@Rillewen
Domanol Raxëlilta with
Gwestion.
Leaving the rooms above ‘Wood Works’ store, in the Second Circle Marketplace.
At some sill too early hour of 31st December.
The darkness hung heavy over the entire room, as though a vast blanket that would succumb all beneath to slumber. And yet somehow his company for the evening seemed suddenly more animated than ever. In the same time that
Domanol was slowly slackening, allowing his physical self to rest, and be ready, for the moment when he could sneak out ...
Gwestion seemed to be awakening to the very serious consequences of what had failed to register before now. That the danger did not start when
Ava and her optimistic escort docked in Umbar itself. The danger was already amongst them.
Dom might have been glad to observe the penny drop, if he had not been so utterly disheartened by the truth of what they were in fact up against. If their ever more inventive theories were to be believed, then things were far worse than they had even dared to imagine. And the fact that the Northerner was worried about
Gladhron in a way that he had not seemed even remotely as concerned about
Seri, moments earlier, threatened to unravel
Domanol.
In silence he heard the younger man catch up to his own concerns. And any hope that the usually more rational of their duo would manage to dismiss all that the evidence suggested ‘might’ be true .. failed to present. The elder’s intention to seek out an audience with the King upon the morrow, did not even have the same staying power to calm
Gwestion, as it had apparently, been accepted by the Lieutenant.
The notion that perhaps
Arnyn had simply spent too much time with
Gladhron so that the latter had rubbed off on the former, was a consideration that
Dom did not bother to broach aloud. Because
Gwes was right. It
would have seemed almost comical, if not for the undeniable aspect which had turned all things more precarious. The stranger amongst them, posing as a friend. There was simply not a single explanation that
Dom could conceive, why someone like
Pharak Halsad could not know about the daughter of two heretics whom he had murdered himself. Even if
Ava wasn’t knowingly leading them all into a trap, did not mean she was not still leading them all, herself included, into a trap. And some of the keenest minds he had ever encountered had sleepwalked them all into such a state of things. No, being right, or even convincing somebody else that he might be, was no satisfaction this night.
Domanol did not want to be right about any of this.
He could have asked
Gwestion what good he thought that ‘checking’ on
Gladhron would be, if the man’s brother was as influenced by fell theories as the Lieutenant apparently was. He could have pointed out that if the Gate Guards were not willing to let
Domanol speak to
Seri or the girls, before they’d handed in their testimonies, then they would not let
Gwestion seek out
Gladhron this night either, until he too had fulfilled that very same requirement. He might have raised the problem that the two of them could not resolve the situation really at all, for so long as they remained uncertain of what the situation actually involved. But the want, the need, to see a now imperilled loved one for himself, that much
Dom could comprehend well enough. And perhaps
Gwestion could prove as ally now .. rather than the obstinate obstacle he had posed as for most of the evening else.
By the time that
Addhor had acknowledged that the persistent mutters from his living space were finally quietened, and realised that this was very unlikely due to his brother having settled down for the night .. by the time that he had accepted that even words he could only half hear and could not rightly comprehend were still unwilling to let him sleep, … and by the time he recalled the events which had followed the last similarly unsettled night that his brother had spent with a friend, cloistered in half-silenced secrets .. by the time he had decided to check for himself, .. that elder brother found his younger sibling gone. And their guest also. And while it has to be said that a momentary sigh escaped the former Ranger, at the fact that he was in no fair state these days to chase them down, wherever they might have gone now .. there was also a guilty relief to be found in the very same realisation.
Guard recruit
Sorrela Korsey, stood sentry at the Gate to the Third Circle.
So hindering
Domanol Raxëlilta and
Gwestion.
At some still too early hour of 31st December.
The Guard recruit assigned to the Third Gate was not so fortunate that she could refrain from involvement. Not even scheduled to stand sentry this night, she had been called away from her relentless paperwork to help close down the circle gates. This was a rare occurrence and one which most folk even resident in the city did not realise occurred at all. But when the Guard were short staffed, and/or when the need arose, the gates between the circles were physically closed. And though a Guard was allotted to hold each outpost, and be on hand in the case of fire or some other need which would call for the portals to be reopened .. the young woman was left stamping her boots against the frigid hour, and bemoaning all she could be doing back at her warm desk. And that was even before the two men turned up with a clear ambition to find their way past her outpost.
“
Halt” A clear voice was propelled out of her throat, belying her age and gender both. The impressive frame she had inherited from her father was particularly advantageous when visibility was compromised. As it currently was. “
The hour is late and it must be an urgent cause indeed to see you seek out passage between the circles,” she pointed out her take on the situation. And then recognised her father’s friend amongst the two men. And quietened, to see how he might play this.
“
Sorrela”
Dom acknowledged the young woman, before muttering back a half stifled “
Narradir’s eldest,” as explanation to keep
Gwestion informed.
“
I had understood that you were staying with your brother, on the Second Circle,” she returned her own inside knowledge in turn. Dark eyes flicked between the two men though the rest of her stood still, poised, and ready as a cat to pounce if provoked. “
Are you in need of assistance ?” There were certainly several known foes which the Guard recruit could name which might have inspired this sort of untimely action. But few which would have led the former Guard to seek out entry to a higher circle, rather than to the Guard Headquarters which was on the tier he currently possessed. “
I do not know your friend,” she mentioned, when the men were forced to spend a moment considering their next move.
“
This is Gwestion, a fellow Ranger of the Northern kingdom,”
Domanol relented, eventually. "
And .. this is new .." he remarked, of the restriction. A frown met their delay, and idly glanced up the height of the wall as one hand stroked the man's recent-groomed chin.
“
You were away from the city for a long time. Many things are likely not as you remember them,”
Sorrel inched her fingers on the staff she had to hand. Not cleared yet of a rank to allow a bladed weapon, she was nonetheless more than capable from experience in her father’s forestry team, to make a significant impact with the blunt tool. “
My sentry partner is stationed on the other side of the gate. It will take the both of us to agree whether to and to manage to open it,” she told him, what she imagined that he was asking, without speaking the exact words. “
He can pass word to the next gate if it is a message you require to get through.”
Hearing this,
Domanol turned to
Gwestion and readied himself for another round of Rohirrim speech, for which he was not entirely wakened enough to anticipate at the moment. The Guards were either responding to their own diminished numbers, or some warning had already gone out. No doubt from the Lieutenant herself. An impressive series of expletives was unleashed against the wall that the man turned away to behold. And still that barrier of stone stood as unyielding as the young Guard was likely to prove.
With a resigned sigh,
Dom gestured to
Gwestion to try his luck, if he should be of the mood. But the outcome of their efforts would prove all the same regardless. The gate was closed. And whether the two exhausted but adrenaline-fuelled Rangers of the North elected to remain and argue the point until dawn leant a new turn on their circumstances, or if they pressed too far and ended up awaiting in a Guarded cell until their kin had finished making report to the Guards, it was all the same. There would be no passing through to the upper circles this night. Even if
Sorrela had been of a disposition to aide their goal, her unidentified partner on the other side of the gate would be less easily persuaded. The Tower Guard had undergone such a state of affairs of late, that nobody was willing to be lenient in the face of the sorts of perils even peace could fling at the stalwart city of stone.
The way was shut. They could not pass. All that remained was to hope that the morrow would propose some more pleasing outcome for all whom the long night had troubled.
