Arkadhur and
Ilisys
Behind the unlit bonfire ..
@Pele Alarion @Arnyn @Isolde Alarion @Rillewen @Lantaelen
He might have been off his feet, but
Arkadhur was spared now from
Shamara’s clutching grasp. And yet for all that he was the one laid out on the grass, and she stood upright, still it was the wily woman seeking to take him down with her now. He would not have expected anything less. But did she honestly expect for anybody to believe her .. honest to goodness truth ? Not from those lips. She was a liar, and everybody knew it. So they would not hear a truth spoke from her serpent tongue.
“
You really will say anything to save your pretty hide, won’t you ?”
Arkadhur shook his head in apparent amazement, perhaps at the instinct to resort now to his more practiced Dol Amroth accent. As the blonde woman revealed that she knew him to be a ‘contact’ of
Isys, he focused on the grass that tickled his bare palm. “
Why exactly would I ever agree to help them capture you, if I had, as you claim, wanted to see you freed from a prison cell ?” he then put to
Shamara the riddle of his greatest alibi. Raising up his gaze from spying where her half of the cookie had fallen, to meaningfully meet the woman’s own dark eyes. “
That makes no sense at all,” he pointed out, and shook his head once as he began to sit up. At least to gather his limbs better so that he might rise, or run if need should call for it. But the game of bluffs persevered. There were simply a few more players now, and some of them were fool enough to believe they'd all play by the rules.
Ilisys held her place and a deep seated distaste as the Trafficker employed her silken speech and disarming disregard. She was very much relieved to note that
Arnyn had refrained from engaging with her now prisoner. For
Shamara could weave something of a spiders web with her words, easily entangling anybody who dared wander into the mesh and find themselves in an ever more strangled state of mind all too soonafter. The Lieutenant had been schooled well.
Yet perhaps the Ehtyar’s rather pronounced move to stand between
Mourgan and all chance of his gaining vengeance had been rather too evident. For it took very little time at all for her superior to coolly redirect the Belfalasian’s priorities. And there
Isys paused, holding for a single palpable moment before falling to compliance. "
As you say," she relented, obliging. It was as far as she might indicate her placing a begrudging faith in
Arnyn. Or more begrudging the faith that
Arnyn clearly had in
Mourgan. A year ago the Ehtyar would not have doubted a comrade in arms, not when it counted; but a lot had happened in that year.
Macardil. The Meeting ..
Ilisys was very glad it was not her call to make; here, now, for she could not have been said to be utterly convinced it was safe. Still, she had been bidden to her own assignment, and that required a whole other shade of faith. So stepping instead toward
Arkadhur,
Isys offered her old associate a hand to heave himself upright. “
Come,” she bade him, although it were not an order but more an encouragement. And to
Shamara’s allegation,
Isys spoke up naught but evaded the Man’s eye, as determinedly as he also dodged her’s. The Ranger turned and met the trafficker instead with an unblinking silence as she sought to read that beguiling young face. It was only a surprise to her that
Shamara knew the truth, of who had set her free. Had he admitted it to the other Umbarian or had she guessed ? Had he enjoyed admitting it ? He had certainly been waiting for a more satisfying reaction when he had revealed his part to the Belfalasian.
As
Arnyn called on
Mourgan to assist her with
Shamara,
Arkadhur found time to better scrutinise the young couple, and the blonde who seemed to be in charge here. They were Rangers, he assumed then. He was in the process of treading his own crumbled cookie half into ruin underneath one foot, when he caught a wider angle of
Cali than he had before, and instinctively stepped back rather further where he was scuffing, than he had meant to. The drinking glass that the blonde had discarded fractured abruptly under the weight of his boot, with a small pop which hopefully disguised his surprise.
“
You will surely require your wits,” he spoke up, suddenly seeming to agree with
Arnyn’s judgement, or simply to detract from his recent clumsiness. “
She has no concern for anybody but herself,” he met
Cali’s eye then, as
Isys pushed him wordlessly away from the shards of broken glass, and proceeded to gather them up carefully from the grass. “
No comprehension of how far reaching the consequences of her any reckless move … ” The Man was smiling very seriously as he concluded. “
If she were smart she would say naught at all,” he supposed, turning belatedly back toward
Shamara at this end.
“
Some are aware of more details than others,”
Isys spoke up suddenly as she found her full height. Raising grey eyes up from her one hand, now a glittering mound of powdered glass, the Ehtyar had stamped what of the remaining, perilous, glittered dust she could not grasp, deep into the mud, so at least to mark the place. Her 'contact' calmly found his fingers into a low hemmed pocket she hadn’t acknowledged about the skirt of her untypical drab dress. Holding the mouth of it wide, he waited and then allowed for the Noblewoman to stow her tiny shards of mischief within. For convenience’s sake. She glanced back in the direction they had come, as though unaware of his proximity, and her gaze loitered a moment with a furrowing brow. “
Such a sighting, against all odds, may be but the diversion,” was the fear she revealed aloud. To nobody apparent in particular.
And without a further explanation, or awaiting approval,
Isys made steps back around the unlit bonfire, pausing only once and for a second, until
Arkadhur fell in wordlessly beside her. Then she led the way with her ‘contact’ keeping pace, towards the first people she happened to see beyond the curve of the unlit bonfire:
Pele and
Abrazimir. It went already beyond her unease at keeping further any matters in this from her friend.
"
Here," she said, to
Arkadhur, as they made steps. "
Now." She turned her face on him, and added "
Why ?"
To which he could not give an answer that would satisfy so did not make attempt.
