat out, the blood spattered spittle falling from his lips to spray across the filthy stones between them as his boots scraped on wet straw and he tried to keep his feet though his head swam, and this time he whimpered, “I didn’t… They did… She did.” And a sob shook his shoulders as he bit out, “Blackthornes don’t wear ink.” The second hitching sound pouring back into laughter as he shuddered and repeated, “Don’t tell me you actually seek love.” And the sentiments were rehearsed, like they had been over and over again in his head, since they first moved the lips of the women he was addicted to. “Oh… Vincent, what have you done…”

    “Sir!” The round Rohirric voice begged the jargon of the Breelanders in red. “Sir, please, the key. He is injured.” The Watchers turned their heads to shake them, then resumed their banter. Haneth clutched the bars, her face twisting into desperation the more his words proved disease. “He’s delirious,” she begged again, but the Redlcoaks were devoted to laughing.

  Her fingers slackened as hope dripped away quicker than tears down her cheeks. Then they gripped hard, and she shouted, “Bail! I will pay bail for this man.” As the Watchers readjusted their cocked heads she turned to Vini and whispered. “You will not be in here for long. Just wait. Stay with me.”

    It would take a while, they apologized, he was being held for charges unrelated to the cat fight last night. The Justice himself had put him in that cell, though arguably, the manacles were added later. They would have to get him. They weren’t in a particular hurry. In fact, the Watchers seemed skeptical there was a bail to post for such a man. Something watched Haneth from darker parts of him than could escape in words when he reopened his eyes. With focus trained upon her, it paced, and paced, and paced, though the host it was captive in could not move from his confines, there was a hunger in the tightness of his jaw and the way his muscles shuddered from the effects of the sedative combating instincts. And then as fast as it was there, it was gone again, buried underneath tears and the parts of him scraped away bit by bit and so bruised they could never be polished.

  “What have you done… What have you done…” He whispered then, smiling around the question as the tears failed to fully dry but instead curved through the dirt on his cheeks, and he shook his head, laughing as eyes turned up and he met her own with quiet, “…Wouldn’t you like to know? Wouldn’t you all like to know?”

    Haneth stood patient at the jail bar crossroads, watching him, as both a slave would a violent master and a hunter would a sharp-clawed beast. She waited for the Watchers to find their captain and leave the vicinity to only hers and his words.

  She leaned into the bars, the one hand holding iron like a holy relic. Her scars had bred since they had been companions in the wilds together. The eyes that watched him had witnessed knives carving emblems into her hairline, and they had been sharp and rustier than his.

  “I know,” she whispered so none could hear. “I know.”

    The very notion of her knowing any of the things he kept carefully buried in the shallow sorts of graves that allowed wargs to paw through the corpses and gnaw down the bones provoked another laugh. His head shook, the motion more of a rolling lack of ability to do anything more, looking up at her as he bit out, “You don’t know shit.” And his eyes closed once more, breathing ragged as he seemed to hover between panic and another burst of manic laughter, finally settling on a murmured, “…Wouldn’t you like to know what I’m going to do next?”

    “Will you kill someone?” Her hand slipped further through the bars. She worried her temples against the iron until there was no room left to give. Her voice like dust blowing from a corner, “Will you…cook them?”

    Silence. It wasn’t pronounced until it suddenly existed. No rattling of chain, no sobbing exhale, no laughter slipping out through clenched teeth. Silent and still as death, he stared at her, as if her words, her question, necessitated full digestion before they could be weighed. Stretching, tighter and tighter, was he even breathing? The way his nose flared, just at the edges, as his breathing slowed with everything else, time seeming to weep down the walls like sap or drying blood. And then, his teeth flashed in a wicked grin and he almost whispered, “She told you?”

    Her freckles like flecks of algae on a stagnant pond. Her face hovered between the bars, only the pools of her eyes were clear. A shiver lifted brail along her neck despite the fox-tail stole. “She said…nothing,” she gasped, her voice chapped. “Only you know…that I know.”

    “Bullshit…” He snarled, his teeth snapping with the last syallable, continued to bear as he looked at her and the bars that separated them, “…She told you. That lying…sniveling…” And finally, there was something besides panic in his voice, something that steadied it and cried out like steel against stone. Rage.

  “I came back. I came back because I knew she missed home. I came back to make her happy. I came back…And this is the thanks she returns me with? After everything? After… Oh… Cyndyn, Dyn…My Dynnie… What have you done…”

    The huntress’ fists clenched around the bars. She held his gaze like a dare. Cold, she neared too close to the flame. “You should be careful,” she muttered calm as a prayer, “what you speak in the jail’s sick beds. There are always those listening…”

    The breath he released eased out through his teeth, bared as they were in the faint light as the back of his throat hissed around a lowly curse. He looked at her without any emotion, the only thing moving that marked him as still breathing the small twitch in one eyelid. Finally, his lips quirked up in a smile and he murmured, “Snoop around for long enough, I guess you will find what you’re looking for.” And then he clicked his tongue against teeth in a condescending fashion before tilting his head to one side and initiating a bargain with her, though it was struck on the part of whatever watched the transaction from behind gold irises, “…What do you want, Haneth?”

    “I want you to leave.” Her gazed targeted his eyes’ black centers and stuck like a barbed arrow. “Cyndyn does not want you anymore. Go back to Harad.” Her voice was another beast than her eyes, soft, pleading not for her sake, but his. “I will keep her safe. You can trust me on that.”

    “Cyndyn is mine…” It wasn’t a statement of fact so much as a conviction, an indissolvable absolute more eternal than the cliffs that sea pounded against. “It is part of her to be mine, and if you pull that part out, she will never be whole again. She may be safe, but she will be dead. If I go, she comes with me. And you will never see either of us again.”

    The fingers on the bars tightened, pulling sinews in her arms taut. “Cyndyn belongs to no one. She is her own.” Her heart filled, thick with layers of her own experience. Her voice almost broke. “Women can learn to live without their men.”

    “Are we still talking about my wife, Haneth?” And his teeth were in the little break her voice had admitted, his tone gentle and his eyes softening as the darker parts of him quieted and let artful tongue do their work, “…We are never our own person, no matter how fiercely we strive for autonomy. We are always a sum of those we’ve already buried and the ones that will never be. Why would you force yet another person to leave her? She knows so little of forgiveness and trust. Would you have the world teach her yet another cruel lesson about what happens when you give your heart to another person?”

    The widow backed off the bars, her gloves still hooked. Her tethered gaze stretched thin as she tried to unwind it from his golden coils. “We are talking about all wives.” She spoke carefully like picking through thorns. “You have made Cyndyn trust no one but you, and now this…She was my sister before she was your wife, and you were my friend before you knew her. Does love mean you two cling to each other and leave the rest of the world to burn?”

    “She comes before all else. Duty. Honor. Wealth. Clinging would suggest an active necessity to be with her, but it is passive, instinctual, as basic as our hearts continuing to beat. Love is a great many things, but it is not leaving my wife into the care of a woman who would receive back her ‘sister’ by believing an accomplice to her torture and near abduction.” Chuckling, he let his weight sink back into his chains and look quietly to the window, releasing her from gaze as he mused, “Perhaps if your husband had understood such subtleties, you would not be raising a daughter alone.”

    “My husband…” She bowed her head, taking a moment to wash the pollution from her dear departed’s memory. “My Desten understood. If he had not, I would have been burnt in that mead hall with him till nothing was left but melted rings in the ash.”

  This was it. The chance to walk away, to leave his poor soul to the ruling of her captain and wash her hands of saving. Agamaran would want her to shut her heart, turn around, and leave the Rangers to bind him and drag him cursing from their borders. Cyndyn would be better off if they told her he was dead.

  It was not, however, about Cyndyn. Never had been. In Haneth’s eyes was the offspring of pity she had first born for the scorched-out shell of a house beyond the trestlespan. She saw her scars mirrored by his. He had lost as much as she had.

  But he had also taken so much more.

  The distance she had tried to slip between them cracked and collapsed. She moved forward, looping her arm around the bars as she would around his ribs. “You do not frighten me, Vini,” she uttered, her voice strong against the thwacks of training swords. “Cyndyn cannot see who you are, but I can. You will not touch Arra again.”

    “I do not seek to frighten you…” His voice was as soft as an exhale on her neck, his eyes soft when they returned to her, humanity mustered to play each heartstring like a minstrel, “…But let us both be honest. I don’t need to touch Arra to ruin her. She’s dull, stupid, and impulsive. All I have to do is set the stage and let her act out the tragedy that is her own existence. I tried to give her opportunity to write herself out of the script, but she… declined.” He chuckled, shook his head and bit out, “Though if you think I care enough about that skid mark on the cobbles to actually invest effort in her destruction, then you haven’t been paying attention. There are worse monsters than me out there, for the time being. A pity too. You can’t even see them yet.”

    “Valthier.” She guessed his mark, her voice soft, not lulled, bedding down like Daniel in the lion’s den. “Cisse. And whoever…” Her gaze ran over his scars, great cataracts of ruined flesh where her own were thin, teeming streams, but deep. “My enemies are yours, Vini. Leave Arra alone, and I will help rid you of them.”

    “Valthier is a child who scares little girls with idle threats. Cisse thinks a twist of delicate wrist and artful knife play will save her. They are petty criminals, Haneth. I will let them be your concern.” He let her eyes peel apart his scars, trying to wedge itself in the monstrous exterior, seeking a glimmer of what Cyndyn loved in him or perhaps what she had seen when he hunted beside her after the lost comrade. There would be no purchase on such garnets of humanity though, the thing considering her now belonged in chains or hung from a tree with rope creaking in the wind.

    “Then who?” She whispered, slipping as close as she could to his waiting fangs. Disbelief bright in her voice. “What monster out there is worse than you?”

    “Oh my dear, if you aren’t afraid of me, it’s only because you know what real monsters are.” He licked his teeth and smiled, with saliva glinting over chapped lips, “…You still think you can keep her safe? You still want to run little Cyndyn’s guard dog off? It won’t stop them. They will peel the skin off her body while she still screams and then force it down my throat when they finally catch me. Sometimes… you get sick of running. Sometimes it’s time to put your back to a wall and fight.”

    Haneth was silent as the click of boots like a metronome passed behind her. She listened over her shoulder for the ebb of the redcloak’s march, then leaned in to whisper. “They are not the only ones after you. You do not need to make us your enemy.” She would not surrender his gaze. “How can I protect both you and her when you fight us all?”

    He met her eyes, and held them until they distracted to the passing march of the Watch. When she turned back, he was waiting, his smile having faded to the removed apathy they began the conversation with, “…You are sweet, Haneth. But blind. Or purposefully ignorant. I am not such a fool to believe I have no enemies in your company. They are not who my fight is with, but I know what they did to Cyndyn’s father… What they would have done to my Uncle if the opportunity presented itself. I know what your kind does with men like me. And it is no Justice.”

    "Justice? Is that what you name as your defense?" She stared at him as if he were ill. "You tried to rape Arra. The Justice does not believe it but I believe it. Who are you to think you can say what justice is?"

    “Oh don’t pretend she did not know why I took her upstairs…” There was disdain in his voice, his eyes slits as every last word was vivisected to be spat still screaming at her feet, “I bought her drink after drink. I fed her. I /invited/ her to my room. I locked the door behind us. When she tried to rob me, I tried to rob her of something else. Do not pretend that every other man who she put a knife to and made empty his pockets did not feel violated. Don’t demonize an individual wanting a moment of intimacy who then finds himself robbed at knifepoint and is just irritated enough to do something about it. She is not blameless in this. She was groomed, taught and enabled to violently steal from other people. She didn’t get my coin. I didn’t get her cunt. From where I stand, we’re even.”

    Haneth’s lips slipped open as she stared in disbelief. “A moment of intimacy?” His words crawled across her skin, but she tamed the shivers. Memories churned in her gut. How many times she had been cut open by men who wanted something more. She knew the darkness in them, but they had never lasted long enough to discuss it.

    “Don’t be so prude. Arra is hardly the type of woman to save herself ‘til a night in shining armor appears. She doesn’t deserve one. She never will. Some women will never be worth anything, but what a man is willing to do to them.” And his smile was peeling off her skin, trying to see where the little raised shivers came from in her nerve endings so that he could trace them with an artful tongue, “But that’s not what we were discussing. As I’ve already surmised, from where I stand, Arra and I are even. She seems to feel differently, but that it more an inconvenience than a vendetta I need to seal.”

    Haneth’s hands fell against her hilts. Her freckled cheeks turned green, but there was pity in her eyes. “Arra is worth more to this world than you ever could be.” The huntress looped her thumb around her buckle, gold and garnet inlay, and raised her scarred jaw. “We have an understanding, at least. Touch Arra again, and I will kill you.”

    The insult slid off his tattered hide with the same ease of a King who was told by mere peasant that all his wealth could not compare to the joys of tilling land. An eyebrow raised and he paused before continuing, the sound of his wife’s wailing easing down from the medical bay once more. The effect was near instantaneous, his nostrils flaring as if he had caught the scent of something wounded, though the way his jaw tightened and he looked near gagging, the effect was hardly as predatory. When he managed to return focus to Haneth, his eyes were the impossible gold of a deep Breeland brown long since faded from normalcy, “…You remind me of one of my cousins, Haneth. It is not often that threat is made, and I believe the individual who levies it. A pity… I did not see the similarity sooner. But then again, we’ve both changed.”

    “Yes,” she muttered, letting her chin fall now the promise had been made. There was no derision, no insult, no hatred in the matter. It was a truth she spoke, and nothing more. “Though how much, I sometimes wonder.” She turned, opening her shoulder to the rusty light of the main room, and watched the infirmary where Cyndyn sobbed. “I know you will protect her for as long as…feeling in you lasts. I will not try and keep you apart, but there is nothing I can do to prevent those who would.”

    Another tug on the chains, and a lowly growl in Haradic as he found them as unpliable as before met her observations. The bandages that had been wrapped about his wrists were soaking through from his struggles renewed, the sobbing continuing to make his muscles groan and his panic redouble now that the conversation was fleeting. “…I understand. Take care, Haneth. I fear we will not be having such a polite discussion the next time we meet.”

    “Until then.” She touched the bars a last time, too far away to reach his cheek and mutter a prayer of mourning. “Good bye, Vini.” She fell away from the cell, her gaze straight forward as a ship’s prow, even when she stopped a few feet from the prison row to mutter to the watcher. “I revoke my offer to pay the Breelander’s bail.” A small purse of coin was slid out from her belt and cushioned her shake of his hand. “When he is released, please, send word to Rambroke.”

  The Watcher nodded, his gaze sparse as his silence, and shifted the coin purse into the hem of his sleeve. Haneth turned back to look at Vini, splayed out like a hide left to tan in the sun, closed her eyes, and turned away.

[lastoftheline]

Vinicio |The man palmed over the wares politely, careful not to bruise them as he discussed with the worn Breeland man of earth and soil the weather as of late. The hood had been pulled up to ward away the damp of coming evening, but even as the rain licked steam off his healing flesh, his breath...

[cyndyncorso-blog]

### Chat Log: RP 05/02 09:46 PM ###

Cyndyn sat under the sunshine. Her leg stretched out before her, the stitches beginning the itchy process of needing removal. Still she concentrated on the sewing she had settled on her lap. The same tunic she’d been adding little bits and embellishments all...

[berdaswintha]

[lotrologs]

Thorvall, Garthain and Celebaeron - the Oathsworn meadhall

### Chat Log: RP 04/28 05:55 PM ###

Thorvall | Stalking into his hall like a wolf returning to his den with a strange scent in its nose, the man rounded the corner, right hand ready to draw the blade at his side. The wolf however, did not remain, replaced mid-stride by a grinning idiot. “Well then…” He spoke. “The only Elf I would be glad to see at my hearth without my knowing of it first…” He stepped forward rapidly toward the dais. “Lord Celebaeron, I’ve missed you.”

Celebaeron crouched on the balls of his feet near the fire pit watching the flames as the writhed into the air. "You missed me?" he said looking up with a hint of a grin. "You the great lord Thorvall actually missed an elf? This must be a first I think." nodding his head a little, watching the man approach. "Next you will be missing dwarves and all manner of other people."

Garthain steps through the threshold, his heavy boots thudding on the floor of the entrance way to be mixed with the musical jingling of his ring-maille leggings and the swish of fabric over scale. He does not unbind his weapons as is usual, rather he enters the hall more fully armed than seems practical to some.

Thorvall shook his head, stepping to embrace the ancient Elf he had grown to know so well. "If anyone asks, I tell them you're a tall noble woman of Gondor come to seek a husband, but between us..." He paused, stepping away once more. "Yes, I have."

Garthain halts at the door, dust, dirt and varied sorts of grime caked over his usually clean gear. His face is smudged with filth, the leather of his gloves seems far more worn than when last he was seen and the head of his spear is positively filthy. His gloves he removes and thrusts into his belt before making an unapologetic course straight to the stacked kegs of various brews.

Celebaeron shook his head slowly back and forth but could not help laughing a little. A Gondorian woman? Have you ever actually met a woman of Gondor? I think it would be hard to mistake an elf for one of them. But it is good to see you again as well." bowing his head a little. "How have things..." but he trailed off, lifting his gaze to watch the newcomer for a moment in silence.

Garthain fills his drinking horn before turning his head toward the sounds of voices. His eyes instantly turn hard as he turns his body square to the pair. His expression can be described as nothing short of flabbergasted at the one that he sees standing near Thorvall. His lips purse in thought for a moment and only a quiet but deep breath issues from him; he says nothing, whether it is from fatigue, disdain, plain old vanilla confusion or some other factor.

Thorvall |The grin did not fade as he turned toward the hall's other inhabitant. "Garthain!" He roared his greeting. "This is Lord Celebaeron of Lindon, one of my oldest friends." He gestured to the man already drinking deeply of the strong ale they had begun brewing in Rambroke. "This is Garthain, son of Gardred, warrior to my father."

Celebaeron stood slowly to his feet. "Mae govannen." bowing his head a little once more. "It is always nice to meet another of the people of Rohan. A good hearty people in my experience."

Garthain offers a slight nod to Celebaeron, as if he knows better than to voice his opinion on his frame of mind regarding one that Thorvall considers his own in the presence of Thorvall himself. "Westu Hal." he says in his own tongue through a clenched jaw.

Thorvall narrowed his eyes a fraction, tasting the disapproval in the air at the man's tone and bearing. Not making anything immediate of it, he turned toward the table, filling three horn cups with golden mead. "Celebaeron here has been with us from before we even held Rambroke, or even Arcchet." He beckoned both over. "Together we've fought across Eriador and beyond.

Celebaeron shrugged. "That depends upon what you mean by fighting." offering Thorvall a mischievous grin. "If you mean saving your life more times than I can count that yes, you are right. You do not quite trust me do you Garthain?" he went on turning toward the man as he folded his arms across his chest. "Afraid I am going to spring across the room on you? Thorvall was much the same way when we first met."

Garthain clenches his jaw a bit tighter, causing his mandibular muscles to buldge just below his earlobes. "Would not dare put it past you..." he grumbles softly as he makes his way over to the table laden with foodstuffs and smoothing a bit of paper over it. With a small bit of charcoal he makes several notations before rolling the paper back up and thrusting it into his travel-pack.

Thorvall frowned, setting the jug down as the cups were filled. "Come, drink, both of you for this is sure enough reason for it." He turned to face them both. "I swear to you Garthain, I know how you feel but you've nothing to worry about, or loathe." He winked. "In his time with us we've made him more or less normal."

Garthain looks out of the window and then over his shoulder at the pair. "If he is welcomed by my Lord, then he and I have no strife between us." he says dutifully, if not a bit grudgingly. "May interest you that Bree is on the edge of revolt, by the way." he adds, taking a drink from his horn and turning to face the two.

Celebaeron made a mock frown "Normal?" he pondered aloud but to himself. "Again that depends upon what you think "normal" is." he said with a shrug pacing towards the table. "Bree on the edge of revolt?" lifting his brow. "What has Arion done now?" he added with a sigh.

Thorvall shook his head sadly, moving to hand a cup to Garthain. "I've hear rumours, but there are always rumours." He drank deeply of his own cup, even as he held out Garthain's. "Usually it is loud mouthed folk, throwing stones and making it seem something bigger than it is."

Garthain offers a subtle shrug and takes a drink. "Overheard an interesting conversation is all. Apparently on one side is a spiteful and misguided brigand under guise of merchant and a private army he's been amassing, and on the other a group of others including certain members of the watch. Those opposed to the wretch are attempting to incite the beggars to take to arms." he says.

Thorvall curled his lip in contempt. "The war is cutting off Eriador enough as it is, Bree needs to realise it makes its money through its status as a city of trade."

Celebaeron shook his head, pinching a few crumbs of cheese between his fingers. "Perhaps it already does realise it. Why else does it seem that brigands swarm here as they do like nowhere else?"

Garthain nods in response to Thorvall's statement. "As it is, it is only the sentiments of one man, but as we well know from the corruption of our own homeland; the words of one easily influence the ears that they reach and can spark plain-grass that is over dry and waiting for some small push into inferno." he says, looking past the Rohir's shoulder to the Elf. "Bree seems to be to be a land long in peace and as such has forgotten how to defend itself, trusting more in a corps of citizen soldiers than those that know what their swords are capable of." he explains.

Thorvall furrowed his brow. Thinking on this he sighed, setting the cup back down upon the trestle. "Something to keep an eye on then, but Bree has dealt with worse recently, trust me."

Celebaeron tumbled the crumbs of cheese into his mouth as he turned. "I have known Bree for a long time." he said offering Garthain a quick shrug. "And yet.." but he paused at Thorvall's words. "And what has happened recently? If you do not mind me ask."

Garthain chews on his bottom lip a second and says to the Elf, "I think that the most threatening thing about this man is that he is doing it from within, he has not had need to expend strength worming his path into the hearts of Men here since he established himself before beginning to spout his rhetoric. And allow me to remind you that the days of the Bree that you have known, the -

Garthain - days when Bree was under a crown and sceptre, blade and shield, are long vanished into antiquity."

Thorvall smiled thinly. "I was here for the last few years, save six moons in Rohan, and in all that time it's welcomed the aid of foreigners.

Celebaeron nodded, dusting his hand down his robe. "Bree has always been open. That is not a bad thing though. If you make your coin through trade then you should be open. But there is being open and there is being... open. Are we talking people like Holliwen and Malrex again?"

Thorvall shook his head. "I doubt of their ilk, but those who prefer the shadows, and whispers over fire and blood."

Garthain grunts quietly before drinking once more. "Give me a potential for blood and enough space to urge Fleetfoot to a gallop and I'll give my love to those that adore shadow at the point of my spear," he says.

Celebaeron shook his head, but could not resist a grin. "It is so easy to tell you Rohirrim apart from the other mortals. Always a lust for battle, and glory. Bree has seen enough bloodshed over the years. Perhaps now it is time to think of peace rather?"

Garthain glares coldly at Celeb and says flatly, "When there is peace in the dales and fens of The Riddermark, I shall care of the peace of other lands. Until that day, however, to war I shall ride and none shall stop me regardless of their count of years."

Celebaeron gave the man a long look and a sad smile. "There is more to Middle Earth the Rohan, much as I love that place with its fields and fens. Killing brigands is like..." he shrugged, waving a hand through the air. "Like killing flies. Kill one and five more pop up."

Garthain clenches his jaw yet again and responds, "Then five score the original count shall I leave upon the ground until I can return to The Mark and kill those that matter more: those that mean to harm my own people."

Celebaeron rocked his head slowly from side to side, pondering in silence for a few long moments. "I hope you return to Rohan. And find it well. And I hope the same for Gondor, Dale and all other lands. Yes including Bree. I have known this place for a very long time. And anything I can do to help Bree I will. Both there is the rest of the north to consider too."

Garthain shrugs yet again. "The North is not my concern, and since the days of Cirion and Eorl the Young has The Mark been free of the Northern Crown." he says.

Celebaeron ran a hand over his chin a time or two. "So it is. For more than five hundred years." nodding his head absently. "That's not the point though." he paused shrugging a little. "Each place has an effect on the other, even if you cannot see it."

Garthain takes a final draining drink from the vessel and attaches it to his belt next to his gloves. "The puzzle is the concern of 'greater' men, only the piece held in my hand is my concern. If war comes to Gondor, I ride to Gondor. If war rages in my home, I draw blade there. I hold no love for this land and am here only at the order of my Lord else I would have returned home ere +

Garthain - the sun rose after my arrival." he says.

Celebaeron shrugged. "At least you are here at the moment. And willing enough to kill a few brigands if it comes to that." he said turning back to the table to scoop up some more cheese.

Garthain nods. "Quite." he says, looking over his shoulder toward the door. "If you'll excuse me, I have a beast more restless and proud than a Rohirrim Maegisterwigend in the front." he says in reference to his steed.

[lotrologs]

Celebaeron, Cyndyn

### Chat Log: RP 04/29 06:57 PM ###

Cyndyn sat up in her bed, a sigh escaping her bruised features as she stitched a decorative hem along the edge of a tunic. Tiny leaves ringed the edge of the sleeve. A tricky feat, since the tunic had already been pieced together, but one she did none the less. Vinicio lay asleep on the bed beside her own, dozing in the deep slumber induced by herbs. Dyn's person was covered in scrapes, bruises and below the covers lurked stitches about her thigh.

Celebaeron paced silently in through the open door, watching the carpet for a moment as its edges ruffled a little in the breeze before he pushed the stout slab of wood shut with the back of his heel. He moved through the room wrapped in a weather stained and travel worn cloak with its hood pulled up, his pale eyes scanning the room as if searching for something as he moved.

Cyndyn hummed under her breath as she continued her needlework. Her gaze swinging toward the slumbering form of her husband with a faint smile upon her lips.

Celebaeron rounded the corner, his hand running over his chin as if lost in his own thoughts until his gaze swept over Cyndyn. His head tilted slightly sideways of itself and the hint of a grin spread across his lips. "Cyndyn..." he said quietly, reaching up to tug the hood of his cloak back. "I had not expected to find you here. Is all well?"

Cyndyn paused at the sound of footsteps, her brows shooting upwards at the voice as the hooded figure address her. As the hood fell to reveal the familiar elf beneath. Her eyes went wide, her lips parting in surprise. "Oh my, by Bema! I hadn't though to see you again! I thought you gone since you'd not been about the meadhall since I returned! I-" She broke off, dropping her gaze as she heaved a sigh and bit her lower lip. "I've been doing better.. worse too actually.." There was a significant change to the lilt of her voice, a twist born from the Southern reaches of the world where she had been for the past few years.

Celebaeron lent against the wood of the door frame quietly laughing as he watched the woman for a few long moments. "Odd things seem to happen at odd times I suppose. I came in hoping to learn something of events in Bree, Thorvall and one of his men spoke of an increase in unrest in Bree when we spoke not long ago. But instead I find you." he offered the woman a broad smile, but shook his head waving a hand around the room. "Yet how come you here? You've been both better and worse. Has something happened?" his pale gaze quietly studing her as he spoke.

Cyndyn dropped her gaze, heaving a sigh. "I've been fighting with Arra, do you know her? Haneth apparently.. made her .. her apprentice." She mumbled softly, picking at the thread looped through the needle. "I've been healing up here. I.. I'm married now. My husband, Vinicio, he's.. he was attacked about a week or so ago. He.. they flayed him, and he was all cut to pieces.. The healers were convinced he'd die if his fever didn't break.. it only did so the other day.."

Celebaeron frowned, his features growing more grim as he moved slowly farther into the room. "No I have not meet this Arra. Nor have I spoken with Haneth since my return. I am sorry to hear of your husband though." he said, bowing his head a little as he stood over the end of the bed. "If there is anything I can do... But tell my why were you fighting? And why did they-

Celebaeron treat your husband so?" lighting a brow as he gazed down at her. "But more importantly why are you still here? Surely Thorvall or someone has come, ad if so why are you not back in the hall? A far better place to heal then this.." he shook his head, waving a hand around the room again.

Cyndyn chewed her lower lip, her gaze downcasted. "I don't want to be there without my husband. I was here since they brought him in. I was so afraid he'd die.. I-I.. I couldn't leave him. And I was fighting with Arra because.." She sighed, dragging a hand through her over grown bangs. "She hates Vini. She claims he tried to assault her, but she leaves out that she was trying to rob him.. She's friends with brigands. One of whom tried to carve up my face to send a message to my husband because of her slander. Haneth doesn't seem to /care/ either." She muttered, pouting before she shrugged and glanced up to him. "If there's anything you can do you help him... they sewed the skin of a piglet on him last week.. He was missing so much skin on his back.."Her voice broke off and she made a choked sound. "I don't know if it helps or not."

Celebaeron nodded gravely as he turned to pace slowly back and forth across the floor at the foot of the bed. "I see. I see. Sadly even the healing skills of the elves have limits." he said with something of a sigh. "If his fever has already gone down though.." he shrugged. "We shall see what we shall see. What has happened to this Arra? Is she being held here by chance?"

Cyndyn shook her head, "No, last I heard Miss Laerlin is watching over her. I.. I don't think Haneth will let it come to her being punished either.. Haneth favors her so much." She heaved a sigh, "It's all because I was gone..."

Celebaeron shook his head. "No. You cannot blame yourself." he said, his features softening some. "Many things happen that are outside of our control. I will speak with Haneth as soon as I can find her. If she has made this Arra her apprentice I am sure she does value her. Was it Arra and her friends that hurt your husband?"

Cyndyn bit her lower lip, "Vinicio told the Lord Justice that it was Miss Edith, who is one of Arra's friends.. At least, that he thought it was her.." She mumbled, "I-I.. I just.. If I hadn't left maybe Haneth wouldn't have made Arra her apprentice.."

Celebaeron tilted his head sideways a little with a shrug. "Who can say what would have happened? Blaming yourself will do no good, no good at all." waving a hand and so dismissing the idea. "The important thing is what comes next. And tht you are back on your feet soon. My horse is just outside of the south gate. He can carry you back to the hall were you could finish healing in more comfort. Unless you wish to remain here?" tapping his foot against the floor.

Cyndyn shook her head, "I.. thank you, but I would prefer to stay. Vini hasn't healed entirely, and my being here brings him comfort. He still has terrible nightmares.. and while he's doing better, he's not entirely out of danger yet.. I.. If I may ask you, could you bring something for his injuries? Something more for the pain or anythin at all?"

Celebaeron stood quietly gazing at the wall behind the bed as if lost once more in his own thoughts. "I can send something for the pain yes." nodding his head a little. "I have no wish to... interfere with matters within Bree though. Not yet." he added, lifting a finger. "But something for the pain of course. And some liniment or a salve for his wounds. I will also speak with Haneth about Arra as I promised."

Cyndyn smiled releasing a sigh as she nodded. "Thank you, thank you so much." She bit her lower lip, pushing her hair behind an ear. "It means a lot to me to hear that. I was looking for something.. anything to help Vini and.. well, I dearly wished to see you. It seems there are small blessings in this world yet."

Celebaeron simply shrugged. "It is not much. But it is a beginning at least." offering a quick hint of a smile. "I will send a messenger with the supplies as soon as I return to the hall. And I will speak with Haneth as soon as I can find her. If something happens send word to Thorvall's hall. Someone there will know where to find me."

Cyndyn nodded her smile warm as she looked up to him. "Thank you. I will. I'll tell Vini when he wakes up." She glanced toward the sleeping figure and back with a sigh.

Celebaeron paused considering the sleeping man for a moment in silence. "I am sure he will be fine once his wounds heal. Just give him some time." he said, then bowed his head and turned to walk out of the room pulling up his hood as he went.

[lotrologs]

Vini, Arion, + Dyn (In Jail)

 Dyn sat beside Vini's bed, stitching away at the hemline of the tunic that had been purchased for him several days ago. She hadn't been pleased with the length and had taken it upon herself to muss with it, as she was now properly trapped in the infirmary. The healers constantly frowned at her now when she climbed into the same bed as Vini when he dozed. She was injured too now and needed her rest. Small cut or not.

So this morning found her sitting in the chair she had previously occupied, her gaze flitting from her sewing to her husband from time to time. The thought that he needed a shave nagged at her and she vaguely wondered if he'd allow her to help him when he awoke next.

A sigh tore from her lips as she leaned back in her chair, a grimace following as the stitches on her thigh protested. She was sore all over. Her jaw ached, her ribs nagged with a sharp pinch every so often from the massive bruises that covered them. She had taken quite a few blows, ones that she hadn't noticed when she was thrashing madly at Arra. The whole ordeal was a bit of a blur, but nothing could halt the small sense of satisfaction that followed as the young woman had fallen limp to the cobbles and she herself had been left standing.. well limping..

Yet all the same she had been the one to walk away from that scrap. She hadn't truly failed in a fight since coming back to Bree-land. Sure she might have gotten scuffed up from them, but she had still managed to get away on her own two feet. A sign, Dyn took, as something positive.

-

He should be dead. Or at least that’s what the hushed whispers breathed. The infection had seized flesh, and begun to rot before his flayed body was found in the streets of Bree. And yet, the poultice that dark skinned woman offered up in exchange for a bottle of wine had eaten away at the filth set in his blood, seemingly sucking it out of his veins. Her only insistence was in the way it was wrapped, silken string fixing birch bark over the salve every morning when the sun began to rise, and no later than that. There was nothing either husband or wife could do for the flayed skin, but at least it seemed the man would not be taken from this world by warg claw.

“…Did you trip, m’love?”

He had been awake, watching her hands move for quite some time without speaking, letting her focus on the hemline and her stitches while his eyes considered every flaw in the beauty of his wife. Every scrape and bruise, ever cut and road burn, until he found perfection in the symmetry of their brutality and the face that his wife was still here, with a harder light to her soft blue eyes and a smirk beginning to trace her lips that he hoped to coax into confident grin.

-

 A blink, followed by the abrupt pause in her stitching followed his rasped words. Her blue eyed gaze lifting from the soft hues of olive linen to him. She pursed her lips, shifting on the seat as she shook her head with an oncoming sigh breaking over her frame.

Dyn carefully set the tunic down on her lap, her lips twitching faintly as she leaned forward to set a hand against his own.

“Not quite, no. I got into a fight with Arra. She drew steel first on me after we argued over Brutus, and you. The rest is a bit of a blur to be honest, but.. She cut me and I got her back...” She paused, “When she didn't get up I came here and reported it to Lord Arion.” There was no squirming, no hesitance as she spoke of what happened to her husband. Only a calmed, statement before she dropped her gaze and leaned back.

“..I might have bit her again..” She mumbled, “Haneth isn't pleased and made me promise to leave Arra alone. Haneth also said that Arra didn't know what she was talking about when Arra said that Lord Thorvall wanted to string you up..” She made a face. “I can't tell who is telling the truth anymore..”

-

“Arra is too stupid to lie…”

The truth was offered up as fact instead of opinion, clicking his tongue as he smiled softly and murmured quietly, “…I’ll let you draw conjecture as to who is lying. I do not know enough of the Lord Thorvall to believe I have offered him offense, but should he wish to hang me for being a victim of the crimes of those he keeps in his fold…”

As she leaned back, he reached out a hand to beckon her back to him. If she reciprocated the effort, he would encircle her fingers within his own and pull her close, so that he could breathe against the lobe of one ear, “The next time she pulls steel on you… Kill her. Do you understand me?”

-

Dyn blinked, her lips parting as she looked down at her husband.

Arra is too stupid to lie? The thought echoed in her mind for several moments a tumble of emotions knotting her gut as she leaned forward to his beckoning. As his hand closed around her fingers and tugged her close a soft, muffled noise built at the back of her throat.

Her thigh protested sharply, a sharp twist of stitches and skin that caused a hiss of breath. His whispered words against her ear seized her focus and she felt her heart beat thump hard in her veins. Wide blue eyes angled down to him, her teeth pulling at her lower lip and chasing away the pink hues from the pressure applied there.

“...I-I..” She swallowed hard, a knot forming at the pit of her stomach. “..Y-yes Vini.” She whispered, her features pale and drawn. She had never killed anyone. She didn't particularly want to either. Her beliefs, her values on life... they had all been slowly eroded by the man in front of her. Dyn flinched mentally, remembering the feeling of Arra's blood on her hands and in her mouth. She felt sickened and a twisted portion of her preened slightly. The portion of her that Vini had scraped out and had been slowly molding for the past few years was not entirely averse to such a notion.

Besides, she reasoned, she wouldn't have to. She promised Haneth to avoid Arra. If she avoided the other woman she wouldn't have to fight her and …

-

The concession chasing the syllables of his name over her tongue beckoned his lips to pull against her own, the fire returning in his touch with the poison draining from his body. His grip was becoming stronger, his kisses more intimate and fierce in nature, teeth and tongue working with a gratitude to be alive. When he pulled back, there was nothing in the soft brown eyes but need to have her close, run his hands over her soft skin, brush his lips over her hurts and keep her safe. This time when he made his move, it wouldn’t be to run.

“I would prefer justice. I would prefer for you to be vindicated from judgement in the eyes of your friends. I would prefer for everyone to see that the law is and always will be on our side before we make this place our home. But if our adversaries will not cooperate with that… Then we must make sure we are safe. Do you really want people like her free once you are with child?”

-

His kiss left her breathless and gasping. Her meager attempts to return his affection was over shadowed by the burning strength behind his teeth and grip. Vini's actions drew sounds from the back of her throat and left her upper half pressed up against him. Her cheeks blushed and hot, even though they appeared alone in the infirmary's early morning light. Though her body protested the movements she pulled herself off the chair entirely to settled upon the bed. Her frame leaned heavily on one side in her attempts to avoid putting pressure on her stitches, a hiss escaping her as she looked back to her husband as she finally spoke.

“Arion said he didn't side with you, but that there was a lack of evidence either way.. That he could change his sentencing if new evidence was found.. Vini, I worry that.. that Arra will be believed if enough people hear her speak. She doesn't include the rest of the story of course.. and.. it's spreading Vini. She could harm your reputation enough that someone might act on it. Someone more than Miss Edith.. and not just attack me as a message..” She paused, her hand reaching up to trace against the stubble of his jaw.

“Whoever did this to you..” She paused once more, her eyes searching out his, “Do you think they'll allow me to live with your child?”

-

As the frail straw bowed under their combined weight, he hissed in pain at the pressure against his flesh but was chuckling by the time the breath had fully escaped from his lungs. His head dropped to nuzzle against her neck, nipping the pulse as he breathed in the smell of her hair over the stench of antiseptic and sage while he whispered against her neck, “Arra’s time has come. Her arrest will be made and the evidence will be unsurmountable to prove her innocent of your assault. After her second time in jail, she will be a criminal, and a criminal’s word is nothing against that of a father and upstanding husband…” At her question, he pulled away from her and simply smiled, “Edith did this to me. Or so we will tell them. You leave the actual monster to me…She’s waiting for me to make my move.”

-

Thought was difficult as he lowered his head to nuzzled against the flesh of her neck. Her heart thumped hard in the veins he nipped at, her fingers twisting the linens beneath her as heat pooled reflexively in her stomach. Her wide blue eyes scanned over him, her lips parting as she inhaled a sharp breath.

“But it's my word against her own.. There were no witnesses Vini.. Haneth.. she believes Arra. She cares so much for her. I don't think she will allow the Justice to just arrest her...” Her brow knitted together in confusion as she looked over him. “She's already damaged your reputation Vini.. It's why I was so mad at her..”

A long paused followed his method of laying the blame and she tensed ever so briefly.

“No.. I-I.. Valthier.. he cares for Miss Edith and vowed.. h-he.. He threatened to give me to his men and make you watch Vini if we cast anything further upon Miss Edith.. if anyone was to keep up the hunt for her.. I-It's why I wanted to leave so badly.. I'm sorry.” Her voice caught and stuck in her throat as she studied his bruised features with care.

“..That would be Miss Commons, wouldn't it?” She whispered softly, watching, daring him to tell her otherwise now.

Vinicio “What Haneth thinks she has the power to allow and what is within her capacity to influence are two different things here in Breeland. I will speak with the Justice, tell him the truth of our situation, and allow him to make the decision that is most appropriate. Evidence is circumstantial and flawed. I believe my previous experience with the justice system here epitomizes this. As for Valthier…” He spat out the name, every last syllable dripping with venomous intent, “…I will set a hound on the very scent of his name that will not rest until he is dead. Miss Commons may have an appetite for the sound of my screams, but if there is one thing she loathes more than me, it is a man that would take from a girl such as you what he intends to.”

Cyndyn reached up a hand to press against his stubble lined jaw. "I don't think he meant it at the end.. I tracked him down after you went missing, I tracked down Miss Edith.. and Arra.. The only one I couldn't find that had an interest in your pain was Miss Commons.." She bit her lower lip. "I don't particularly want to deal with any of them.. I just want you Vini." She leaned up to press a kiss against the corner of his lips. "Though I agree that something must be done.. I.." She sighed, dropping her gaze. "I just want to have you here, and strong and hale.."

Vinicio He turned his head at the last moment to catch her lips, so that the kiss landed upon his own instead of the modest brush she had initially intended. Listening to her words, he chuckled as the mattress lapped at his weight and tried to suck him under, “I am here, and strength will come with time, as will health. I feel better now than I did only days ago. Whatever salve you found took the worst of the poison from my blood, and perhaps the worst of this storm will pass while we both recover in the safety of this…”

Cyndyn flushed as he caught her in a full kiss instead and she drew back. She nibbled her lower lip, looking at him from under her bangs and eyelashes. "You scared me Vini, I wasn't sure if you'd live.." She mumbled softly, "I just.. I kept looking for someone that might have something to help you. I was so worried.." Her gaze fell and she twisted a lock of gold around her finger. "I don't want to lose you so soon after getting you back.."

Vinicio | “I should not have…” He admitted, reaching up to press a calloused palm against her cheek, where the same hand had left bruises only weeks prior. Now a thumb traced the fading bruises, gentle as his breathe against her lips as he continued, “…I worry every time you leave, every moment you are out of my sight, and it would seem rightfully so. I love you, Dyn. I may have offered you a way to leave me, but I will never leave you. Ever.”

Cyndyn leaned against his hand, her own covering it as a smile warmed her features. "I love you too Vini. I'm happy to hear that you'd not leave me.. It.. it's so nice." She sighed, her eyes closing briefly as she enjoyed the warmth of his palm. "I always knew it, but.. to hear it.." She shrugged softly. "I never want to leave you Vini. Never willingly."

Vinicio |Bruised and bloodied, scabbed and scarred, they knew only the comfort that could be found in the presence of the other, the quiet assertion that overwhelmed all else whispering that in this other, they were human. His fingertips scraped through the golden curls, scratching at the scalp as he shook his head and laughed, “I know. And I never want to leave you, Dyn. Nor will I. Not now. Not ever.”

Cyndyn sighed, a smile painted upon her features as he ran his fingers through the tangles of her hair. She made a small 'mm', curling up against him, pressing her nose into the crook of his arm. She grimaced briefly as her stitches protested, but otherwise didn't budge.

Arion enters the infirmary and raises a brow in reaction to what he finds.

Arion directs Cyn to her own bed.

Cyndyn blinked, looking up to Arion with a pout. Her gaze swung toward Vini, her brows furrowed in a silent question.

Vinicio clears his throat at the sight of the Justice, offering up a hand to assist his wife in standing so she could find her own bed. Nodding to the Gondorian, he tried to prop himself up as best he could given his injuries before offering up, “Hello, Justice. Imagine seeing you here.”

Cyndyn stood slowly, a sigh falling from her lips as she stood carefully. Her hands giving her husband's a small squeeze in parting as she sent Vini a mournful look. She went to her bed with a slower gait, sitting on the edge with a grimace and flinch as her injuries protested.

Arion doesn't offer any reaction to the other man's attempt at wit. He instead asks, "What happened to you? Please be detailed."

Vinicio |”Of course…” And then the eloquence drained out of his tone, the focus of his words becoming purposeful and practiced as a soldier, “I had quarreled with my wife that night. Cyndyn wanted to leave Bree, and I was resistant to the idea. You have to remember, while my Uncle Radcliffe ended his life as a criminal, he started it as a watchman. Many generations of Blackthornes have lived in Breeland and called it home. The fight became heated, and so I left so as to prevent further escalation. I was, in truth, coming to see you. Only a few nights prior, I had been staying at the Combe and Wattle when one of the faces seemed familiar to me. Recognizing the woman as the ‘Miss Edith’ that was posted on the bounty posters, I attempted to take her into custody. However, she was aided by Arra, whom I’m sure you can recall, and when they brought out daggers I hesitated to escalate the situation. I recall the last time I tried to complete a citizen’s arrest, excessive force was used and I was held on charges of assault. While those charges were not honored due to lack of evidence, I still hesitated to inflict actual bodily harm on Arra or her companion, Miss Edith, to honor a bounty. Hence why I was seeking your counsel on the night of the conflict between my wife and I. I wanted to confirm with you that it was appropriate to act in accordance with the law, but also at any and all costs to bring in Miss Edith. It has since come to my attention that my wife was so eager to leave Bree because an associate of this ‘Edith’ individual, Valthier, threatened to not only take her against her will but also ‘give her to his men’ as an example if I did not cease my hunt to honor the bounty. You can question her further on this as I believe it has pertinence to what happened to me that night, but it is not the entirety of the story. I trust your wisdom will be able to illuminate the parts I do not have insight into. On the road to Bree from the homesteads, I was knocked out. A dark figure, smaller than me and womanly shaped, attacked me from behind just alongside the marshes. I tumbled down and into the mire, and she followed me, shortly after which I blacked out. When I awoke, there was a hooded figure standing over me. I was tied to a table, and she, I remember it was a she, told me that they were going to…erase me. What I was, what I had been, what I would be. Then they pulled out a wicked blade and… began to saw me to pieces. As you can certainly see the evidence of. I passed out, then came to, then shock threatened to take over. At that point, they drugged me so the torture could continue. There was another in the room, a man, hooded but tall enough to be a man. He had a hound on a long chain, and they would toss the scraps they carved off of me to the beast. When it was finished… Well, when they decided they were done, they set loose the hound on me. That’s where the injuries on my shoulder came from…” He swallowed and shook his head, “I don’t know how I’m alive, Justice.”

Cyndyn made a noise at the back of her throat, her hands clasping over her lips as she stared at Vini. As he mentioned herself and Valthier her features paled and she bit her lower lip. She hunched her shoulders forward, glancing toward the Justice and away. As the story continued her eyes were drawn back to her husband and she stared, wide eyed and tensed at the tale he wove.

Arion listens to what is said again without reaction. He reflects for a few beats before say, "I want you to envision the woman in your mind's eye and starting with the top of her head and slowly work your way down to her feet. As you do so, I want you to describe her. Take your time but try and remember all you can."

Vinicio |“I’m sorry, Justice…” He swallowed, the effort bobbing his throat as he shook his head and continued, “Taller than Cyndyn, but not by much. May have been the same height. As I said, she wore a hood, like an executioner’s hood. There was no way I could offer more information than that as per her facial features. She wore leather armor… Daggers at her hips… I recognized the scabbards as those of Miss Edith. That was the only reason I suggested they were one and the same.”

Arion asks, "Then she spoke with a Bree-land accent?"

Vinicio |“Sometimes yes, when she slipped up. She tried to keep her voice indistinguishable, but there was a lilt to how she pronounced her a’s that would suggest Bree.”

Cyndyn shifted on her seat upon the bed. Her gaze slipping from Arion to Vini and back as each spoke in turn. She kept silent, her brows pinched as she folded her hands upon her lap.

Arion continues, "What of the man? Use the same process as with the woman. Tell me about him."

Vinicio Shook his head slowly as she looked quietly up at the blue eyes of the Gondorian, “…I’m sorry, but much the same. Perhaps the same height as me. Better at disguising his voice, no accent distinguishable. He didn’t say much, let her do the talking. The hound never made a sound either, obviously well trained by someone. It didn’t lunge for me until the command was given."

Arion follows up, "Describe the dog."

Cyndyn curls up slowly on her side as she listened. A yawn tumbled from her lips as she tugged up the blankets, still listening with care as she slowly snuggled in. A hiss of pain escaped her from time to time, a decidedly pitiful look aimed at the distance between herself and husband. She sighed once before she drifted off entirely.

Vinicio | “That I can remember. Hard to stick a mask on a dog. Not as big as you would suspect. Black cur. Little bit of sheepdog, little bit of something bigger. Certainly did a number on my shoulder, but not a dog I would recognize again. The lighting was bad, we were underground, I think? Least it smelled like it.”

Arion raises a disbelieving brow, "You would not recognize the very dog that ate your flesh...?"

Vinicio shakes his head at the thought, “No, unfortunately not. Out of a handful of similar beasts of different shapes, certainly. Narrow muzzle, pronounced stop, white toes. But among other dogs of the same type, the sort bred by the shepherds out in the Northern Breelands? No… Not confidently. I’m sorry.”

Arion looks at the other man for a long moment, "So... you are saying that amongst dogs of the same breed you might not recognize it but amongst dogs of different breeds you would?"

Vinicio inclines his head as he confirms for good measure, "Yes. My family raised hounds. The offspring of our lines are still used in Trestlebridge among the Watch. I know my dogs, that is not the issue. The problematic circumstance is the amount of pain I was in... And the drugged state they had me under."

Arion waves aside the objections, "I have little doubt that should you see this beast again, you will remember it quite well. Take not the counsel of your doubts.""

Vinicio |”Understood” He replied in turn, mouth still hanging open in light pant from the exertion required to retain consciousness as he met the eyes of the Justice and lied through his teeth, “I will aid you however I can in bringing those responsible to justice. Bree is not the land I grew up in, nor the place I wish to raise my children in as she currently stands.”

Arion 's eyes narrow a bit in reaction. Evidently being lied to is something he's experienced before and often so it is clear something about what the other man said rings false. He suggests, "You just concentrate on your recovery. Leave the catching of criminals to the watch. Now, tell me about the room you were in and the table you were tied to."

Vinicio |”Smaller than this one, unfinished walls that were bare stone. There were no windows or way to track the passage of day into night and back into day. Usually I am quite adept at seizing my bearings but there was simply no anchor by which to do so. The table… I am sorry, but I don’t think I could tell you details other than it was leathern straps that bound my wrists and ankles."

Arion asks, "Tell me about the door... its construction and did it lead outside or to another room?"

Vinicio |”I was unconscious when I entered, and when I left. I could not see the door from where I was strapped to the table. As soon as I began to struggle, they began to cut….” And he trailed off, obviously seeing something behind his eyes when they shut, perpetually painted against the back of his eyelids and in his nightmares.

Arion continues, "So then they did not exit the room while you were conscious?"

Vinicio | “I heard it open and shut. I remember them coming and going, but not always. I faded in and out quite a bit, Sir…”

Arion presses, "When they came and went, could you hear sounds of the wilds or a farm at work? Could you smell the outdoors or the odors of a house?"

Vinicio |”Neither. Just… damp. Moss. There were no sounds that I could readily distinguish from the popping and crackling of the fire they had stoked. I’m sorry, I cannot be of much help. They only transported me there and away when I was unconscious.”

Arion thinks for a moment, "Then a cave most likely. I will search all the ones that are known to us. I will get that started. Give all that I have asked you some thought and perhaps once you have healed more, we will return to this. Before I go, is there anything else you can think of that will help us identify these people?"

Vinicio |”As I’ve already said, I will help however I can, especially once I am healthy again. I’m sorry I have no further evidence to offer… Whoever did this to me obviously understood your penchant for collecting such.”

Arion shrugs, "Those who go to such extremes are not... stable, to say the least. That sort of madness does not lend itself easily to the keeping of secrets. Once you have recovered a bit more, I will have the artist speak to you and have likenesses made of all three participants in these crimes."

Vinicio |”Three?” His chin dipped as he raised a brow, “I only recall two, as my statement would suggest.”

Arion answers, "The third being the dog."

Vinicio laughs despite himself at the thought of a dog standing trial, shaking his head as he murmured, “You are quite thorough, Justice…”

Arion nods, "That is why most who commit crimes in Bree-land face justice. Get some rest."

Vinicio waves the man off as he leans back, casting a glance to his slumbering wife as he muses quietly, “They want me dead, Sir. For a crime I did not do. I know not how to appease them save with my death and I cannot leave her…It leaves me only one option, and that is to bring each and every one to justice. Please let me know if there is anything further that I can offer.”

Arion nods, "I will. Pardon me, I must return to my other duties."

Vinicio |"Please..." His hand extended in the offer of a shake, calloused palm intending to meet with gauntleted grip as the other man passed, "Thank you for your time, Justice. Stay safe."

Arion shakes the offered hand before exiting the infirmary.

[lotrologs]

Arion, Haneth, Laerlin, Thorvall - the Jail

### Chat Log: General 04/26 10:24 PM ###

Arion bows his head to the woman, "How may I be of service?"

  Haneth stepped forward, her hand slipping away from the hilt of her sword where it rested. "Lord Arion." She bowed her head.

  Arion replies, "Well met.”

  Haneth looked familiar, if the lord had much memory of victims he had treated or guests to his jail, but she had changed. Scars now connected her freckles like lined constellations and she was older, leaner, starved despite bearing the wider hips of motherhood. "Thank you for meeting with me. I regret I could not come sooner, but with all this...commotion lately..."

  Arion shakes his head, "No apology is necessary. I quite understand the demands duty can place on a person."

  Haneth 's lip half-grimaced, half-grinned. "May we speak somewhere out of the draft of the door?" It was not the wind that was cold, but those who might march through it.

  Arion nods, "Certainly. Come with me."

  Haneth followed, then when they stopped began straight away. "I received your message about Cyndyn." She glanced at the infirmary where the young kitchen maid slept, chasing away her bruises. "About what happened...what did you learn?"

  Arion answers, "Until I can find the other person involved, I am sure you know as much as I, if not more as I believe both parties are members of your company."

  Haneth nodded. "The other was my apprentice, Neyarra. I have already spoken to them both, and they are not to see nor speak to each other without my presence again."

  Arion nods, "Hopefully that will prevent future problems but I need to resolve what already occured. I will need to speak to your apprentice and most likely, if what Cyndyn said is true, arrest and try Neyarra."

  Haneth nodded, running a hand through her hair. "It is my understanding, that when Thorvall ruled Archet, you left him and his warband to their own justice, and in return he helped you keep peace in Bree. Is that arrangement no longer standing?"

  Arion shakes his head, "That is not quite accurate. If any crimes occurred within Archet, I did not interfere and he and his company did not assist with enforcing the law in Bree but helped to fill the ranks of a militia that, in time of need, would help defend Bree-land from outside forces. Fortunately, the militia never was never needed. After the Oathsworn left Bree-land, the Watch resumed duty in Archet."

  Haneth lifted her chin. "And now we are returned, and I would like to be in partnership with you once again. One of ours, Lethiah, has already joined the Watch. He says that things have been peaceful since we forsook Archet. We would like to see it remain that way."

  Arion raises a brow, "I would have to discuss the matter with the Mayor and the community leaders of Archet. If they are amenable to the idea, we can work out the details. Now, about your apprentice. Is she going to turn herself in?"

  Haneth surrendered half a smile, stretching the scars down her jaw. "I suppose she will have to, if you do not trust us to manage the justice of our own people."

  Laerlin pushes the door open and enters the jail house. She pauses to lean against her simple walking staff, giving the old place an even lookabout. She sees her destination quickly enough, though frowns faintly to see him occupied. Nevertheless, she hobbles closer, and her faint frown turns into surprise as she recognizes Haneth. She waits and does not interrupt.

  Arion shakes his head, "It is not a matter of trust but of the law. Even if I were not bound by statute, were I to give you and yours dispensation to handle lawbreakers within your own company, then other companies and groups would demand the same latitude and that way lies chaos. While I understand your desire to police your own, I must adjudicate all legal matters within Bree-land."

  Haneth |The sound of lingering footsteps in a storm of marching boots drew Haneth's gaze. She smiled and nodded at Laerlin, the first they had seen each other in a year or more, but business was at hand. Lifting her chin higher as she returned to Arion, "I understand. And we seek no special treatment, only partnership. Tell me, though, what charge does Arra face if brought before you?"

  Arion answers, "Assault with a weapon at a minimum. Other charges could be brought as well or discarded. I need to question her in order to determine what charges she might face.""

  Laerlin falls more heavily on her staff as they continue to talk, though her head perks up at the mention of 'Arra'. "You speak of Arra the young brigand? That is why I came in today, Arion," she says after he is done speaking.

  Haneth shifted away from the stairs to allow Laerlin the space to climb them. "We do. I saw her last night at your healing house." As the woman came closer Haneth's voice lowered. "Thank you for caring for her. She could have suffered greatly if one who knew you had not found her."

  Arion nods in greeting to Laerlin, "well met and yes, I need to resolve the matters of her crime or crimes."

  Laerlin chooses not to ascend the stairs, likely on account of her leg. She seems content to remain right where she is. "You are welcome. I did not know you had any connection with her. Darramir and I-- Darramir moreso-- do not hold much fondness for her, but I won't leave anyone untreated. But, I thought you ought to know, Justice, that she is there right now. She won't be moving far without aid, either. The stitches would break if she moves too much, I warrant."

  Arion turns his gaze on Laerlin, "When will she be capable of coming here of her own volition or safely via another means such as horse or wagon?"

  Haneth nodded in response to Laerlin. "She is my apprentice. Has been this year and a half or more, though it seems longer." Fondness warmed her smile but then was gone and barren. "May I suggest, Laerlin, if it is alright with you, that Arion or a member of his men go to the healing house to question and try her?" She turned to Arion. "She is not worth jailing, and to drag her here would harm her more than help."

  Arion shakes his head, "Whether her actions warrant jailing remain to be seen though on the surface they certainly do. I see no purpose to questioning her, determining she needs to be sentenced, then having to wait until she has healed to carry out that sentence. I need to know when it will cause her no further injury to have her brought here."

  Haneth frowned. "Then why put her through the pain of travelling if the questioning leads nowhere?"

  Laerlin does not interrupt their discussion at the moment as they discuss her fate, her expression neutral as either of them speak. She shifts her body weight against the staff carefully.

  Arion raises a brow, "Then are you saying Cyndyn lied or is injured in some fashion as to render her complaint inaccurate or false?"

  Haneth |A deep line twitched between the laugh lines and scars. She squared her stance to Arion, her voice lowering. "I am saying you jailed Arra already for defending herself against an attacker. She has done her time, and does not deserve any more pain at your hands."

  Arion does not seem moved by that argument, "You are conflating two seperate matters that do not warrant such. Now, based on the past relationship I had with the Oathsworn, I am willing to allow Neyarra to heal to an extent at Laerlin's, if she allows it, but if pushed, that can change."

  Haneth 's eyes widened where they should have glared. Her lips fell open, but she had nothing else in her to say. Nodding, she dropped her gaze. "I will alert you when she is ready."

  Arion bows his head to her, "Thank you." He looks over at Laerlin, "What time frame might that be?"

  Laerlin considers his words. "She came in just the other evening... the stitches should be ready to be removed in five to six days, I warrant, which is the greatest danger. If there is no infection in her shoulder by that point, either, I think the threat of that has passed. So after the stitches are removed, I believe." She frowns faintly. "She was very angry against Cyndyn; seems to think that her husband is some sort of terrible crook and Cyndyn is ignoring it. I cannot believe that Cyndyn bit her, as well... it was a very nasty fight. My neighbor found her on the road; she is lucky she was found by a good man and not a bad one. She was in a bad state."

  Haneth drove her gaze into the floor to spare the others from seeing what lurked there. Her fingers curled to fists, but slackened soon as they touched her palms.

  Arion explains, "There was a past incident involving Cyndyn's husband and Neyarra. Unfortunately, there was insufficient evidence to substantiate her complaint while enough to substantiate his. I am curious though as to why Cyndyn would have entered into a relationship with him knowing of this trouble between him and a member of her own company..."

  Haneth swung her slow gaze up to Arion, the remnant of anger not yet quenched from her green rings. "Leave that to me, Justice. The state of the mind where it concerns my Men is my own worry. The state of the Law is yours."

  Laerlin looks very curious, then her eyes widen. "Oh! Goodness gracious! /That/ is her husband? The one she claimed tried to-- oh, goodness gracious." She grimaces faintly over something, then readjusts her position. "I did not realize the young Arra was in your company, Haneth. Do you know she is friends with brigands? The very ones who did Darramir much hurt?"

  Arion nods, "As you say. Given Laerlin's estimation, I will expect Neyarra to be brought here in a week's time. If there is a change in her recovery, then Laerlin can send word to me..." He stops as Laerlin mentions brigands.

  Thorvall pushed his way into the gaol. Pausing, as if he were a hound sniffing the air for threat or quarry, he made towards familiar figures of Justice, healer and huntress. "Apologies for my lateness, Valaroma threw a shoe before we reached the south gate." He snorted at their words, even as he heard them. "Arion employed Leeta has his assistant, which is worse?"

  Laerlin adjusts her position on her staff again to look at Thorvall. "I remember Leeta. She wouldn't stop following him around. I do not care if she is in your company, but you /should/ know that she is friends with that Cisse. Cisse is a right crook. You just should keep her away from bad influences, and she might not get into as much trouble. She's young enough to be molded into a better person."

  Arion nods politely to Thor before answering, "I did not employ Leeta. I attempted, perhaps mistakenly and certainly with not much initial result, to set her on another path. Perhaps with time my efforts will prove successful."

  Haneth 's scarred eyes flinched. She had contained herself til this moment but no longer. "The man who your healers have treated in this very jail is a treacherous beast." She turned to Laerlin and Thorvall, clenching her hand as it began to shake. "Vinicio is a harder man than fifty 'Cisse's' and yet you keep him here and jail his victims."

  Laerlin 's face wrinkles in confusion, the expression causing the nice large bruise on her cheek to contort in shape. "Vinicio works at the jail?"

  Arion appears unsure if Han's diatribe was directed at him or someone else.

  Haneth threw her gaze again to the floor. "Vini is healed at the jail," she said, then lowered her voice, "...as we speak."

  Thorvall pursed his lips, nodding slowly. "Cisse..." he spoke the name as if he had only just heard it. "I'm newly returned to Bree, and until Arra decides to join our band care not too much who she spends her time with, as long as she commits no crimes." A pause, as Haneth's words bit into him. "If what Haneth and Arra say is true, as well as what I've known of the man, he's more ripe for the gallows than poultices and bandages." He drew a scar-flecked hand through straw coloured locks. "You've my word, Arion, that I'll look into those you say are the girl’s friends, but I trust Haneth on this, Vini is no innocent party."

  Arion nods, "Yes, he is here but definitely not as an employee. He was attacked though I do not know the circumstances as he has not regained lucidity as of yet. As for his character, I have little doubt he is a... boor, at best. However, until sufficient proof exists that he has committed a crime, I cannot arrest him for being a boor."

  Laerlin glances between Thorvall and Haneth. "If you know he has done something, and you were witness to it, would that be sufficient cause?" She pauses, then frowns some more. "Actually, when I met Cyndyn on the streets the day after her husband went missing, she was very badly bruised. This was a little while ago. Were you ever able to figure out from her who caused this?"

  Thorvall shook his head slowly. "It was all muggings, brigands or falls, I know well enough when the girl is hiding something, but..." He sighed through his teeth. "She has been in such a state, maybe a year ago I'd have shouted it from her..." He shrugged. "I suppose going home made me soft."

  Haneth’s eyes climbed Thorvall. She found his face and rooted about like a boar digging for food.

  Laerlin does not seem to have anything to add to Thorvall's words. She shakes her head slowly and swivels carefully to look at Arion to see what he has to say about all of this.

  Arion suggests, "There was an incident involving Cyndyn, Cisse, and some companions of Cisse. Given that its been explained now that Cisse is a friend of Neyarra's, it now makes more sense."

  Thorvall |Eyes narrowed, fixing on the justice. "So it was Cisse?" He growled. "Cyndyn knew her by another name it seemed, that is good to know."

  Laerlin raises a brow at Arion. "Is that so?" She glances at Thorvall. "Aye, but if Arra is good friends with Cisse-- I believe they are at least friends-- who is to say she was not acting on Arra's behalf? It seems you need to sit Arra down and tell her to get away from troublesome influences like Cisse."

  Haneth 's fingers tightened on her belt. "Arra should not be held responsible for the actions of those she supposedly knows." She raised her gaze over her shoulder to Arion. "She is her own woman. Is her companionship evidence? Is Cyndyn's? Knowing she is married to this...Vini, and yet that does not sway your judgment of Arra?"

  Arion shakes his head, "I have made no judgment, other than Cyndyn's complaint regarding Neyarra necessitates her being taken into custody, for the moment."

  Thorvall held is hand up. "If I may suggest a compromise, Lord Arion?"

  Arion answers, "I believe one has already been reached but continue."

  Thorvall furrowed his brow. "Apologies, I'm not sure I was here as it was being made, I was about to suggest we keep Arra in Rambroke, as I do not feel right taking her in chains to Bree..." He paused, chewing over the thought. "You could maybe visit there and decide, and whatever conclusion you reach." Another pause, and he shot a look to Haneth. "We will support."

  Laerlin tells Thorvall, "She is currently in my infirmary in the 'steads, recovering. Arion agreed to waiting until she was fully recovered. I suppose if all she is needed for is questioning, when she comes here, chains are an unnecessary precaution?" She looks at Arion quizzically.

  Arion nods, "Chains are not needed though she does need to come here once she is healthy enough to do so as we discussed previously."

  Haneth dragged her gaze from off the floor to Thorvall. "Lord Arion is not agreeable to delaying Arra's return to the jail for judgment. He has already delayed her return and allowed us a week to let her heal. After then, by his words, she is his."

  Thorvall |Brow furrowed, he shrugged. "As you say, but I'd see her to Rambroke before she goes to Bree, if chains are not needed then I imagine that will not be a problem?"

  Laerlin answers Thorvall, grimacing a bit as she shifts her position again, "It is unadvisable for her to be moved without a wagon due to the... precarious positioning of her stitches. I would like to keep an eye on the bite wound for a couple more days as well, just in case of infection."

  Arion raises a brow, "What would be the purpose for this?"

  Thorvall curled his lip a little at that. "We have our own healers who I'd like to look over her, as well as offering her the comfort of home before she does to questioning for nothing more than a scrap." He sighed heavily then, heaving shoulder sending the crimson cloak shimmering across his back. "Come on Arion, you and I have both done worse in our time before you took up the mantle of justice, half of our fights against Rashka's crew were in the middle of the street, I swear on my honour she'll come before you, but let her come home first."

  Haneth kept silent, knowing her word was a crumb compared with Thorvall's.

  Arion 's brow furrow, "I defended myself, and others, if attacked. Regardless, that is not what is at question here. How long is this... visit to her 'home' going to take?"

  Thorvall waved his hand dismissively, yet his face was open and guileless. "No more than a few days, she is young, and she is scared, despite all her blustering." He turned then to face the healer. "You know that as well as I, the comfort will help her, where as her being taken straight here would leave her hissing and spitting as a cat."

  Laerlin does not look entirely pleased by his words of healers. "I assure you that my qualifications are the highest," she says stiffly. "But as for her movement, I care not; that is Arion's call, in the end." She grimaces again. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have been standing for much too long. If you want to do a healer a favor, you can leave a few silver there to help cover the costs of supplies. I am not a wealthy woman." She turns to leave.

  Arion shakes his head, "I agreed to a week at Laerlin's as I was told that was the time that was needed to for her to heal sufficiently. I will not agree to an open ended... respite at her home. Give me an exact time."

  Thorvall firmed his jaw, nodding. "You've the right of it then, we will say three days after she has left Laerlin's care she will be here." Dipping his head a slight to the man's authority, he turned at once toward the healer. "My apologies, honestly." He bowed deeper now. "Your skill at healing and the comfort you bring is known throughout Bree-land, but we have healers she knows, and with Arra that is important, I meant no offence."

  Haneth conquered the opportunity to leave her lord to his business and cantered down the steps. "Laerlin," she implored before the hobbled woman could make it far. "If you need anything for Arra... I should have offered." She worked at a purse packed deep in a leather satchel of other wares, then drew it free. Pressing the stitched wool into Laerlin's hand, she smiled to dilute the brass sound of coins clinking. "If that is not enough send word and I will repay you. You have already done so much...I do not know how to repay you.”

  Thorvall held up a hand to stay that of the huntress. "I will pay, on here arrival to us you'll have silver for her care and as much again as my thanks."

  Haneth pushed the purse deeper into Laerlin's palm. "Thorvall pays me for my duty and I pay my apprentice." Her eyes caught Thorvall's. "That is how it is done and that is how it will be."

  Laerlin does not seem to have much choice in the matter; she takes the purse from Haneth and tells her, "I am sure this will be sufficient." At Thorvall's apology, she looks appeased and dips her head in thanks. "Haneth knows where my infirmary is. If you will excuse me... I need to rest my leg."

  Arion , in reaction to an impatient glance from Dawn, says, "I am behind on my patrol. Ten days is to effect an arrest is... generous to say the least. Do not abuse my forbearance in this matter. Good day to you all."

  Thorvall frowned at the words, then shot her an admiring grin. "If you say so, Bregu." Wincing at Arion’s words, after nodding his thanks to Laerlin he turned toward the man. "It is a favour between old friends, Arion, not abuse." He sighed, continuing. "One minute it's questioning, another arrest."

  Haneth slipped three fingers into Thorvall's elbow and tugged. "We should be going," she whispered, staring at the hem of his shoulder to not risk glances abroad.

  Thorvall nodded at once, sparing one last bow for Laerlin. "Thank you again, we appreciate your care for the girl."

  Laerlin dips her head to Haneth and Thorvall, saying, "Just doing my duty as a healer," then limps her way out of there.

  Thorvall frowned at the door, as if the oaken portal would light a candle, burning down through the hours until they had to return with their charge. "Come, Haneth..." He spoke softly. "I've spent enough time here."

  Haneth fell into step behind him. She stitched her gaze to his mantle and avoided Watcher's gaze or glance behind. Her purse felt lighter, and she felt the better for it. "As always," she nodded, "I follow."

[lotrologs]

Arra, Haneth

The knocks came in threes, each set quicker than the last. Then finally the door was tried, and found unlocked, swung open to permit soft-soled boots march across the stone. Haneth strode into the doorway, her frown wasted no time searching for Laerlin, but better luck – Arra lay asleep in the bed nearby. Quietly the huntress changed her gait from war march to scout patrol, and slipped towards her, kneeling by the dulled fire to add some tinder to its gasping coals.

Neyarra l The little brigand girl could almost be called cute as she lay there sleeping, her breath coming in and out of her nose with a light snore. Bandages covered her upper arm on one side, and a blanket lay half-on and half-dangling off her, revealing the back of her pants which were stained with dry blood. Her eyes flitted open as the door closed and her face lit up upon recognizing a familiar face. “Haneth!” she remarked sleepily.

Haneth lay the wood back into its holder and slowly rose. The face she wore was not eager to smile. She stood over Arra, her green eyes firm but cooling from an earlier ire. “Arion told me what happened,” she began at once. “I have to tell you I am disappointed in the way you handled things, Arra.”

Neyarra l As quickly as it had lit up, the girl’s face fell to the expression worn by a stubborn child being scolded by a parent. “Arion wasn’t there, so that means Dynnie told ‘em what she wanted them to think and they believed her. Well, she started it, her and her stupid dog.” She folded her arms across her chest and stared stubbornly up at Haneth.

Haneth‘s tone did not retreat, her frown did not slacken, but she did move forward and sit on the bed beside Arra. “I believe you,” she said with no less anger in her voice. Picking up the blanket’s hem she rolled it up to Arra’s shoulders. “And I believe what you say Vini did to you, but attacking Cyndyn, whether she started it or not, is not the way to handle it.”

Neyarra opened her mouth to respond with some sort of reason that she was in the right, but instead she simply sighed, fingers curling around the edge of the blanket and tugging it closer. “I wasn’t gonna,” she said finally. “But she kept saying stuff that made me mad. Then I couldn’t take it anymore. She said I was lying and Agamaran knew it and you thought I was lying and that I was a brigand and a thief and a liar. So I stabbed her.”

Haneth’s gaze grimaced, tightening around a deepening frown. “Arra,” she warned, her hand gentle on the girl’s shoulder but steel in her voice. “I thought I had taught you better than to draw a weapon against words.”

Neyarra glared at the ceiling. “On the streets, you’ve gotta fight or get beat up ‘cause you’re not fighting. People push you around if you’re quiet and weak, and they leave you alone if you’re loud and you have a knife. Besides, she was just trying to get me to fight her so she could get me arrested like Vinicio did.”

Haneth lowered her voice, allowing some softness to creep back in. “You are no longer on the streets. You are part of this family, now. You have a home, and you have me.” She slid closer down the mattress so they could speak in intimate tones. “I will do everything I can to protect you, and that is more than empty words. So do not go fighting battles on your own. Not when you have a warband at your back and a sister who would die for you.”

Neyarra l Arra’s hard stare and frowning melted into a soft gaze and a smile. “I know,” she murmured, shifting in her position on the bed, causing it to groan. She reached a dirty hand to grasp one of Haneth’s. “You horse-people are good at killing bad guys. Not like me. I can’t even stab someone enough times to win. Instead, I get stabbed in the butt and fall asleep.” She scowled at herself.

Haneth interlinked their fingers and held the grip firm, hooking her gaze on Arra till her words were heard. “Promise me you will not do it again. You will not draw your weapon unless under real threat of danger.”

Neyarra met her gaze, then lowered it and traced instead the pattern of Haneth’s outfit absently. “I promise,” she said at last, before adding, “Maybe I should take my bow instead, ‘cause I can shoot things a lot better than I can stab them.”

“Look at me,” Haneth commanded, almost pleading. “I know you understand what I am saying, and I know you can answer. Please, Arra…” Her gaze dropped to the Bree-woven blanket, the distinct lack of patterns of the Mark, the dry colors. Her brow buckled, creasing her forehead in pain. “I need to protect you, but I cannot if you do not understand. This is not just some argument.” Her eyes rose, and the firmness had drawn back to reveal the quivering black hearts within. “Real danger is coming, and I do not know if I will be able to stop it. Please, do not add wood to the fire when I am trying to put out the spark.”

Neyarra l At Haneth’s command, Arra’s gaze moved back upward. “Real danger?” she asked, “Like with Vinicio? I thought you said that we had a warband with us. Can’t they kill him like they did with the hill-people who weren’t actual hills in Rohan? There were lots of them and only one of him. And only one Dynnie.”

Haneth set another soft hand on Arra’s. “We thought that when the King of brigands, Kaenwynn, as he was called, was killed, then there would be peace.” She looked away, her strictness flaking away like rust, till the brittle corrosion exposed underneath. “But his death gave rise to others. My own cousin, Holliwen…she was gone after that. I tried to save her but…” She swallowed down the memory of bile and blood and a jail cell’s mouldering hay. “Vinicio is dangerous, and he is not alone. We do not know who else is out there – who attacked him, who attacked Cyndyn. They may not be friends. To do this…what they have done…I cannot believe they could be.”

Neyarra stared wide-eyed at Haneth at mention of Holliwen and her relationship to her. Apparently this fact was enough to make her forget to keep anything secret. “You’re Holliwen’s cousin? I met her once, before she left and died somewhere. She made Adyfan our leader, but then she left us too. She’s probably dead, too.” She frowned. “What’d the people do?” she asked.

Haneth’s features gave way one by one as the pallor drew across her face like coming night. “Arra…” Her hand slipped away and curled into itself to keep from trembling. “What did you just say? She…made Adyfan –your– leader?”

Neyarra blinked at Haneth, her slightly-muddled mind taking a moment to realize the significance of what had just transpired. Upon coming to this realization, her skin paled and her eyes fell to the details of the mattress. “They-they helped me,” she murmured. “Got me off the streets and into an actual bed, in Holliwen’s big house. All I had to do was help make money with them, and Edna helped me too.” She dared not look Haneth in the eye.

”Edna,” Haneth croaked, wrinkling the blanket in a tightening fist. “Edna who Cyndyn said attacked her.” She stood, turning away from Arra and the dead fire. “Holliwen had others…followers, her own band. I never knew. How did I…” She devolved into muttering, catching the bedpost with a palm to keep from stumbling far. “And you were part of them.” Then she turned with a shock. “-Are- you part of them?”

Neyarra winced as Haneth spoke, and as she watched her move away, her stomach felt like it was being forcefully twisted into knots. “Edna’s my friend – she wouldn’t attack her for no reason.” The words rang hollow, and even Arra knew it. “Haneth,” she pleaded, though she did not know what for, exactly. Forgiveness? Simply for being part of a group that had helped her? “Haneth…” She reached for her, touching her shoulder.

Haneth ‘s fingers fell on hers like rain. “Arra.” She promised she was there, still listening. She turned around but would not meet her eyes to spare her the disappointment festering. “Not now. We need to talk, but not now.” Stepping forward she drew Arra up in an embrace that would have lifted her off the bed, if Haneth had the strength. “Rest, rest and I will take care of this. Please.”

Neyarra pressed herself into Haneth, desperate for something to let her know that the truth did not change their relationship, that which she treasured most. She slowly fell back into the bed and curled up beneath her blanket, tears running down her face.

Haneth soothed her first with whispers and then a lullaby, deep and rolling like an oaken cradle creaking. “Sleep my Arra,” she muttered between Rohirric verses. “You are, and are always, family. Sleep.” Her fingers brushed away the hair from her sister’s face and the tears from her scuffed cheeks. “Sleep and be safe. Please, please be safe.”

Neyarra l Haneth’s voice seemed to sooth the rusty-haired brigand-girl, and the tide of tears seemed to subside. She closed her eyes, still trembling from the whole ordeal, short and physically painless as it was, and soon her slow snoring filled the room once more.

[lotrologs]

Cyndyn, Haneth

Cyndyn sat on a bed as a healer came to check her leg and inspect the stitches before moving on. The young woman's features were covered in dark bruises, scrapes and minor cuts. Her hands suffered the same. Yet on her thigh rested a nasty cut held closed by stitches and then covered in bandages as the healer departed once more. Dyn sighed, tugging up the blankets again as she sank back against the creaking mattress.

  Haneth arrived on soft footsteps, nothing to wake the sleepers. It was her brow, furrowed and shadowed, one corner split by scars, that made her anger known. “Cyndyn.” Never had a hare uttered a growl, but this was the closest it came. “What did you do?”

  Cyndyn looked at the other woman, her brows shooting upwards a she bolted upright and pressed back against the bed frame. "She started it! She cornered me on the road and insulted Brutus! Then we argued and she drew a knife! I defended myself!" She yelped, her eyes wide as she stared at Haneth.

  Haneth sat down on the edge of the bed, shoulders tense. Her goose-fletching stole almost ruffled. “You two are not to see each other again. Am I clear?” The command could not have been stronger if she had yelled it.

  Cyndyn shifted upon the lumpy bed, her arms crossing as she looked down hard at the covers. "I didn't go looking for her Haneth. She stopped me on the road. I was going to Cartwell's and had Brutus with me." She bit out, her lips twisting into a faint grimace.

  Haneth’s green eyes did not flinch. “Then you should not be going to Cartwell’s.” Her tone was not hard, but firm. “I will arrange it so you need not run errands for the healers. It is not your responsibility, anyway, and Combe is no place for you now.” Her tone softened as her wood-sanded calluses reached for Cyndyn’s dish-soap softened hands. “Until we know who did this to Vini and why, I don’t want you going where the Watchers do not patrol or where the townspeople turn their heads away from violence in the streets.” Her hand squeezed the maiden’s. “Wars in Bree are different than the ones you have witnessed in the south, and I can smell one coming like a storm on the wind. You must be careful, not just for your sake, or Vini’s, but for all of us.”

  Dyn's head lowered and she dropped her gaze from Haneth. Her anger cooling as quickly as it had come. She nodded, biting her lower lip for a brief moment as she offered Haneth a gentle squeeze of her hands in return.  "Yes Haneth.. I'm sorry. I-I.. I never meant to hurt her that much and I came straight here for help.. I never thought she would pass out on the cobbles." Her voice broke and became watery. "She said Lord Thorvall wants to string up Vini.."

  Haneth leaned forward, lowering her tone.  “No one…” She laid the words out, brick by brick. “…can say what Lord Thorvall wants, but Lord Thorvall.” She took Cyndyn beneath an arm mantled with feathers from broken arrows, and drew her close. “I will talk to Arra, and see if we can put a stop to this. You have to understand, whether or not Vini is telling the truth, or whether or not Arra is, they hurt each other, and that is not easy for either of them, no matter who was in the wrong.” She reached behind her own neck to brush away the tickling feathers, but touched bare skin. The chills, it seemed, had come from elsewhere. “I am not blaming you for what happened, but please, be more careful.”

  Dyn nodded slowly in response to Haneth's quiet, firm toned words. She remained silent for long moments afterward, her scraped up hands closing and twisting the linen sheets. "Yes Haneth." She spoke softly, her blue eyed gaze rising and falling from the other woman. "I.." She stopped and paused, shaking her head and letting her bangs fall forward into her bruised features. "I'm sorry I'm such a burden."

  “No,” she charged. “Never that.” She pressed her forehead to Cyndyn’s hair, hiding the grey in her eyes. “If you were a burden, why would we try so hard to keep you safe?”

  Dyn paused, her frame slouching to lean against Haneth as the older woman pressed close. "Because I cause you so much trouble...?" She bit her lower lip, her brows furrowed high. "I'm always scared that you'll get sick of me and want me to leave.."

  Haneth sat up and shoved space between them until their eyes met. “Is that why you left?” she pleaded, her green eyes yoked with worry. “Is that why you ran?”

  Dyn shook her head, her eyes eyes rose and tears stung them  and her throat closed up. "No, Vini... He.. After he healed enough.. He was scared.. Worried that he couldn't protect me... Or himself. He.. He lost his family Haneth.. Before.. Long ago.." She trailed off looking to the man in question.

  “And so have you.” Her thumb brushed against Cyndyn’s cheek between the bruises. “So have I.”

  Dyn shook her head, "Not like Vini. My grandparents are still alive.. I-I never knew or cared about my father.. He.. never counted. Vini was close to his family.. I think. The way he talks about the farm and the hounds there.." She bit her lower lip and ducked her head. "Vini told me pack, and I did.. Haneth, I never knew how long we'd be gone or where we were going. I wanted to send word, I really did." She whispered, her voice watery. "But.. I can't write.. so.. so when I knew where we were going.. I-I.. Vini said it wasn't safe to send messages that far or.. or that it might fall into the wrong hands.."

  Haneth listened, her hand silent on Cyndyn’s shoulder. “Then here is what we will do,” she whispered, leaning closer. Her fingers dipped into the purse buckled at her belt and removed a small pouch, evergreen, embroidered with a rampant mare. Its mane was stitched with gold. “I want you to take this, and let it remind you that you have friends here. And this…” From the same pouch she pulled out a spare bowstring, a flawless taut cord she had been saving for a different emergency. “Tie this around the nearest yew tree, or ash if you cannot find one, and I will know you are safe.”

  Cyndyn blinked, her brows furrowing as she looked down at the purse and bowstring. "But.. but I'm not going away now.. I-I.. Should I do that every day? What if I can't find a yew or ash tree? What if you can't find the tree that I tied it on and then you worry.. or what if someone takes or if a bear eats it?" Her voice was a soft worried whisper, and she eyed the purse. "That stitching is too nice.. what if I get robbed?"

  “No one robs an empty purse,” she said, fingering the hem open and slipping the coiled sinew into its belly. “And nothing will eat a bowstring.” She pressed the gift into her Cyndyn’s palm and held her closed fingers around it. “If you cannot find ash or yew, find oak, or holly, any tree that reminds you of this place. And I will find it.” She gave the hand around the pouch a squeeze. “I promise.”

  Dyn chewed her lower lip, her gaze falling to the pouch and she returned the gentle squeeze. "I-I.. I'll try to keep it with me, but.. only.. only I have a reason to leave and can't tell you.." She exhaled a breath, leaning her shoulder against Haneth's frame. "I don't want to do that again though.. I .. I worried Vini those days so much when we had left like that. I was.. I was upset to have left everyone like that."

  Haneth’s fingers slipped away, leaving the purse in Cyndyn’s care. “It was unfair to you, what he did.” Not once had she looked at the man stretched out behind her, his back wrapped in bandages rising in the only rhythm she trusted – steady, silent sleep. “I understand why you went. Though I cannot say I think anyone I loved would steal me away from my home and family.” A shadow crept into her eyes. “I need to speak with Arra. I do not want you anywhere near her until I have sorted this mess out. If you see her, walk the other way, and I will tell her to do the same. Do you understand?”

  Dyn dropped her gaze from Haneth, her fingers twisting at the strings of the purse left in her hands. "He wanted to protect me.. I had been attacked.. And he was scared that they planned to kill me.. If he hadn't come home when he did.." She winced. "He was doing what he thought was best.. and I.. I should've.. I'm sorry Haneth. I'm sorry." She sniffled, rubbing at her eyes. "I should've stayed with you.."

  “Quiet now,” she encouraged, drawing Cyndyn back into the fold of her feathered shoulder. “What is done is done. You are here now, and you are safe, and we are going to keep you that way.”

  The young woman sighed, cradling herself closer to Haneth and wrapping her arms around Haneth's frame. "I'm sorry Haneth." She mumbled softly, her head resting against Haneth's feathered shoulder.

  “So am I.” She kissed Cyndyn’s forehead and looked sadly down at her cuts and bruises, mere echoes of the deeper scars she bore. “Get some rest. I brought you a basket of food and some wine. It will be waiting for you when you wake. I will come again tomorrow to check on you.”

  Dyn sighed as she drew away from Haneth, her hands reaching up to twist her hair back from her features and twist it to the back of her neck. "Thank you.. I.." She hung her head and trailed off, stopping the rest of her sentence. "Thank you." She repeated, softly as she leaned back into the mattress.

  Haneth stood and tugged at the sheets till they were freed. Moving about the bed as she would a thicket full of beasts, on silent soles with muted breath, she drew the blanket over the girl and tucked it over her shoulders. “Sleep, and stay safe,” she whispered with a kiss to her forehead. “Sleep.”

  Dyn smiled faintly as she settled in as Haneth drew the sheets and blankets up over her battered figure. A yawn escaped her lips and she let her eyes drift shut and slip into a gentle slumber.