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@Ercassie
Eryn gave Hattie another little rub on the back before sitting back again. It was not hard to believe Nal's comment that the dog loved her, and it was not as if she didn't already know it. But to see such a small dog taking on a man much bigger than her.. she was just relieved she hadn't gotten terribly hurt. Nal's question made Eryn glance at him next, partly checking if he was speaking to her, or to Hattie. She hesitated as she saw he was looking at her. "Just my shoulder, a bit, when he yanked it." She answered quietly, reassuring him. "But.." she bit her lip briefly before continuing. "He did hurt Hattie a bit." She confessed a little bit tentatively.

"I made sure she got checked out, at the houses of healing, because he hit her against the wall and it knocked her out." She frowned in concern. "I could've run away then, when he was distracted by her, but he was going to kill her. So.. I had to stop him." She drew in a breath. "I had to tell him that she'd run off with all those incriminating papers, and that she was the only one who knew where she'd put them, so he needed her alive to find them again. If not for all that.. I might've gotten away while he was distracted by her. But I couldn't leave her to be killed." She explained. "He even said he'd killed dogs before," She added with a troubled frown. "He sounded.. almost proud of it."

Duinion frowned slightly at this, mentally taking note of that as he glanced at Domanol briefly, but of course.. he had never met Ryn. But he did know Sindarin well enough that he ought to know that 'Ryn' meant 'hound'. He glanced at Nal then, curious whether the younger ranger would put that thought together, since he must be aware of what his friend's name meant. Hearing all of this was difficult for the father, and Duinion wanted to hold his daughter in his arms and comfort her, like he would when she was little. But she was sitting by Unalmis, and Hattie, and that would require him moving away from the window. He told himself that if she wanted her daddy to hug her, she would move to sit next to him, instead of her friend. So, he focused the best he could on listening to what she was telling them, and thinking through the information as a ranger, rather than a father.

Domanol's inquiry about the dagger paused Eryn from thoughts of people killing dogs, and she let out a little sigh. "He has it." She admitted quietly, upset by the fact. "I really wanted to keep him from getting it. I thought Cali should have it.. but he took it away from me.." She paused. "You know, you mentioning about the guards? That also makes me think about this; this guy definitely seemed to know how to apprehend someone, just like a guard would be trained to do." She frowned, uncomfortably remembering how easily he'd managed to get her into a position so that she couldn't get free. "Even with both arms injured, he was able to pin me and get my hands tied behind my back."

Duinion's jaw tightened at that, but he reminded himself she was safe now, and that she said she had not been harmed. "Did he say anything else?" He asked quietly, wanting to get through this sooner than later. Especially if the creep was likely to show up here tonight. "Anything that could be useful to know?"

Eryn paused, thinking back. "He said he hadn't expected anyone to be there, but he had some ideas about how I could be useful to him. And then he said he needed me alive for something." She said thoughtfully. "That he needed my help with something, and I told him I wasn't going to help him. But he said I wouldn't have to do anything but stay put. Which he made sure I couldn't really do anything but that, so..." She sighed and looked down at the straw on the floor of the loft. "That's why I figured he was probably trying to set some sort of trap, and that he was using me for bait." She explained, glancing up at her dad, then at Nal, and back to her dad. "I just didn't know who the trap was supposed to be for. So.. I figured I ought to try and leave a warning."

Duinion smiled faintly. "I appreciated the warning, although I did already gather that much." He assured her. "Is that everything? Was there anything else?"

Thinking for a moment, Eryn went over the whole series of events from that point. "He blindfolded me, and made me go with him somewhere. I could tell it was a forest but it didn't feel.. old?" She made a puzzled expression, trying to make sense of that. "Like I could tell there were trees and underbrush around, pretty thickly, but.. they weren't tall enough to make it shady." Shrugging, she left off from that thought. It was less important. "Anyway, at some point I managed to trip him and knock him down, then I tried to get away. But.. I didn't really know where I was going. I just wanted.. I guess, to try and leave you some sort of message." She explained. "Then he called out and told me I was about to fall off a cliff, so I stopped.." She sighed.

"Ahhhh..." Duinion smiled faintly. "I wondered about that." He muttered, then motioned to her. "Go on," He encouraged, not wanting to interrupt.

"I thought maybe I could go forward, really cautiously, because I was hoping he was only saying it to scare me. But then I actually did fall off of something.. I didn't fall far, though," She added hastily, before Nal or Dom could get worried. "Just.. not even as high as this loft. But it was scary. And he just.. laughed. Like really mockingly." She scowled at that. "Jerk."

"He does seem like a most unpleasant fellow," Duinion muttered.

Eryn nodded quietly. "Very. He kept calling me dumb, too. For being friends with Nal, and other things." She frowned. "And.. when he caught up to me, he something that didn't make sense." She added, tilting her head as that returned to memory. "Something about wondering what it was with 'red haired girls' having 'fiery temperaments' and being compelled to 'fight to the end' or something." She frowned. "I don't know what that was supposed to mean, but then he threatened me." She said quietly. She drew in a slow breath. "He said if I did anything like that again, he'd cut off my hands, and send one to you, and one to you." She said, looking first at her dad, and then at Unalmis. "I.. thought it best not to test if he was bluffing, after remembering that dead woman." She explained in a quieter tone.

This information hit Duinion like a punch to the stomach. He swallowed, nodding slowly, glad that she had not tried to press her luck in that regard. He glanced at Domanol, guessing that sort of threat might sound like something the other man had either heard before, or had heard of being used against people. In Umbar.

"He brought me to some cave," Eryn concluded after a brief pause. "And he pushed me down into some pit. Then, he went to get Hattie, I guess, and while he was gone, I used my knife to cut the ropes," She paused. "The knife Kaylin gave me," she clarified, indicating the belt she wore over her dress, which didn't actually have much purpose other than just being there. She didn't know if Domanol was aware that the buckle concealed a knife, but the other two would know about it.

"When he came back, he saw that I wasn't tied anymore, and he wanted to know how I got loose. When I refused to tell him, he made more threats." She frowned. "This time, not to me. But to my family." She had told Duinion this much already, so she looked at Nal and Dom, now. "He said something about how he knows where I live, and how 'even rangers have to sleep sometimes', like he might try and kill Dad." She frowned. "And he said he could make something happen to Aunt Aggie, or Uncle Cailon.. or the kids. So, I told him that he hadn't tied the knots well enough, and he seemed to accept it." She shrugged. "It made sense, with his arms being injured. Then he threw Hattie down on me and made some cruel joke about how she might get hungry enough to eat me, or the other way around..."

She sighed. "Then he tossed me a canteen and said he didn't know how long it'd be before he returned, so I'd better make it last." She explained. "But he said he would definitely be back," She hesitated, debating for a moment whether to tell them the other thing he had said. She decided maybe it would be best if they did know, however. "And he said that we'd be going on a trip, and that we'd have a lot of 'fun'. But the way he said it..." She trailed off, figuring it was unnecessary to explain further.

@Rillewen

“It sounds like the two of you gave back more than what you got,” Unalmis noted with a single eyebrow raised as Eryn let him know the extent of damages done. He was not at all surprised by their behaviour, given what he knew of both the irrepressible females. He was not entirely consoled by it either though, for to say that ‘Rip’ held a grudge was a wild understatement. “Thank you,” he took his friend’s hand, aware that not just anybody would have put their own life at risk for a dog.

Domanol wondered at the look which Duinion shot him, for his head was far too full of thoughts to take the ‘dog’ insult as anything beyond literal. It was clear that Androllius Junior was exactly the type of young man to harm an animal without the slightest remorse. His nephew however had heard the bully use the ‘dog’ name against his late friend far too many times, that the connection was as automatic as it was unwelcome. And as Eryn admitted that her attacker had taken the stolen dagger back again, he became very conscious that he was still holding onto her hand. Else he might have succumbed to the want to examine his own knife. Particularly as his friend proceeded to describe how the Guard had treated her.


“That might be my fault,” the elder man admitted, when Eryn and Duinion discussed the possible motives of the cruel man. “When he met me at the tree, pretending to be Unalmis ..” he began and was interrupted by a sharp .. “When he .. what ?!” from his nephew, before he raised a hand to beg he be allowed to finish. “Once I began to grow suspicious, I told him that this time we have something that Pharak will want back’.” Domanol looked with regret from the father to his daughter.

“Silugnir has Matsu Halsad,” he confessed. “He won’t tell me where, but suffice to say our mutual enemy found the Elf’s family too. And he really did not take to the threat against his people kindly. As far as I know, the corsair is .. at least alive .. and he’s left him with a trusted associate while he is at Lond Col. Anyway, I was hoping this pretender of ours might react to that news, or at least pass it on to the Blood Priest. Then we’d know for certain that if they heard about it, they could only have heard about it from him. Also .. he'd know that we have leverage. It should have granted us some degree of advantage.

I didn’t ever think he’d be so stupid to try and take somebody else for himself to exchange, or something. Matsu is the eldest son, the heir. And ..” The specifics of a certain treaty with the Jackal tribe of Harad were too complicated to outline so the Ranger in the North just concluded that “Let's just say that if this ‘Rip’ took Eryn, as a retaliation, or to equal up the leverage, he did not get that order from Pharak. The Blood Priest would never risk our taking out his first choice in response to hurts done here. He’s invested far too much in his firstborn”


“I doubt ‘Rip’ needed any help from you to put the idea of abductions in his head, to be honest,” Nal ventured, albeit slowly, and in all likelihood, to take the conversation back away from the P word. If he had held some unintentional hostility against his Uncle, for being the reason for his own ill treatment at the hands of the Blood Priest, the younger man was now quite aware how it felt to have those you care for, .. imperiled .. just because of their relationship. “He was part of that whole mess last year, trying to take Cali and Iole off, for his own amusement. And ..”

“And .. what ?” his uncle wanted to know what more might be shared. But Nal then shook his head, unwilling to go where that subject would have took him next. “This is the gate thing you mentioned ?” the elder man guessed, shifting the subject. For which he received a sullen nod in agreement.


“I know there has been at least one other red-headed girl he has antagonised, She escaped him too,” Domanol then shared, to return to Eryn’s confusion over that detail, and to offer some hope for their own glad conclusion to this trouble. But he did not give up any further detail about that, other than to shake his head for a ‘no’ when Nal mouthed “Kaylin ?” at a guess, without sound. The former Guard was still chasing a few lines of enquiry about the Strawberry matter, but he did not have anything concrete enough to give up now. And besides, it was likely not relevant to any potential attack the fool might try to come at them tonight.

The news of just how far Eryn’s assailant had gone, promising to maim her, was not taken lightly by anybody present. Not when the girl had already described the dead woman, and more than one of them also knew what was regularly done to victims of a certain Umbarian House. Domanol met his blood brother’s glance and gave back a mutual disgust at the very notion, narrowing brown eyes. This ‘Rip’ had gone .. too far. And Unalmis was in agreement, even before his friend detailed how she had been left .. in the dark .. with the prospect of dying of thirst before he might ever choose to return .. to prey on her mind. As for the notion of Hattie devouring the girl in desperate hunger … as unlikely as it might sound .. anyone who knew about a certain enemy’s fondness for keeping jackals would think twice about the danger of that coming about.


“If we’re all agreed that this is ‘Rip’ who did this,” Nal ventured, and did not wait for a chorus of agreement before he observed that “Then this is the first sighting anyone has had of him since he fled town back in July. How sure are you that he’s going to come out here tonight ?” he checked with Eryn.

“Let’s just let Dui bring out any further information he got, when he tracked our girls here down, before we think of setting up any more traps,” Domanol suggested, and with a gesture of one hand, handed the floor back to his friend. Hoping that they might be near now to the end of such a mess of woe.

@Ercassie
Nal's quiet 'thanks' made Eryn smile slightly at him and she lightly squeezed his hand. She loved Hattie as much as Nal, and there was no way that she could have left her to be killed. Even thinking back, she felt sure that if she had to make that choice again, she would make the same choice again.

Duinion rubbed his eyes, sort of wondering why he had thought staying up yet another night in a row was a good idea. He shifted his position slightly and forced himself to focus. Whether Dom had made the connection to the name or not, he couldn't tell, but it also didn't really matter too much, he realized. But, when he looked at Nal, he thought he did look as if he made the connection. It actually didn't surprise him, given what close friends the two were.

Dom's words brought both Duinion's and Eryn's attention back toward him. Of course, Duinion knew about the Unalmis imposter, but Eryn was just as stunned as Nal, to hear about it. She sat up a little straighter, wide-eyed to hear about this. But she stalled from asking more about it, since Domanol motioned to let him finish. She frowned as she heard what he had to say, but for the moment all she could think about was that someone had pretended to be Nal. For what purpose, she wondered? And who was this Silugnir he spoke of? Eryn found it interesting to hear that there was another red haired girl involved somehow, but it seemed that Domanal was unwilling to speak more about that. So she just kept quiet and listened, trying to gather more information from what they were talking about.

The more the talk turned to the Blood Priest and his family and associates, the more Duinion began to think that the time had come for him to speak up with what he knew. He considered that, as Nal spoke up to ask Eryn about how sure she was.

Eryn hesitated. "Well. I don't know that he would come tonight. I just know he said he was going to come back. And, I figured, he might have been planning to be gone a long time, or he might have only wanetd to make me think he was. For all I know, he could've already come back to that cave and found me gone. And if he's found that I'm gone, he could do anything." She said softly. "He already threatened to hurt my dad, or the others.. he obviously has something against you," She said, looking at Nal. Then she turned toward her dad as Dom suggested he share anything he might have learned.

Duinion cleared his throat and sat up a little more. He took a look out through the window to make sure that he wasn't neglecting to watch, then turned back to the others. "Right. So, there are a few things I should share. And, as I said.. please forgive me for not sharing this sooner." He looked at Dom, then at Nal, and back to Dom. "After we parted ways the other morning.." He paused, thinking. "Or was it yesterday?" He felt as if the days had sort of blurred together, having not slept. "Whatever day it was.. the day after we were all together, last." He tried to clarify. "I was in town getting some things from the bakery, when Aggie came to find me." He drew in a breath. "She was.. frantic." He hesitated. "Buttercup had come home... without Eryn." He explained, letting his gaze drift to Eryn now, before going back to Dom. "She had a note tucked into her bridle."

He paused only long enough to draw in a breath, then went on before anyone could ask what the note said. "There were no words. Only.. a sketch. A canine.. which, judging from what you've told me, Dom, I guessed it was meant to be a jackal." He found one hand idly breaking a piece of straw into small bits, down by his leg. "I assumed, therefore, that your enemies were trying to set a trap for you, through me. Using Eryn." He spoke quietly. "Either that, or they were trying to lure Unalmis into a trap." He added, glancing at the younger ranger. "Either way.. I wanted to keep both of you out of it.. because it seemed pretty clear to me that you coming looking for her was exactly what whoever was responsible wanted."

@Ercassie @Pele Alarion
Dolûzor's boasts didn't really impress Mar any more than Nal's protests had done. He smiled. "They shouldn't ever have a chance to make such accusations, if all goes as planned," He muttered, while traveling up the path to return to the guardhouse. "But if something goes wrong, you and I have never laid eyes on one another before.. and you received these prisoners from a Lieutenant Feirion, not me." He instructed the Umbarian, intending to make sure there were no loose ends to worry about. No, he looked nothing like the other lieutenant, but since the other guy was a lieutenant also, he made for a perfect scapegoat, in case anyone remembered that there was a lieutenant on guard tonight. Now, if they could just get the pests into the wagon without any trouble...

As Dol brandishes his crossbow and instructed the two to go into the wagon, Mar stood in position to keep an eye on the gate, watching for anyone approaching. However, it seemed that the two were going to continue to be a problem. Mar held back a sigh as he heard Nal's friend protesting. At the 'not proper protocol' comment, Mar rolled his eyes before turning back toward the guy. "And what would you even know about proper protocol?" He retorted. "Things change sometimes, you know. They update the post orders all the time, demanding better security." He scowled. "I'll not have anyone accusing me of failing at my job, nor will the Sergeant here," He indicated his newly arrived accomplice, having noticed that his stolen uniform was that of a sergeant. He wasn't sure how familiar the Umbarian was with the uniform and insignia of the guards, but Mar certainly was. Even if his brother had managed to skip that particular rank.

"But, if you'd rather stay in that little shack all night, that's fine by me," Mar mentioned with a bored shrug. "I'll just add a note into your record about you being uncooperative, which clearly indicates you're hiding something." He glanced from one to the other, with one hand casually resting on his sword. "I mean, first you tried to hide in some farmer's wagon to avoid the gate check, then you refuse to be searched, now this..?" He looked at Dol. "I bet they're trying to smuggle something out of the city. Don't you?" He looked at Nal and Cadil suspiciously. "Maybe you planned on meeting up with some sort of smugglers in the harbor. Pirates.. isn't that what your friend's doing, these days?" He asked Nal with a raised eyebrow, before glancing toward Dol. "Smuggling's become quite a problem in your area, I hear.. seems we've managed to catch a couple of them." He concluded with a faint smirk.

---

@Ercassie
"A houseful!" Rurik's face lit up a bit at this news, and especially the part where the guy declared that they were 'all yours', as well as anything that came back from the gate. He moved closer to the shy girl standing by Nik, but Nik shifted slightly to keep his crewmate from reaching for her. "Captain's gonna want this one," He informed the other man. "So paws off."

"Aww, no fair." Rurik grumbled.

"There's a houseful coming," Nik reminded him smugly. "And they'll be all ours. Come on, then, let's get these two down below and loaded on the ship before anyone comes looking for 'em." He gave a little jerk of his chin toward the other barrel, where the more battered of the two females was located. He did, however, take note, and gave a little nod, when Ark warned them about the injured one. Willful, hm? He glanced at her and wondered what exactly sort of resistence she'd put up, to bring about such a beating, but he didn't bother asking.

Rurik sighed and gave a last look toward the one by Nik, then went over to the barrel, then frowned. "Wait a minute. Nik, you're s'posed to be on watch duty," he remembered. "You and Dol.."

"Dol's gone to fetch the rest of the girls," Nik smirked. Besides, Rurik would need help getting both girls down below, and one wasn't even conscious. Besides.. "And, our friend here has just volunteered to take over watch duty, didn't you hear?" He pointed out, then slid an arm around the girl's waist to keep her close to him. He looked at her with a sort of sly smile. "Don't be so shy, no one's gonna hurt you." He told her. He glanced around, then took the bonnet that had been used as a gag around her mouth, smoothed it a bit, then pulled it up so that it covered her face. "Sorry, it's a secret, where we're going." He whispered in her ear before picking her up to carry her, slung over one shoulder. "Got the other?" He checked with Rurik, then he stepped through the opening leading to the long, steep stairway.

Rurik copied the same with the unconscious girl after pulling her out of the barrel, and set off behind Nik with his own load. After pulling the display table back over to cover the opening, he and Nik started downward. Going down was a bit less strenuous than going up, so he didn't need to take breaks on the way back down. At the bottom, Nik checked that the girl's bonnet was still securely over her face, then went through the maze of shelves and things to get to where the men were working on the underground dock.

"Where's captain?" Rurik demanded, huffing and puffing after the downward climb without any rest, as he shifted his load a little to sit on his shoulder a bit more comfortably for him. Nik set Iole back on her feet, but kept the bonnet over her face.

"Over there," Another crewman pointed, eyeing the two girls rather interestedly. "What's this?" He left the crates he'd been loading, and came to examine the girl standing by Nik.

"Keep your hands off," Nik warned. "She ain't for you."

"Says who?" The other scowled and made a grab for her arm, but Nik pushed him away. It seemed very likely the two were about to get into a fight...

@Rillewen

Unalmis had been rather less concerned about them immediately setting up a trap for ‘Rip’ and rather more trying to figure out where the scheming little toad was … right at this moment. “I only asked because … ” he began, and was shhh’d by his Uncle, who was trying to focus on what Duinion now had to tell them.

Yesterday may have been the first time that any of them had seen the nefarious Guard since he had been forced to go on the run. But ‘Rip’ clearly had not gone very far away from home, and he had managed to evade the entire Guard and also volunteers who had been out searching for him .. Of course, yesterday was maybe not the last time that anyone had seen ‘Rip’. And the latest sighting was doubtless the most important. So, hoping very much that others (such as the girls .. just as an example. Or Trev or at least a dozen other potential targets that he could think of in under a minute) who didn’t even know the traitorous murderer was still so close .. were not in any immediate danger of bumping into him while they sat here and debated the where fors and whys and hows … he tried to hold in his impatience. Though it was thinly concealed at best. "Maybe it is not supposed to be a jackal," he remarked, quietly. Hopefully ? Though what else it might mean ... "A dog does not look especially unlike a jackal, especially if the artist is no artist at all."


“That is a very obvious trap,” Domanol agreed with his friend regardless, once he had heard about the horse and it’s message, stroking his chin as he considered what Duinion was saying. There was no doubt in his mind by now (as at any time really) that someone linked to the Halsad's had conjured this up. But he was still working through the link between his enemies at home and those further abroad. “Of course Junior certainly seems to have made it his business to find out about you enough to send such a message. But did he know enough about you, to realise you probably wouldn’t tell us ? Did you ever think that maybe what he wanted was for you to follow where he led you, by yourself ? He took your daughter, Dui. Not mine. And if he knows as much about us all as seems to be the case .. I think it’s fair to say he made his choice for a reason.”


“Because he found Eryn already investigating his secret lair ?” Unalmis supposed, with a shrug which almost entirely threw off the severity of the sentence. And absolutely no remorse at the fact he had just interrupted .. again. He exchanged a glance with Eryn herself, whom Hattie had now taken to licking .. at their joined hands. “’Rip’ doesn’t plan this sort of thing, he isn’t smart enough. He just .. reacts,” the younger man put in. “He’s an opportunist. If he sees someone he can take advantage of, he always does. You don’t know him,” he reminded his Uncle. “He’s not that Guard Captain you remember. Remember ?”


As much as the .. almost .. rebuke that had just erupted at him did take the older man back a little, still he did feel better on some level. For how could he not want to believe that he had not in fact brought this whole mess down on them by revealing their own hostage ? It was bad enough that this entire mess was his fault in the first place .. possibly ? Probably. But to find out that the son of a man he had antagonised twenty years ago ended up working cruelties with another man he had .. antagonised almost twenty years ago .. it was bothering him. Sure there was a mutual enemy there for Androllius and Halsad. But how had they even found one another, when they lived so far apart ? Who had sought out who ? Was there a common denominator … a certain smuggler by any chance, who happened to hate how close his wife was to her neighbours .. and would know and be able to reach both those other two ?

He was starting to wish he’d brought the sword with him. His friend might be expecting the louse to try something tonight, but had Dui even stopped to consider that that enemy might not be coming here without some reinforcements of his own ? And as for their own hope of further assistance … Dom had deliberately delayed his brother from being able to follow him out here .. He pushed that thought away though, quite sure he would have to pay for that later one way or another.

“I know he is a coward, to not come at his enemy directly," Domanol observed aloud, gravely. "Perhaps something he learned from a certain Umbarian whom I do know better than I wish I did,” It was of course absolutely cowardly to take a hostage. In the case of first Pharak and now this younger Androllius doing the nefarious deed. Silugnir on the other hand, had seized a man who’d done wrong to those whom the Elf cared about. In that light, Matsu Halsad therefore deserved all that he might get. The corsair was not an innocent. Not like Unalmis had been years ago. Not like Eryn .. just yesterday. The children (as he still viewed both) had been pawns, taken up into a game which they had never knowingly signed up to play.


“At any rate, at least you didn’t go off on your own,” he supposed, to offer his blood brother that much credit. He was not sure he would have done the same thing if he’d been in the man’s shoes. But who knew how well the two who had gone together, knew one another ? Dui had randomly mentioned her before .. the Ranger woman … as a friend who visited Eryn … so maybe the woman was more the daughter’s friend, than his friend’s. And if she was anything like the young girl, she maybe had insisted upon going, at a time when he had no time to waste arguing about it. “This Kaylin though, .. do I have that right ? Aggie told Add that she was going to go with you. Does she .. or did she, I should probably say, know what you were expecting on this hunt ?”

Trying to recall the woman Ranger from his brief introduction at the Headquarters the day before .. caused the man to consider who if anyone else he might have decided to take with him, or leave out of it. If he were honest and when he recalled that it was his best friend who had made this choice, it likely had come down to whomever would be able to help the desperate father with the most haste, rather than any other factor.


“Shhh” his nephew put back to him. “I’m sure he’ll tell you quicker if you do not interrupt.” The subject of why Duinion had thought them less capable than someone else of being very helpful was not one that Unalmis particularly wanted to fall into with any great depth. It had happened, it was done. And it mattered more what they did next than what had been done and could not be changed.

@Arnyn
He may have been wrong, he may have been right, but earning that laughter from Torniel’s lips was the only answer Abrazimir felt mattered. Her eyes were bright and vivid with the humour and he was glad of the fact he could bring colour to this pretty woman’s day, if only it might be that today. He felt as if she had some great secret or conspiracy hovering on the tip of her tongue, one that might draw forth a humour of equal measure from his lips. But whatever it might be, the moment for revelation seemed to have passed, as her attention soon fill back to her tea. And then her hand moved to his, as if a new thread of silk was to be woven now, and the last set in it’s place.

Merchandise. That said a lot, in fact. Maybe what she and her family bartered in were not commodities of an inanimate kind. Could she be, perhaps, an animal lover, like his sister and her ilk? No, she was beyond selling and buying, the core basis of any merchant’s profession, but instead seemed to prefer the management of…people. Now that was intriguing and he understood how merchandise was an inadequate word for such things. So what did she engage in? Did she manage a staff of some kind? A crew? She seemed to be some kind of filter. His eyes narrowed and his brow furrowed, as he went into deep thought a moment. That seemed an insurmountable riddle, one that required a great deal of thinking power.

But who wanted to think when her hand was drawing random patterns and shapes on his hand. Up his forearm. He responded with a press of his knee against hers. He recalled a similar, soft yet pronounced need, when they had walked together those nights ago at the masquerade. Customer prospection and retention his lips repeated silently. But who wanted to think about that? She was a professional woman of some kind and those intricacies would be unraveled in time. The best part of these rendezvous was never to rush. Anything.

Certainly not in indulging the appetite. His arm stayed right where it was, grasping the side of his mug, while her hand toyed around on his muscular forearm. Not very hungry, Dauntless? ”You know I am.” He replied, with a shameless and confident smile. He raised his mug up and had another gulp, before setting it down and aside. That arm she played with never shifted. Not once. ”You’re a novelty, aren’t you? My heart beats like it’s on the eve of battle when I’m with you. What a successful enterprise you must be apart of. I knew there was a lot I was going to learn from you. About you as well as myself.” He shifted his eyebrows suggestively and again licked his lips, tasting the aftermath of ale on them still. But remembering too something else.

”I think I would very much like to hear some of your tactics of negotiation and persuasion.” He said, leaning in towards her a little, his right hand staying fixed on the handle of his mug, but his left hand, that she toyed with, he finally shifted away…and down under the table, where he set it on her lower thigh, half over her kneecap. His thumb began to graze there, up and down. ”If you would be so willing to grace me with another lesson or two.” He said with a grin, eyes darting between her own expressive orbs and her finely shaped lips, then back to her eyes. A man was more than just hungry. He was ensnared.

”Why don’t you eat? I think you’ll be the one who needs it more than I.” He said, even more boldly, pushing the bowl of cheesy bread towards her. In his sea-grey eyes was the spark of mischief. And your hands are so cold, but I doubt they’ll be a suitable tempering to the intense fires burning within.

@Ercassie
Duinion held back a sigh as Nal questioned whether it was meant to be a jackal or not. "I would show you the picture, but Lieutenant Arnyn kept it." He explained.

"I've never seen a jackal," Eryn mentioned quietly, "When Arnyn showed me the picture, I'd have probably thought it was a coyote or something, except for the descriptions I've heard. But, given all that? Yeah, I'd believe it was a jackal."

Duinion nodded in agreement. "I'm convinced it was, too. Even without having seen one, myself, either." He added. He had, after all, been purely going off of Domanol's description. He was glad that Dom agreed with his conclusion in this case, even if his nephew did not seem as willing to. There was still much to tell them both, however. For the moment, he went quiet as he considered Dom's question. "I don't think so," He answered. "I can't prove it, of course, but I strongly suspect that he anticipated that you, I, and Unalmis would go with all haste in search of Eryn. He clearly knew that she was your friend," He added to Nal. "And he must have realized how close you and I are," He said to Dom. "I believe he was counting on that, in hopes that you would rush to aid me in my search. Either that.. or maybe he figured he might capture me and then the two of you would come looking for both of us." He shrugged. "It's difficult to say." He sighed.

Eryn shook her head slightly as Dom mentioned that this guy had taken Duinion's daugther, not Dom's. "Only because it was convenient." She pointed out, while her free hand lightly stroked Hattie's fur. "Remember, he wasn't planning on anyone being at his secret lair. But when he caught me there, it was an opportunity that he didn't pass up."

"Exactly." Duinion agreed quietly. "Although.. if you recall," He glanced at Dom, "I did send Aggie to check on Dessy, to be sure she was alright. She told me that you walked her there." He gave a little nod when Dom spoke of 'at least he didn't go off on his own'. Well.. to be honest, he was going to. But did he want to let his brother know that? "I ran into Kaylin at the bakery, just before Aggie found me. She was there when Aggie told me about Eryn being missing." He explained, then glanced out the barn window for a moment, just to make sure he was still watching. He glanced back inward after watching the grass sway in the night breeze for a moment. "She didn't know anything about what was going on." He smiled faintly. "She was actually just grabbing some breakfast for her and her husband, before they left for a trip, but she postponed it all to come and help me find Eryn." He looked at Eryn with a little smile. "She's a good friend." He spoke his approval.

He took a slow breath in, pausing as Nal suggested that they let him continue without interruptions. He looked down at the grass again, frowning. "The trail led to my own house." He revealed softly. "Where Idhrenel and I lived.. where Eryn was born." He looked at Dom and then Nal. "Arnyn met us there, along with two other rangers. After some investigation, it became evident that after he left Eryn in the cave, the man went straight to my old cabin, along with a girl. I don't know if she was his accomplice or if she was another hostage, but it seemed as if he was trying to use her to create a false trail for me to follow. He took Eryn's cloak, put it on this girl, who was about the same size and age, judging from descriptions the gate guard gave me." He drew in a breath. "He had left an obvious trail heading out to the south gate. But there was another, subtler trail, which led us to the cave." He explained, avoiding his brother's gaze for the moment. Because out of the four of them, he was sure to be the most aware of Duinion's aversion to such places.

"After we got Eryn out of the cave safely," He skipped through the unnecessary details, "Arnyn, Sarina, Vorondil and I went on to investigate the obvious trail, while Kaylin took Eryn back to the city." He went on. "The gate guard.." He hesitated. "He recalled seeing the man, and told us that he'd come through a few hours before, riding double on a big white horse with a young girl in a green cloak.. Eryn's cloak." He narrowed his eyes and frowned. "He couldn't see the girl's face or hair well enough to give a proper description, which makes me suspect that the man wanted us to believe she was Eryn. And the guard mentioned that this young fellow had said something about getting passage on a ship with his sister, and then he asked where he could buy a large number of candles." He let his gaze rest on Nal as he revealed this bit of information. "That, of course, led us to the chandlery. By this point, I was beginning to wonder if this trap was meant for Unalmis, rather than Dom," He frowned. "But, maybe he was simply expecting Unalmis to be with us. But it seemed to me that he deliberately left that 'clue' to lead us to the chandlery."

He drew in a breath as he looked from one to the other. "When we arrived at the chandlery, we found a number of corsairs waiting to ambush us. But we dealt with them," He hastened to add, before either of them could grow concerned. "Six were captured alive. The rest.." He dropped his gaze, a troubled expression crossing his face at the memory. "they were unwilling to be taken alive." He left it at that, preferring to spare his daughter, at least, from the gory details. Raising his gaze again to find that of his brother, Duinion continued, "And, I noticed that all of those who died bore a tattoo of a jackal. It matched fairly well with the image that was on the paper Buttercup brought home, too." He explained. "Have you seen that before?" He wondered. "The tattoo thing?" His blood brother had far more experience with these people, of course, so it seemed likely that he might have, and perhaps might even know what crew those men had belonged to.

"Also," he went on, "while we were at the chandlery, we found a secret warehouse sort of place, far beneath the place. For smuggling purposes, we assume. It even had a sort of.. underground dock, with a tunnel that we assume leads out to somewhere along the coast, but we didn't investigate that. We did, however, leave a trap for them, in case they return there." He added with a faint smile. "And I told the lieutenant that I would ask if you would be interested in coming along with me to check on it periodically. At least a couple times a week?" He asked, hoping Dom would agree to join him.

@Rillewen

Maybe if he had seen this drawing that everyone else apparently had seen, Unalmis would never have questioned whether it could possibly be interpreted any other way than the way which the others had interpreted it. His Uncle, he had already discovered, was paranoid enough from his 'lost years' to believe that a leaf falling from a tree in autumn was somehow the work of the Burned Man. But when Duinion and even Eryn agreed immediately with the jackal presumption as well .. there was really no point in even arguing the point any further. He hadn’t seen the drawing. They had. It was clearly just coincidence that a canine in the shape of Hattie had also gone missing at the same time as the drawing was discovered. And it was clearly just a stretch to believe that someone might have sent Eryn’s horse and a clue about the dog to give up signs about both of those who did not come back themselves. The ending was a moot point. That’s what they’d seen and that was the conclusion they had drawn from it. And now Lieutenant Dealedwen had the evidence. That was the first time that Arnyn’s name had been thrown into the narrative, and neither of the two just now hearing what had happened missed the fact. But neither did they comment on it. Yet.

In fact when Eryn went on to repeat the exact same observation about ‘Rip’ that he just had moments earlier, and everyone agreed with her .. Unalmis decided to focus more so upon Hattie who had started to sit up, as though alert all of a sudden. When she did not bark or otherwise make any alarm though, he waited and watched to see if she was simply restless.


“What Aggie told me, was that Eryn had gone missing all night, and she wanted to take the little boy up to stay with Dessy while she searched,” Domanol put in. “She said nothing about checking on my daughter, save to ask her whether she’d seen yours.” He filled in that little part of the narrative for the Raedors, since it didn’t sound like Aggie had already done so. Understandably given the dramatic tiresome day everyone had endured. “So Dess played babysitter while Aggie told your Lieutenant why you would be otherwise engaged from duties for the day, or the foreseeable. I found this one,” he indicated Unalmis who did not look up from fussing with the dog. “And we joined the search that was already sweeping through the city.”

“Everyone was worried,” Nal put in then, though he did not look up to meet the others’ expressions. “More than half the stalls in the market were closed while everyone looked for you, the Guesthouse was serving as a base where anyone who had any report or sighting of you checked in, and the guards kept coming by .. they went through all and every observation they’d marked on any one of their gate logs for the last two days. Or they claimed they would anyway. Cali and I took the higher circles, Dad and he took the middles,” a furtive nod of his head towards Domanol indicated who the ‘he’ was. “But you probably know all this already. We heard that you were doing something similar out in the Pelennor. And word went out even to Narradir so the foresters would keep an eye out in case you had got lost or into some kind of trouble out in Ithilien.” He glanced in the girl's direction without adding the word ‘again’. That secret did not need to come to light today. They had more than enough already to unravel.


Neither of the two ‘listeners’ had been to the house where Duinion had previously lived, back when Eryn was small, before he had been widowed. Domanol had left town before his friend ever married, and Nal had not really met the Tirdinen until he was already a Ranger. It seemed as though it might be further distracting though, to ponder aloud how 'Rip' (who would have also only been a child when the family left that homestead) could possibly have found out about it.

“Aggie showed this Arnyn the drawing when she spoke to her,” the elder man supposed instead, putting the pieces together as his friend paved the tale of their progress. It stood as the most obvious cause why the Lieutenant had the drawing later. Perhaps she had not taken Aggie’s word for Dui’s excuse from duty and come down to check for herself. The tales which his blood brother had shared, about the officer pushing him to face his issues, .. seemed that too was the most likely option. And Unalmis did not bother to remind his Uncle that he’d already told him Arnyn was looking into ‘the Umbar thing’.


It was difficult for Dom to hold his questions when his friend spoke about ‘another girl, maybe a hostage’ who was around the same size, height, age as Eryn. Had Strawberry made it out through the North gate, thanks to all their configuring with gate guards .. only to fall into the hands of this ‘Rip’ fellow ? He sorely hoped not ! But as the story continued, suggesting that this mystery girl had not given out any clear evidence of being there against her will … he concluded that it could not have been the same girl he’d met. The little thief was far too wily to be held as some sort of alibi without giving up the man she hated. So the next thing which drew the man’s attention to their storyteller, was the mention of a cave.

Domanol had never seen his friend having to deal with a cave. But he’d heard the younger man confide in him about his childhood trauma.. back one time when they had been playing and a young Duinion had panicked about going down to a coal cellar. Addhor had later asked Dom, after the two Rangers came back from a stay at Henneth Annun. And Dom had tried to both inform his brother of enough to help Dui, but at the same time not revealed the whole story that he had once been told. That was the affected man’s secret to share, when and as he liked. He wanted to ask now, how that had been to be confronted with a cave, of all things. Had this 'Rip' somehow even known about the man's phobia as well ? Regardless, with the Lieutenant having stood present as well, it might have been as much of an ordeal for the father as the daughter. So he did not raise the subject now. That could wait until a time the two friends were alone.


“I’m missing something,” he confessed though, as the subject of the chandlery roused it’s head.

“The chandlery was where .. ” Unalmis began to explain, albeit reluctantly but recalling that Eryn was present, decided not to detail what had happened to him there. “They use it. It’s a front,” he concluded, figured that there was no cause to describe who ‘they’ were in this scenario.

“So when he said at the gate that he was planning on ‘ship’s passage ?” Dom quietly eased more pieces of the plot together and another curse word escaped him. “Well, we have a corrupt and kidnapping enthusiast in the form of Androllius Junior. And he’s into .. what ? Spying ? For Halsad ? And he led you and your little Ranger entourage out to a place which just so happens to be where the Burned Man has smuggled things .. before ...” Domanol quickly took his line of thought away from the notion of his best friend's daughter being sold overseas or worse. "But Eryn here was stowed back in the Pelennor the whole time .. " it seemed important to revisit that last fact.

Unalmis glanced up just at the moment to meet his Uncle’s identical eyes. And the same thought occurred to both of them. Smuggler. Thormaetha .. Domanol had known that much from rumour about Devedir before ever he had met Trevadir in Pelargir during the War. He and Add had been told to stop looking into it all those years back, by their mother, because it was upsetting for their (at the time) pregnant neighbour, the smuggler’s wife ..


“That ties it together then, no question,” the former Guard supposed, as reference was made to the corsairs' tattoos. “No matter if it was a jackal or a dog .. the tattoos matched the drawing that was left.” If he had hoped this offering would cheer his nephew, he was disappointed. “So that’s that,” he concluded, a little uncertainly. “I mean, it’s probably quite a common feature of pirates and their ilk. Tattoos .. I mean, they do like to present as fearsome. But I can’t say as I recall that specifically when I came across them in Lond Daer.”

“Uhta is a great fan of tattoos, I have heard,” Unalmis shrugged. Without at all marring the reputation of Gaelanna by explaining what her captor had done to her face, to prove that she was .. his. Tattoos ..


“It was Uhta‘s corsairs that I met in Lond Daer,” his Uncle reminded him. “I don’t recall any of them boasting any jackal tattoos. There was a jackal figurehead on the ship but ..”

“It’s probably not him then,” his nephew surmised, apparently unbothered enough to press the point. He looked rather more interested though as Duinion went on to describe what they had found at the Chandlery. An underground dock, a secret warehouse. And they had left a trap .. As the Tirdinen told of his want to go regularly check the location for signs of their trap having sprung some fools .. the younger Ranger ignored the lack of invite for his own part. “You might want to give Ilisys a heads up, about the chandlery,” he threw the suggestion instead toward the two older men who were all aglow with mischief already stoked in their eyes at the prospect of the opportunity. “When I told her that was .. where ..,” he glanced from one to the other, wondering if they would take heed. “She goes there already, periodically, to check if the smugglers are using it again,” he warned them. “She won’t know there is any trap. But then .. I don’t think she or her people ever found any secret underground .. whatever it was.”


“He’d arranged a welcome party for you … So you were extremely lucky by the sound of it, that the Lieutenant came along with reinforcement to bolster your little exploration,” Domanol mentioned to his friend. “No I don’t believe you ought to go back there .. alone. Definitely not. But what happened to the ones your group captured alive ? Did you give them to the Blonde for safekeeping as well ?”

A single bark from Hattie startled the oldest amongst them. “Yes, you’d better let Isys know about the trap,” he agreed belatedly turning back to Unalmis. “The last thing we want is for the wrong person to wander into such a thing.” He risked a knowing glance back toward the Tirdinen, who’d helped him rig a trap for ‘Rip at the tree. When they had accidentally caught a young lad instead .. “But she is safe out at Lond Col right now. What kind of trap is it, Dui ?” he was unable to keep from asking. Professional curiosity, of course.


Yes, Isys was out in Lond Col. Exploring how another Umbarian had disappeared. Trevadir and Toby were out there too, for that matter … Unalmis recalled with a thoughtful frown.
“If that is it, do you want me to see you back up to the Sixth for bed, before Aggie wonders how long we have been ?” Unalmis asked Eryn suddenly. “Hattie is getting angsty and we can easily send Thorley or somebody down to gift these two some better numbers, in case more corsairs do show up here ?”

The news that the man they assumed was ‘Rip’ had been absolutely seen leaving through the South Gate with whoever that girl was .. made Unalmis feel a lot better about the safety of those he cared for, sleeping soundly and oblivious back in the city. The likelihood of a bunch of corsairs trekking so far inland as the Pelennor was small in fact. And while Duinion probably had no end of weapons stored here for his use, not to mention his daughter’s own arsenals for practice .. it seemed just as unlikely again that the two older men would allow either of the younger two to participate in the siege that their elders seemed almost keen to fend off from the farmhouse. If ‘Rip’ had taken a ship … and his Uncle seemed especially close guarded about whichever other red haired girl that might have been with the false guard … maybe Dom would tell Duinion about it, if his nephew left them alone. But yes, Unalmis did think he would definitely be sending word to Lond Col. Just in case.

@Ercassie
Duinion nodded slightly in response to Dom's comment. "Yes." He admitted. "She did as I told her." He glanced at his blood brother. "This is why I hoped you would forgive me. I did not want to have to worry about you doing anything rash.. like rushing straight to Umbar or trying to storm the Harbor.." He offered a half smile. "I suppose I just had a.. gut feeling, that might be exactly what they wanted you to do. I.. had a suspicion the note was a message to you. It seemed far too coincidental to me that it was only yesterday when we finally revealed your true identity to Eryn, and then... this happens. Right after we all parted from her.." He held back a sigh. "So, I wanted to make sure that your daughter was safe, but without alerting you to.. certain details." He explained. "And, I figured I ought to let Arnyn know that I would be unavailable." He paused, thinking about that. "I only told her to tell Arnyn I'd be unavailable for duties, but.." He shrugged. "I suppose she got more out of her than that."

Hearing about the extent of the search within the city, Duinion found himself staring in some surprise at Unalmis, wondering just how he had managed to galvanize the entire city, from the sound of it, into searching for his daughter. To hear this made him feel both glad to hear that she had so many friends and people who cared about her, and a little guilty for not letting anyone know what was really going on. But he also knew that it would have been a bad idea to let too many people know, because they who knows how many people would have been all around the Pelennor, messing up the tracks while 'helping'. He cleared his throat softly. "I had no idea the word would spread so far and fast."

Eryn looked at Nal with wide eyes upon hearing about all the people involved in trying to find her. She gave his hand a light squeeze. "I'm sorry you were all searching in vain." She said quietly. "But it means a lot, to know that you were searching."

If Duinion wondered how or why Eryn would have been in Ithilien, he didn't speak up to ask, and the comment slid by, seemingly unnoticed. At least for now. Instead, he nodded slightly to Dom's guess about Aggie and the picture. "She must have," He agreed. "The lieutenant has a way of finding things out, I hear." He added, thoughtful. "In fact.." He paused to think about how what more he should tell the present company, and how much. "There is something more, but it can keep a bit." He concluded for the moment, instead listening as Dom and Nal spoke briefly about the chandlery. "I can only guess about the man's intentions, but my best guess is that he made deliberate mention of a ship, probably hoping that we would jump to certain conclusions. Because he also made deliberate mention of the place that Unalmis would recognize as their secret smuggler's front, from what I hear."

Eryn was frowning thoughtfully as they talked. There was plenty of things that she didn't know much about, but she was trying to stay quiet and learn a bit more. But it had become evident that the men were not planning on letting her in on a couple of things. She frowned slightly as she continued listening. As Dom mentioned that she had been stowed back in the Pelennor the whole time, she glanced up at him. "But he said he was coming back," She reminded him quietly. "He said we'd be taking a trip, when he did." She frowned at the thought of where that trip probably would have been to.

Duinion nodded gravely, then considered Dom's supposing about this Androllius Junior. "While we were following the trail to Harlond, the lieutenant spoke of someone known as Nâluthor," He said hesitantly, looking at Dom's eyes to see if the name registered, then glanced at Nal, curious if he recognized it. "She seemed to think I would know who that was, and when I asked who she meant, she replied 'Androllius'." He explained. Then with a faint smile of amusement at his misunderstanding, he added, "At the time, I assumed she meant the old captain, which is the only Androllius I knew of." He shook his head slightly. "Now, though.. hearing about this.. Rip..." He glanced at Nal, then, curious if he had any input about that.

"It was a young guy." Eryn put in, softly. "I figured he was probably around the same age as Nal, even though his beard made him look a little older." This made her father nod as the new suspicion seemed confirmed.

The mention of Ilisys gave Duinion pause, and he glanced at the young man questioningly.. was this yet another attempt of his to try and 'fix them up'? He was getting a bit tired of that, but as it turned out, it was a legitimate concern. Duinion's eyes widened slightly to hear that she went regularly to the place. He didn't think he knew that, but as tired as he was at the moment, he couldn't be certain. "We'll make sure to get word to her, then." He assured the young ranger.

"I was lucky, yes," He agreed with Dom, sighing. "I should have asked for more help. Perhaps I should have asked you. But at the time, my mind was racing, and I could hardly think straight, and all I could think was that I have to find my daughter, but I also had to keep the two of you from whatever your enemies had planned for you." He dropped his gaze for a moment, then looked up at the question about the captured men, awarding his friend with an amused smile. "We turned them over to the harbor guard," He answered. "The four of us had no wish to transport them all the way back to Minas Tirith on foot, when they have a perfectly good jailhouse there."

The bark from Hattie startled him then, and he looked swiftly toward the window again. How long had it been since he glanced out? Had he missed something? Was someone coming? He stared for a long moment out of the window, before deciding that nothing was out there, except maybe an unseen rabbit or something that had drawn the dog's attention. He slowly tore his gaze away from the window to look back at the others, returning his focus to the topic of the trap, when Dom asked about it. Ah... yes. The trap! He had looked forward to sharing the details about that with his blood brother. He gave a little laugh. "Well.." He cleared his throat as his gaze caught upon his daughter, then fell to Hattie instead. Did he want to tell what they'd done, with Eryn there? "I'll tell you later," He added with a little wink.

"Aw, I want to know, too." Eryn pouted, feeling further upset when Nal suggested taking her back to Aggie.

Duinion glanced at her, then at Nal, thinking. He sighed. "Actually, there is a little more, which I think you all ought to hear. Especially you, Unalmis." He admitted. Yet, he wasn't yet ready to bring that matter up. Instead, he considered Eryn with a small smile, then decided that she might as well hear about the trap. She wasn't some frail, delicate flower, nor was she a small child anymore. He settled back at an angle that he could see all three of his audience.

"Alright." He agreed. "First; the trap. So, down in this.. underground harbor or whatever, there were some cages," He explained. "Cages large enough to hold a few people. More like cells, I suppose." He frowned, troubled by that. "We took the door off of one of those, and rigged it up at the bottom of the stairs, like this," He tried to demonstrate with his hand, one at an angle representing the stairs, and the other horizontal, representing the cage door. "With a trip wire, strung up so it'd release and swing down and seal off the bottom of the stairs." He paused to glance at them. "I put a rod here, to make sure it couldn't be pushed back up once it was triggered."

"But that still leaves the top." Eryn frowned, tilting her head as she pictured it.

"Right, then we rigged the secret trapdoor at the top of the stairs so that the mechanism for it would mess up when you trigger the tripwire." He paused, meeting Dom's gaze in particular. "Then we took all the dead bodies of the corsair crew and piled them up in the middle of the stairway, and used them to hide the tripwire."

"Ohhh, wow.." Eryn blinked, then wrinkled her nose, remembering the dead woman in the cellar. "But won't they start to smell? Wouldn't that make them wary?"

"It was rather cool down there," Duinion answered. "It ought to keep the bodies from starting to smell too quickly. And the weather's getting colder. It should work." He hoped so, anyway. He glanced briefly at Eryn and Nal before turning to Dom, a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. "I wanted to take one of the corsair bodies and string it up on a cord, so that when someone triggers the trap, it comes swooping down at them. Give them a good scare, you know?" He admitted to his friend, before sighing. "But alas, the lieutenant firmly refused to allow that." He shrugged in a 'what can you do' sort of manner.

"Dad! That's so mean." Eryn protested, but she also couldn't help a little giggle at it, regardless. "But it would serve them right, I guess." She added, thinking of what they'd put them all through, and what that man had meant to do to her, to Nal, Dom, and all the others.

@Rillewen

“You and I both know that if you had not found our girl here, in that cave, you would have come begging me to help you storm Corsair city with you to get her back, before the week was out.” Domanol had raised an eyebrow in Duinion’s direction, and dared his brother to deny it. “But don’t worry. I’m going to forgive you,” he declared. “I mean, the last thing we want to do is to start falling out amongst ourselves. But can I just say, I’ve been living with .. this .. for the last twenty years or so. So forgive me for saying, but I know exactly what I’m getting into if I do decide to take the battle to these .. scoundrels.” Glancing suddenly sidelong, toward Eryn, the man smiled for he had chosen his wording rather more carefully than he might have done, had she not been present. “And that’s more than I can say for the Rangers who you did take along with you, who had absolutely no idea what they might be walking into. Except maybe the Blonde,” he conceded, with an amused shake of his head at the last.

“He’s right,” Unalmis put in, more quietly but honest. “You leave somebody safely out of the trouble, because you’re trying to protect them. But all that you actually do is leave them thinking that you don’t believe they can cope with it. And then .. he’s just more likely than ever to go rushing off and do something dangerous, to try and prove that he is capable.”

“Thankyou,” his uncle agreed and then frowned, “I think,” he eyed the younger man with a greater focus, and gained a shove in his arm to turn back away for his trouble. The point he’d just made, that they ought not fall out amongst themselves, it had merit. And it had been observed. There’d been enough of all of that already.


“Everyone remembered the cheerful redhaired milkmaid,” Nal pointed out to Eryn, happy to change the subject, and Hattie barked once startlingly as though in agreement as Domanol stuck a finger in one ear and turned it, with a blink. “How many people and businesses are on that round of yours ?” his kinsman continued, turning to the girl. “They were falling over themselves to help. And the First .. well they will take any excuse to spend the day in the pub spreading gossip, It was a day off work,” he grinned, faintly. “Of course we searched,” he put in afterwards, squeezing her hand back in return, perhaps in a more sincere take than the lame joke.

“This fellow said a lot of things to me too, Eryn,” Dom put in, as the girl troubled over what ‘Rip’ had said to her. About coming back for her, and taking her on a ‘trip’ .. “Most of it was a pack of lies. I’d wager this fellow was trying to scare you.” The older man tapped the side of his nose, reassuringly.

“Nâluthor is what the Enemy call him,” Unalmis shrugged then, as Dui queried over the name game. “Like we call him ’Rip’.”

“You’ve heard one of them use that name for him ?” his Uncle wondered. “Was he involved in the ..?”

“Someone told us,” the younger man hastened to answer, before more questions formed. He did not want to talk about his best friend having been subject to pirates who worked with Umbar. Not with his Uncle here. Because .. well. Best not. “I told you. The Lieutenant. She’s been making .. enquiries. From all sorts of people. And he is .. a little older. ‘Rip’, whatever he’s calling himself.” Eryn’s description of her abductor allowed for a further slight shift in the subject. “He’s the same age as the .. girls,” he agreed, managing only at the last minute not to say the ‘twins’. For there was only one twin now. “He was cleanshaven before though,” he noted. “Hopefully the change-up is how he got past that gate guard who told you about him and his ‘sister’ passing through.” The notion that a guard had helped a colleague who was officially under investigation and wanted by the authorities, .. would not be too great a shock at this point. But hopefully, it had just been the beard .. a disguise ? ... that allowed for it to happen. Nal wanted to believe that, as he had been already wondering how the bully had managed to just swan out of the city’s jurisdiction, leaving his clues with the gate guard rather than be arrested there as he ought to have been. Yes, hopefully it was just a good disguise .. Wait. Was that a good thing either ?



Whatever it was that Duinion felt they ought to stay and hear, it probably wasn’t simply the cleverness of the trap, although he told that with great gusto and both Domanol and Eryn seemed to enjoy it immensely.

“Your traps are always so creative,” the former Guard laughed, and even went so far to slap down a hand onto each of his knee caps, highly amused. “Lieutenant isn’t coming along though, when we go back to check on it, right ?” He winked, making no secret about the chance they might have to add the most ‘creative’ part of Dui’s idea to the ambush. “And if this fellow does come back, the first thing he’s going to do is stop by to see if his plan paid off,” Dom assured Eryn, in case she was still concerned about Nâluthor coming back for her. “He’ll walk right into that set up ! Its brilliant. ”


His nephew had been rather distracted while the tale of the great trap was told. Because the fact was … ’Rip’ had taken someone who he wanted them to believe was Eryn .. probably to a ship .. since he’d clearly had some contact with the Chandlery to arrange his little ambush for the pursuit. But then .. why had the Great Pretender not simply taken Eryn with him in the first place ? The risks involved in coming back later to collect her, were immense when he could have easily taken a prize off, no matter whether the Rangers pursuing them were trapped or not. But he hadn’t done that. Hed taken the other girl instead. Which begged the question, again, who was this other girl and how did she fit in with it all ? Was this mystery girl cirrently being smuggled out to Umbar ? And, maybe even worse still, if ‘Rip’ hadn’t been heading to Umbar, as would have been his most likely destination if he had the real Eryn in tow, then where HAD he gone instead ?

A wide smile allowed Nal the ruse of fitting in with the mirth of the others, because, lets face it, they probably needed the release of laughter right now, and since Dui had effectively distracted everyone (else) from their concerns, the younger man decided to keep his musing to himself. It would possibly only upset Eryn if he broached the query, and .. maybe it was even what Dui was about to lead up to explaining anyway. He'd wait and see.

@Lantaelen
You know I am. Her soft smile turned into an amused grin. Her siren eyes lingered on his, as he drank from his mug and put it back down. How much fun was it that he spoke so freely? Not that she believed it was all true - she was much more used to empty flattery from men, after all. Flattery in the hopes she might look twice at them. And the man in front of her clearly knew what he was doing. All his flattery was quite intentional. Yet... what woman would not enjoy being called a novelty? And men did not readily claim they were eager to learn from a woman, but he had no such qualm.

Her teeth caught her upper lip as he spoke of wanting to hear some of her tactics of negotiation and persuasion, and as he leaned toward her and moved his hand, away and out from under hers, to place it on her knee. She debated answering him right away, after all those cheeky comments, but she just continued to look at him a moment longer. Before slowly taking another sip of her tea, putting it down and reaching for a piece of the bread, without looking at the bowl or her hand. Her attention remained on the knight's face, as her other hand pulled a small part off the thick slice of bread, to bring the smaller piece to her mouth. She chewed slowly, swallowed, and proceeded to pull another small part off. To lean forward, as well, and offer it to him instead. Her dark eyes wordlessly asking him to open that mouth of his.

"And I think you will need your energy," she told him, so quietly he would have to be paying close attention to catch the words. But she did not doubt he was doing just that. "If you are to take a lesson. Or two." Thus she turned the small piece of bread into a different offer altogether. If he would accept the bread... Her lips curved into a faint, half smile. "Tell me more about what you fill your days with, Dauntless, while we eat," she suggested to him. "Do you do much negotiating at all, yourself?" Her gaze briefly flicked to the chair holding his weapon. "How much time does that pretty sword of yours spend out of its sheath?" Inwardly, she was laughing. It translated to an undeniable sparkle in her eyes.

@Ercassie
"Perhaps," Duinion allowed, with a small smile, as Dom declared that he would have come begging him to 'storm Corsair city' if they had not found Eryn. He was glad to hear that he would be forgiven, though. "Good!" he kept his voice low as he teased, "Because I was all prepared to ask if you were the 'pot' or the 'kettle', if you hadn't." He couldn't resist a slight jab at the fact the other had let his own family believe him dead in order to 'safeguard them'. His smile faded into a more serious look as Dom spoke of having dealt with this for close to twenty years. Duinion gave a small nod. "Yes, I know." He paused, aware of the younger two present, and went ahead and said what was on his mind. "But I could not tolerate the thought of losing you again, if something went wrong." He cleared his throat. "Any of you, for that matter." He added, letting his gaze rest on Unalmis, then on Eryn.

Unlamis' words brought his gaze back to him, a moment later. Duinion listened, feeling regretful for making the younger ranger feel as if he did not think him capable. Although there was a moment of amusement between uncle and nephew, Duinion's thoughts lingered on that comment even as the young man turned to speak to Eryn.

She had kept quiet, sensing there were some important discussions to be had here, but she was pleased to hear about how many people in the city had cared enough to help look for her. "Oh, quite a few," She admitted, smiling at Dom. Her smile faded a bit as he returned to the topic of Rip. About how most of what he'd said was lies, trying to scare her. "He was definitely trying to scare me," She agreed, hesitant. "But I do think he intended to come back. And I do think he meant it, about hurting my family." She added quietly. "That's why I was scared that if he came back and found that I was gone, he might turn up here." She explained, her gaze flitting down to the dog when she barked yet again. "He really wanted to kill Hattie." She recalled, frowning.

As Nal turned his focus toward Rip, speaking of his age, and how he had always been cleanshaven, Eryn recalled something. "You know," She frowned thoughtfully. "I thought there was something funny about his beard. Like.." She tried to think of it had been. "I don't know. Rome has a pretty thick beard, and I've seen plenty of other guys with beards, but this one was.." She closed her eyes briefly and brought up a mental image. "Like it was too much, or something." She opened her eyes and looked around. "I just can't imagine you, for instance, with a full, thick beard like that." She shrugged at Nal. "It just didn't seem to fit with his looks, somehow. I don't know if that makes any sense."

"Hm." Duinion tried to imagine what she might be referring to. "Fake, perhaps?" He wondered. "Why do you call him 'Rip', anyway?" He wondered with a little frown, before becoming a bit distracted by Domanol's obvious amusement about the trap. He smiled and shook his head in response to his blood brother checking about the lieutenant. "No, she's far too busy for that." He assured him. "In fact, I had originally suggested that you might like something to do.. and that since you didn't have any duties to keep you around town, that you might be willing to ride out once or twice a week to look in on it." He explained, trying to subtly shed a little light into why he had not suggested Unalmis, either. "But she said that she would only allow it if I went with you." He added with a little shrug. "Which, I suppose is probably best, since I would need to show you how to even check it, without getting yourself trapped down there," he added, with a little mischievous glint as he guessed what Dom may be thinking.. why he had asked about that.

Glancing then toward Nal, he recalled the words the young ranger had spoken, which had lingered in his mind. He hesitated briefly before adding, "If you don't have any duties to prevent you from it, you're welcome to join us, of course." He extended the offer, albeit with a little inner reluctance. "It's just that.. he and I are the only two who were given permission-slash-assigned to do it." He explained, then glanced down for a moment, and let out a little sigh. "In truth, Unalmis.. I am a little uneasy.. about you joining us there. Not because I don't think you capable.. hardly that," He admitted, bringing his gaze up to meet that of his younger friend. "If I didn't think you were capable, I would not entrust you with my daughter's safety." He pointed out.

"There is a saying about not putting all of your eggs in one basket, you know.. but there is more to it than that." He drew in a slow breath. It was time to tell him, but that didn't make it any easier. "The fact is, I made a vow to someone, once. I swore that I would do my best to protect you." He realized this was going to probably confuse the boy. No, not boy, he corrected himself mentally. "It wasn't your father, either," he clarified, before the young man could ask. He shifted a little to stretch his legs out better, finding that his current position was causing one of his legs to fall asleep. "I.. suppose this is long overdue," he spoke softly, trying to find the right words, and frowning slightly. "It isn't easy to speak of," He glanced at Nal, trying to make him understand. To have a little more patience.

"I..uh, I don't know if you knew this," He let his gaze drop to the dog for a moment. "Your friend spent a lot of time with me. I worked with him quite a bit, through his training.. and he used to speak a lot about his friends." He smiled faintly. "But I never knew what any of their proper names were. Only the nicknames you all used for each other." He cleared his throat. "So, when I later met you, and your father introduced you as Unalmis," He looked at Nal. "It never really occurred to me that you were the 'Nal' that Ryn used to speak about so often." He realized that this was not the sort of thing that people wanted to have dredged up. But he needed to get it out. And more importantly, he needed to make sure that his young trainee's final message was delivered to the recipient it was surely meant for. At the same time, he wanted to explain to Unalmis why he had not done so sooner.

Slowly bringing his eyes up, to see how the young man was taking it, he continued in a soft, reluctant tone. With some difficulty. "When he.. died," He cleared his throat when it tried to get too thick to speak, "I know you probably don't want to talk about this.. neither do I. But, after everything I've heard today, I believe this is important." He explained. "That day.. I was.. he had gone away from camp.. I was against it, but he.." A wan smile flitted across his face. "He was good at convincing." He gave a tiny shrug, as it was the only excuse he really had about that. "He was gone for longer than I thought he should be, so I set out in search for him." He sighed. "When I found him.. someone.. else, had found him first." He swallowed with some difficulty. "He was dying," He uttered softly, staring hard at a particular piece of straw on the loft floor. "Some other rangers who were with me, they took off after the attacker. I.. stayed. And held him, until.." He trailed off, taking a moment.

Eryn was very quiet, listening. Feeling her heart break for her father, as it was clear to her that he was quite broken up by this. She glanced over at Nal, wondering what might be going on in there, in his head.

"He.. made me promise that I would make sure 'Nal' was safe." Duinion explained quietly. "And.. he said something that didn't make any sense to me at the time, but now.." He frowned, looking back up at the others. He knew this was a lot to take in for Nal. But he needed to get through this without interruptions, without a lot of questions to distract him from this. "It was clearly very important to him, to tell me this, but I didn't know until recently, what I was supposed to do with it."

He drew in a breath, mentally going over it to make sure he got the words just right. He had memorized this, once upon a time, and he had frequently revisited it in his mind. "He spoke of.. him. Or, well, I couldn't actually tell if he said 'Ric' or 'Rip', to be honest.. he might have even said both? But regardless.. he said, 'He wasn't lying'. He does have a brother. Tell them, he, Rip, wasn’t lying.' He insisted that I tell 'them' this message, although I wasn't sure who 'them' was, at the time. I.. assumed he meant his family, so I told his father everything he had said, the first chance I got." He frowned, letting out a sigh as he recalled how upset the man had been by Duinion's 'visit'. The hurtful things he had said... he tried to push that out of his mind, and glanced up at Nal. "I suppose he must not have known what it meant, either. He must have disregarded it." He sighed, looking back down. "I've been trying to get around to talking to you about this.. ever since I realized you were 'Nal', but.. I hope you understand.. it's a difficult subject to bring up."

@Rillewen

The pot and the kettle, they were not quite the same, for all that each was a very similar shade to the other. Since Domanol may have let his family believe he was dead, in the hopes of keeping them from ever getting caught up in or even worrying about his troubles. But Duinion had failed to call upon his family, when they were the most experienced in the particular trouble which found him; in a similarly well intentioned effort to keep them safe. Since both of the blood brothers had similarly failed, for here they were all sitting here together .. the only fair thing to do was call it a draw and move on. Together.

“We’re not losing .. anybody .. else,” the eldest of their little group made the vow. “No more leaving anybody out. They aren’t going to know what’s hit them, now they’re facing all of us at once,” Dom decided.

“That’s probably why he struck now, because he saw us united,” his nephew put in. “He panicked.”

“Damn .. ” his Uncle began to agree with a ‘damn right !’ but remembering his audience he changed it up, last minute. “.. is not a word I’ll use in front of innocent young ears. But yeh. That’s right.” he finished.


Whether the older man’s bravado was convincing or no, it was soon clear that no one could convince Eryn that she had not had good cause to come down to the farm, even at this hour. Given that the other three had done the exact same as she had, all efforts to convince her now that she had over reacted were of course, likely to fall flat.

“Hattie knows his scent,” Unalmis assured his friend, when she recalled her concerns. “He won’t get a second chance. And if he is stupid enough to come back, we’ll have warning.”


Since they didn’t really seem to have a plan besides sitting around to wait and see whether ‘Rip’ showed up, the debate over their enemy’s new beard was at least a practical consideration. Would any of them, without a dog’s sense of smell, be able to recognise this enemy ? Dom glanced over towards Dui, rubbing at his own chin in a silent comparison, as the girl mentioned that she’d ‘seen plenty of other guys with beards’. Then he pointed suddenly at the other man’s, as though shocked and surprised, as though he’d never noticed it until now. Unalmis rolled his eyes.

“If he wasn’t sporting any sort of beard at all, when he was last seen in .. July, was it ?” Domanol tried then, with a nod from his nephew to assure him that the date in question was correct. “Well. There’s few who can grow themselves any real great bush out of nothing in that span of time. Some manage it easier than others of course, but .. if it looked fake, it may well have been. It is certainly a way to make a man look different.”

“Older,” Unalmis put in, and missed the grin which his Uncle shot to Duinion. It was certainly one of the things the elder had suggested to his younger friend, to help him ‘fit in’ with his fellow Rangers, when the Tirdinen had enlisted at a rather less mature age.

“Wiser,” Dom sought to improve upon the offer, raising his chin, and did not miss the snort that his nephew expressed in some amusement.


“I prefer the bonafide excuse to carry a knife around with me,” Nal shrugged, unashamed amidst his bearded male companions. There were other valid causes to carry a knife at all times of course, especially the way this year was going ! But still. There was something to it that a man could get to grips with, how close, and how perilous, to handle the weapon. His cousin had taught him .. in excruciating detail of course.

“If your knife had seen the places my knife has been, you wouldn’t want it going anywhere near your face after the fact !” Domanol scoffed back. “Wait, isn’t your knife .. your father’s old blade ? I could tell you some stories about where …”

“I don’t want to know,” the younger man shook his head, in a reluctant amusement. Regardless, the question of ‘Rip’s nickname stole his attention back toward that same subject of their meet. And then more talk about the trap, and plans to maintain it .. stole any chance to tell that particular tale either ..


“Allow it ?” Domanol sat up with an eruption, as his blood brother gave him due warning. “She’s not my Lieutenant, Dui.” He rolled brown eyes. “Fine fine .. ” he conceded swiftly though as the Tirdinen persevered with explanations. “I shall bow to your greater knowledge on the subject,” he bowed, literally, though still from where he sat, hardly serious. “But only .. because I want to ..” he could not help but resist adding on.

“I have stable duty now for the month,” Unalmis sighed, as Duinion belatedly extended a gesture of kindness. “With training besides that ? It would be .. ”

“Maybe we can fit it into your training somehow ?” his Uncle suggested. “Isys is not here. And if you haven’t been .. there .. since .. ” He was leaving a lot of deliberate pauses, and the younger Ranger did seem thoughtful throughout.


“Maybe at least once, could be managed,” Nal agreed, trying not to look too hopeful. He would not turn down the chance to replace his only memory of the place with one that was far more positive. “I tried to go back there, a few times, you know. But Dad and Nardy absolutely had a word or two with the Gate Guards, years back. They always have some excuse when I try to head South..” ‘They’re as bad as you two’, he added in his head. Of course, the last time he had tried to get out to Harlond, he’d thought he would just entirely skip the guard, the gate, .. and then well, the whole mess brought about by trying to sneak out … as it turned out, that didn’t quite work out either. “You know though,” he finished, turning to Duinion as the trapper spoke about believing him ‘capable’. “When I said that, before ?. You know, I was talking about him, right ?” he pointed plausibly in his uncle’s direction, turning to avoid the knowing eyes as he lied.



But it was too late. The mood which had tried so sneakily to console and cheer one another .. dropped then; like a Nazgul out of the dark sky above. For yes, no sooner had Duinion begun to speak of promises made, but Nal (and Dom)’s thoughts went immediately toward Addhor. And while he might have been upset at yet more being kept a secret from him Unalmis could neither interrupt, nor rightly blame Dui. As soon as the Tirdinen had said that this information was now ‘overdue’ as much as it was ‘not easy to speak of’. He could understand that all too well.

It took a moment for the young man to follow which diversion the older Ranger had taken, that he was now talking about … Ryndir. And then the penny dropped. Was Duinion saying .. that Ryn had made him make this promise ? Dui was certainly right again then ! As it became apparent that this secret would detail his friend’s death … this was absolutely something that Nal really didn’t want to talk about. Why was he still even here ? Eryn was safe with her father now and he could .. I mean, there was duty early in the morning. Really, he should .. Throwing brown eyes out through the high loft opening, the temptation to jump, to run far across that field and not even look back … was immense. In the end Unalmis closed his eyes, as though that would somehow close his ears. Or at the very least, force the threat of any tears right back where they’d come, before their existence would ever come into being. But he didn't otherwise make a move to leave.


For the first time in a while now, Domanol was at a loss for what to say. He glanced from the one to the other, as the secret was surrendered. And it was impossible to know who he felt worse for. Himself maybe, for having never gotten to know this young fellow, Ryndir. He'd missed out on something there, he could tell. In the end, the former guard glanced toward Eryn, as he realised. She had not let go of his nephew’s hand. And neither had that nephew released hers, in fact. There was an anchor there, an unspoken thing. But it might be enough. He hid his smile, finding yet another thing that a beard was useful for.

When first Nal heard it, that Ryn had asked Dui to keep him safe … he was met with confusion. Him ? Why ? Oh … Oh no. All the worst parts of the things he’d been trying to deny for months now struck hard and fast. And the grip upon Eryn’s hand was not a slight squeeze any longer, but a sudden rush to feel the other there. To hold on .. Because when Duinion shared with them Ryndir’s final words; that ‘Rip’ or Ric .. did really have a brother .. Nal’s eyes flew open irregardless of his best efforts. The shock shook through all efforts of control.


His hand entirely escaped that of his friend then. So that both of the young man’s hands tore at each other, in a grasp that hovered between his knees and might just dislocate a knuckle or more if he kept it up. But his face was devoid of all else but disbelief. Until Domanol reached in and forcibly this time took the young man’s hands apart of each other. Tiny cuticle moon marks betrayed where the pressure had begun to show on skin. Once the hands were parted from damaging each other, the Uncle laid them both upon his nephew’s kneecaps as that nephew watched on wordless. Until after a drowned, dry breath of a time, the younger man swallowed and glanced back toward the Tirdinen.

“Ever since we learned that it was .. who … was responsible for Ryn’s death,” Nal concentrated on the other man, as though focusing upon the target he was aiming for, might somehow help him deliver the words. “I haven’t been able to help thinking about .. what might have been the last thing that my friend saw, or .. what that .. what was the last thing said to him. What an ass who hated him that much, might have said to hurt him the most that he possibly could .. and left him .. like that .. ”

The young man shook his head as his Uncle reached out to place a hand on his shoulder. There would be no hearing ‘you don’t have to’. Not now. Because .. he did. He had to.


“But he wasn’t alone, was he ? Not at the last. He had you. You stayed. And you held .. ” Nal broke off, as Hattie groaned, sensing the upset in the room, and confusing over it. “He was with a friend,” the understanding came, and with it a visible release about the speaker’s face. “You were the last words he heard. And you told him what he needed to hear. And .. you have no idea what that means. To hear that ..”


“Hold on, now. Wait just a moment !” Domanol could contain himself no longer, and glanced from his blood brother to his nephew. “This ‘Rip’ has a brother ?!” the former Guard astounded. “There are TWO of them now that we are dealing with ?”

@Ercassie
"“No more leaving anybody out."

The words made Eryn glance toward Dom, especially when he spoke of 'facing all of us at once'. Was he including her in that? Her gaze flitted toward her father, wondering if he was in agreement with that. More likely than not, he would insist she stay out of it, though. She had to smile in amusement, however, when Dom started to swear, and swiftly changed it when he recalled her presence. It wasn't as if she'd never heard anyone say anything like that before, and she couldn't help thinking, 'I hang out with Kaylin, you know... I've heard worse.' But with a brief glance at her father, she chose not to say it out loud. Not with him there. He might decide Kaylin was not such a good influence after all.

As she was reminded that Hattie knows the man's scent, she smiled softly and reached out to pet the dog. "Yeah, maybe she'd like to take a bite out of his other arm. Wouldn't you, girl?" She scratched around her ears, smiling. "Good girl. We should get you a nice, thick steak or something." She decided, looking up to see if the menfolk agreed with that idea.

Duinion couldn't help a little grin at that idea. "We definitely will." He assured her. "Or whatever we can find at the butcher's, tomorrow. Or rather.. later today." He didn't know what might be available, but he'd make sure that the dog had the best of whatever was on hand, first chance he had.

At the Talk about the possibility that the beard was fake, Duinion closed his eyes briefly, then forced them back open. His weariness was threatening to take over, but he refused to give in. As Dom pointed to his own beard, he had to smile in amusement at his friend's antics. He caught the grin Dom aimed at him, when Nal spoke of beards making him look 'older', and it took him a couple of seconds to make the connection. He gave a little smile back, then found the interactions between uncle and nephew to be rather nice. And amusing. He quietly rubbed his tired eyes while they spoke about knives and shaving and such.

Duinion snorted a little as Dom spoke almost indignantly at the thought of being 'allowed'. "She allowed me to ask you to come along with me," He pointed out, shrugging. "If she had not, then.. I would not have officially been permitted to tell you anything about it. For I know you would have gone anyway," He smiled. Who knows. He might have found some sort of loophole to help Dom learn about it so he could... but as it was, he was glad he had not been denied permission.

"Ah," Duinion was a bit disappointed for the younger ranger, as well as simultaneously a little bit relieved, when Nal informed them that he had stable duty. "Well. Who knows how long we will need to keep checking on it." He shrugged. "Perhaps once this month has ended, you can join us." He mentioned. "If we're still going by that time, of course." He paused. "Even if we aren't, perhaps we could still arrange to bring you out to see what we discovered." He added, suspecting that maybe it was the curiosity of the secret lair that was intriguing the young man. He knew that Dom, at his age, would have been exactly the same. Even now, the northern ranger was clearly eager to take a look. He nodded in agreement with Dom's suggestion of working it into his training. Of course, whoever was going out there with him would need a bit of a heads-up before arriving, to know what to expect if they should get a look at those corpses...

Duinion merely shrugged in response to Nal's claim that he had been talking about Dom, when he spoke of being capable. He didn't know, but he still felt that his comment had needed to be said. Because he did not want Unalmis harboring any feelings that Duinion may not think so. That was far from the truth. And he had meant what he said. He would not have entrusted his little girl to the recently 'graduated' ranger, years ago, if he'd had any question or uncertainty that he could keep her safe. And Unalmis had proven himself worthy of that trust since.


Whatever his feelings about how capable the young ranger may be, however, Duinion had other, more important, matters that he also needed to say. To get off his chest. And, after delivering the news... the Message... he sat still and waited. And while one might think that unburdening himself of this information would make him feel that a weight had been lifted from his chest.. it was actually quite the opposite. He braced himself for an adverse reaction, some sort of lashing out in anger. Blame. Resentment, perhaps. As he watched the younger man, Duinion's thoughts flashed back to the harsh words once spoken to him by Unalmis' father, on another occasion; the aftermath of another great loss. Although Duinion had long since forgiven his former comrade for them, the words still occasionally echoed back to him from the far corners of his mind.

Then, of course, there was the blame cast upon him by Ryn's own father. He could not forget what the bereaved blacksmith had said to him on that day, no matter how hard he tried. And now, he waited with a clenched gut, waiting for Unalmis to hurl more hurt at him.. perhaps demand answers, or.. whatever was to come.


Eryn had sat still, quietly listening as her father spoke to Nal, telling him things that even she had not known. Sure, she'd known he was sad about Ryn's death. She remembered that he'd been gone for what felt like ages, and had learned later it was because he was hunting the killer. Unsuccessfully, unfortunately. It had rained heavily all that week, she recalled. She also remembered that when he had come home at last, he'd been soaking wet, exhausted, and running a bit of a fever. She remembered that well, because he had insisted he was not sick, and would have gone back out to continue the search except... what was it that had stopped him?

As Nal gripped her hand tighter, Eryn was distracted from delving back into those memories, and looked at her friend, and moved to put her other hand over their joined ones. She understood. This was... not a pleasant topic to visit. She had been very young, in those days.. she had been spared many of the gruesome details, and only told that Ryn would no longer be coming to train. That he, like so many others, had met his end in the line of duty. A few other details, she had picked up since, but this...

As Nal abruptly pulled his hand from hers, Eryn frowned minutely, but didn't try to stop him. She did, however, watch in concern as he.. well, she wasn't sure what he was doing, exactly. Wringing his hands, perhaps? She was somewhat relieved to see his uncle take hold of his hands and stop him, because she was afraid he was going to hurt himself. Silently, she shot Dom a grateful look, which may have been lost since he was focused on Nal at the moment. She wasn't really sure what was going on inside that head of his, but watching him, she felt a little heartbroken for him. She wanted to hug him, or say something to comfort him, but.. instead, she didn't really know what to do.


What came at last in the form of words caught both father and daughter entirely by surprise. Duinion listened, somewhat stunned as Unalmis began to talk. And it was not anger, or blame, or... anything like he had expected. He remained silent while Nal spoke, slowly realizing how the news he had just shared had impacted things. He'd had no idea how important this was, until this very moment. He should have worked up the courage to broach this topic with Unalmis... months ago.

A tiny shake of his head confirmed that no, Ryn was not alone as he died. Then, a small nod to confirm that yes, he was with a friend. Duinion could not bring himself to speak at the moment, but he wanted to apologize. He dropped his gaze down, swallowing with some difficulty, and took a couple of slow breaths.

As the silence was broken, Duinion couldn't help but feel relieved by Dom's interjection. He cleared his throat and glanced up at his brother, a little frown settling over his face. "It seems so," He answered, troubled by that thought. "I had no idea what it meant, at the time.." He was quite relieved to find that his throat worked again, and gave no hint of him having been 'choked up' a moment ago. "Honestly.." he hesitated, "he was.. not in good shape.. he could hardly talk," He said softly, reluctantly. "..I even thought he might just be.. speaking nonsensical things, in his last moments." He admitted. "It made no sense to me." He frowned, thinking back with some reluctance.

"The first time he said it, I thought he said 'Ric', but the second time.. it sounded more like 'Rip'. And.. I had no idea what that was supposed to mean. He had never spoken about this person to me." Duinion sighed and dropped his gaze. "I'm sorry that I didn't share this sooner, Unalmis. I.. had no idea the relevance that it held. To anything.. much less, to you." He dared lift his gaze to meet Nal's. "I also thought.. that his family would understand it better. I assumed his father would have passed the message on to whomever it concerned." He frowned. "It seems.. he did not." His heart sank a little at that realization. "Do you know.. did his sister, at least, hear anything about it? There was.. a message specifically for her, as well, but Damion would not let me speak to her." He explained quietly.

@Arnyn
He couldn’t tell if he was overstepping with her or still hitting the mark dead center. Given how bold he had been the night of the masquerade, of how far he had gotten then, he figured the sky could be his limit. Her eyes regarded him so curiously and seated so near to her, Abrazimir felt like he could truly see the gears turning in her mind. Taking his words, his looks, crushing them under the weight of her perceptions and life experiences, mulling over what secrets and meanings she might find in the fine powder of the residual of his actions. Did she like what she saw? Or was her mind showing her a completely different purview?

All he could do was drink and smile his handsome smile. This was fun! And at the same time, more nerve wracking than a duel with an orc or corsair.

Then she began to eat and he smiled broader, white teeth on display. And even better, offered up a morsel with her own lovely fingers. Abrazimir stared at it a moment, just in awe of the gesture, before he looked to her eyes…and opened his mouth, allowing her to feed him. He was careful not to nip or even brush her fingers with his lips. Curious, given where they had been before. As he chewed, he watched her own lips form her next words. If you are to take a lesson, or two… ”Or three.” He had to add cheekily, despite chewing. Rude maybe, but the wit was worth it. He chewed happily and she asked instead what his days were like, making his shrug indifferently and drink again from his mug.

His days. The things he did, expending such energies, with such resolve, now seemed so small a thing to say to so pretty a woman. He laughed as she referenced his sword, seated on the chair across from him like it was it’s own disparate member of their table and conversation. ”My days are less exciting than what you might think. It does involve a lot of preparation regarding my body. Drilling it, working it, pushing to it’s limits and endurances.” He glanced over to the sword, a strange solemn look coming over his features. There was true pride in his glance. He and that blade had been through much. It saved his life more than once. And ended plenty of others. There was no smile or glee. Just…solemnness and seriousness.

How much time does that pretty sword of yours spend out of its sheath?

Oh, but of course, my lady. ”Not a lot. When there is a worthy…adversary, then it will be ceaseless in it’s pursuit of completion. However long it takes. We do not give up.” Abrazimir said, swinging his eyes back to her. His hand returned to the top of the table to join the other now. ”And you, my Lady,” he reached to take the bread and broke off a small piece and offered it up to her pretty lips, ”you said your uncle insist you know your way around a knife. Reckon you can handle your way with something of that measure?” He asked her, nodding towards the longsword with his head while never taking his gaze off of Torniel, holding a proffered morsel before her lips much as she had done to him, the sparkle quite reflected in the depths of his own eyes.

@Rillewen


“It sort of makes sense . I just,” Unalmis struggled to convey the sheer mind blowing impact of what Duinion had revealed. Dropping his head back slightly on it’s neck, the young man took his sights up into the rafters for some clue how to even begin. But it was when the Tirdinen fretted over whether anything had even come of his efforts with Damion, that he found his answer. “I don’t know for sure whether Cali ever got your message,” Nal was forced to admit. “She was .. well, Ryn wasn’t just her twin. He was .., you know, you knew him,” the aggrieved friend shrugged, uncomfortably. Shouldn’t have mentioned the R word. Shouldn’t have .. The young man took a moment and pushed away the wave of what losing Ryndir had been like. “And having already lost her elder two brothers as well, .. she kind of .. broke,” he admitted, rushing the sentence out to hasten on. “I’d have to check with Iole to be sure, because they’re best friends. But honestly .. I can’t think how she wouldn’t have told the rest of us .. that .. if she had known what you just told. So if Cali’s father did share what you’d told him, she can’t have taken it in. She wouldn’t have kept that to herself. Because, you know, she knows ..” He added the last, to try and console the man who had otherwise kept the information to himself. “You had no idea,” he sadly agreed with the earlier admission.


“As for sense, I guess I am going to have to tell you something myself now, in the hope you might see some .. link. Some thing that I am missing.” with a deep breath and a troubled expression, Unalmis returned to an earlier confusion, in hopes of clearing up that confuzzlement, at least. “You asked before, why we call him ‘Rip’. I mean .. it’s not exactly something that I’m proud of, but what happened .. it might be important. And you have to know, even back then, that he deserved it. I mean, we thought he did.” A moment was allotted to sifting through the evidence, now that new information might change .. everything .. but not that, he decided. No. ‘Rip’ had ‘earned’ his nickname and the series of events which had led to it, by his behaviour that day. Whatever else, that … was indisputable. And so the confession came forth in earnest.

“His name as far as I’m aware anyway, nothing seems sure any more. Anyway, it’s Aderic Androllius, and he started school the same year I did, which was unusual because he ought to have started the year before with the others. Still, he turned up, nearly a year late and Ryn especially reached out to befriend him. That was .. just what he was like. He did the same for me, when I first started. And this guy, he said that his family called him ‘Ric’ .. ”


“Ric, being short for Aderic ?” Domanol put in at that point, checking that he was picking up what was being put down. Because so far nothing sounded quite justifiable for the reaction he had witnessed. His nephew nodded.


“Exactly. So the whole first week, everything was great. And he told us how his family had this farm they lived on,” Nal swallowed to now put together the fact of just how that farm had influenced them since, and ever more so recently .. “Since his father had retired. And it turned out that farming wasn’t a very ‘retiring’ job, so he and his brother had to help out, you know with chores and things. There was a lot to do, he said. That was why he was so late starting school, and why .. he said his brother wasn’t there as well right now. That was when he first claimed, to have a brother.

But then the second week, he came back to school and it was .. different. I mean, he looked the same and all but he acted .. like the whole week before he’d been pretending, like it had been a game to him, and he was now bored of keeping it up any longer. So he let us know he didn’t, in fact, have a brother. He said that we just looked stupid enough to believe anything, and so he thought it might be fun to see if he could fool us. Which clearly, he had. He’d gotten the idea because Cali and Ryn were twins. So he’d said he had a twin as well.

There were other things he did then too, more and more as time went on. Which gave away a more vindictive side to him. Honestly, we were just kids and not sure what to make out of it all. Why anyone would do that, behave that way for apparently no reason ? It was really strange. And after a while, we started to withdraw a little from bothering with him. He could say things you know, or .. it sounds kind of petty and like its nothing at all to tell of it now. But back then, he’d take things that weren’t his, and break them, for no reason and laugh like it was hilarious. Then he would tell the teacher one or all of us had done it. Sometimes he pretended like he knew nothing about it.”


Domanol cast a glance toward Duinion, his crinkled brow evident to how little this was making sense to him. Or how it might be relevant. He had no idea.


“By the time Trev was old enough to come to school with us as well, things had .. already escalated. By that point ‘Ric’ was actively being cruel, on purpose, and in particular to our group of friends. I couldn’t tell you why, since we were the ones who’d tried to be nice to him in the first place. Maybe seeing us welcome Trev in to our group, just as we had to him, just like they did for me .. maybe it set him off somehow. I don’t know. But soon he couldn’t let a chance go by him. If he saw one of by ourselves, he was there, shoving, kicking, tripping us up. I can’t tell you the amount of times he pushed me into a wall, or to the floor, just because he was passing by. He followed Iole home from school once. And she lived on the Sixth. He lived out in the Pelennor ! It was so … creepy. He was .. I don’t know. Relentless. Everything he did .. was too much to recount now. But it didn’t take long before Ryn had enough, I mean we all had. But he was the eldest of us and he said so long as we stuck together, the idiot wouldn’t bother us.”


Thinking back to his own very recent and very similar statement, Domanol frowned, perhaps at the fact that such a plan had been attempted before, and clearly failed. Perhaps only because his plan was the same as something which schoolchildren had managed to come up with.


“We made sure to walk each other home, to go places in pairs, that sort of thing. So if he picked on one of us, he couldn’t intimidate us anymore. We looked out for each other, and even other kids if he tried to mess around with them instead and one of us saw it. Amazingly that didn’t stop him. I mean, sometimes it seemed as though it had. And he’d be all upset and almost crying that we were being mean to him. Not even always when a teacher was around either. It was like he believed he could fool us again or something. He’d deny doing any of the things that we definitely knew he’d done, because he’d literally done it to us. We saw him do it a lot of the time. Anyway, that was when we came up with the idea of a trap.”


“And where did you get that idea I wonder ?” His uncle put in, with a slow shake of his head.


“Alright, I admit, it was my idea,” Nal sighed. “At least the part about trapping him. I knew Dad used to … do stuff like that, with you,” he glanced towards Duinion. “I mean, you’re the expert. We were just dum kids. But we couldn’t stop him. We’d tried everything else we could think of. And then he started this nasty habit of stealing Trev’s lunch. We’d share ours of course, so no one went hungry. But still. GrammyU was working her fingers to the bone to afford to make Trev a nice lunch. Because somebody was making fun of him all the time, when we couldn’t afford things .. or whatever.

That’s when Ryn had his great idea. Not exactly as creative as a cage to capture corsairs, but we rigged up a packed lunch where Cali had put some red ink in it. I mean there was a lot of ink. An entire quill pot’s worth. And when ‘Rip’ took that lunch from Trev, just like we’d known he would, as soon as he put his hand in there, it got smeared in this stuff. He tried to clean it off, but only got it on his other hand as well .. And that’s when Iole let the teacher know. That she’d seen Aderic steal the red inkpot. It was what the teacher used, to mark everyone’s work. And when teacher checked, it was of course, missing.

That was when he called on ‘Rip’ to stand up and answer for this allegation, made him show his hands. And as soon as he did, of course, he got in a lot of trouble. Even the teacher was aware that things had gone missing for ages now. And so this was like, the proof. Of who had been behind it all.”


A small emission of almost bitter laughter escaped Unalmis as he realised the irony. “I guess he’s been a thief for that long, making things go missing, ..” he shook his head.


“I’m still missing the ‘Rip’ connection,” his uncle put in then, almost warily. He could see that the story was teetering upon an as yet unspoken point, or punchline. And was keen to hear it.


“Our plan was to get him in trouble for the stealing, to reveal him against all doubt as a thief,” Unalmis returned to the role of explanation. “Because then no one would believe his lies anymore when he said it was one of us. But it was also meant to humiliate him, so no one would be scared of him again. So .. Trev and I had made this glue .. we were trying something that we’d read in one of Dad’s books. And we’d tested it out at home .. ”

Nal couldn’t bring himself to glance toward Eryn but he wondered if she now might recall when he and Trev were talking at Midsummer, about having glued shoes to a ceiling to test the binding agent’s strength ..


“Ryn had taken on the most risky part of the plan himself, and steeped the bully’s chair with this glue, without anybody seeing. It had to be done at just the right time, so it did not set before he sat on it, but so that it was done while everyone was still out of the room. And it was .. perfect. The teacher called red-handed Ric to come stand at the front of the class for his punishment … and when he tried to get up from his seat. He couldn’t. The teacher had to pull him up by the arm. And that was when his trousers ripped, leaving their seat on the glued seat. And that’s why we call him ‘Rip’. I mean, not just us. Everyone that was in that class started doing it as well. But most would not dare to his face. Others of us make rather a point of doing so. So he’ll never forget what he drove us to.”


The young man’s expression wavered as he glanced up from staring intently at his hands, and dared to see what his audience might think of the tale. “The fact that we’ve come from that .. to him, doing all the things he has since ? I can’t think that anything we did, in defence of ourselves, is any good reason to do all that he’s done. I honestly, really, never meant for .. you to get caught up in it,” he glanced in Eryn’s direction without properly meeting her eyes.

“But I mean, ..he killed Ryn. And now I guess we know why ? Somehow .. Ryn worked out that Aderic did in fact have a brother after all. And I’m not sure why that was such an important thing for him to keep secret. All this time ? Maybe he was sorry he told us that first week, and so he tried to discredit us all forever after … to make sure no one believed us if we ever told anyone ? And took it so far as to commit murder and .. well, we know he’s been working with the Halsads …. Nothing would surprise me any more. Maybe his rotten father sold the brother as a sacrifice to the stupid temple, and ‘Rip’ wasn’t supposed to tell about it ? I .. really have no clue. But it has to be important. If Ryn died for it, if he knew enough to make sure we learned about it, .. surely between us we can work out what it means. Right ?”

@Ercassie
With a little nod, Duinion let Nal know that yes, he knew what he meant. He knew from how much Ryn had spoken of his sister and his friends, how much each of them had meant to him. But, hearing Nal speak with doubt about her having received the message, Duinion's heart sank a bit further. So, it seemed that none of that had gone past Damion. He held back a sigh, wanting to rub his face with his hands, but instead he leaned his head back against the window frame. He gave a little nod, recalling Damion speak of his daughter as if she were about to grieve herself into a grave as well. He was glad to hear that she had recovered, at least. He gave another small nod when Nal added 'you had no idea', but he still felt bad about it all.

Duinion lifted his head up again, however, when Nal spoke of having to share something as well, in hopes that they would be able to see a link. What was this about? He shifted and sat up again, fighting the weariness that was settling heavily upon him. He was feeling off, from skipping the last two nights of sleep. But he managed to keep himself alert enough to listen to what the young ranger had to say. And an interesting, if not slightly troubling, tale it was.

Slowly, Duinion turned his gaze toward Dom, wondering if he was also thinking of the fact that the old captain Androllius had been something of a bully, and now.. it sounded as if his son was just as bad. Worse, in fact. At least the captain hadn't gone around taking people's lunch and pushing them into walls and things.. but he had done a lot of yelling, as Duinion recalled, and had been quite strict and demanding.

Hearing Nal mention that 'that's just what he was like' when speaking of their mutual friend, Eryn had to smile softly. She nodded, recalling, even as a little girl, how nice he had been to her. She made no comment though, and listened quietly with the intention of letting Nal tell his tale in full. The mention of a farm made her nod slowly, recalling something she'd meant to say. "Oh.." She bit her lip, and as Nal took a brief pause she took the opportunity to interject a little thing, "when the man was chasing me, and I hid in the burned house, I forgot to mention this before.. but he mentioned something about how I was stupid to try and hide from him in his own house where he grew up, or something like that." She realized now that the comment might be important, but then motioned for Nal to continue.

Her frown deepened a bit to hear about the unusual change that had come over the boy after that first week. That was... strange. Unless... she pondered on a thought as he continued to talk about his experiences in school, and she couldn't help but think how glad she was that she had not ever had to go to school, but had instead stayed and did lessons at home. "A twin.." She repeated softly, thoughtful.

Duinion was frowning as he listened to all of this. By this time, he was starting to struggle to pay attention through the fog of sleepiness, and more than once he became a little distracted by trying to count up how long he had been awake, only to realize he had zoned out for a couple of words. He did a hard blink and forced himself to focus, but not much of it was making a lot of sense. A bully, son of another bully, claiming to have a brother. A twin, no less. Somehow, that seemed relevant, but he wasn't making the connection at the moment.

As the story took a turn toward explaining the 'Rip' aspect of it all, Duinion managed to make himself lean forward so that he wasn't still leaning against the wall. It was not easy to shift into a less comfortable position, but he figured it would make it easier for him to stay focused.

Eryn frowned more as Nal spoke of how the jerk treated him. And then how, other times, he would cry and pretend that he didn't know why they were mean to him. She looked at her dad, and at Dom, wondering if they were having a similar thought to her. The thought of a trap, and Dom's comment in reply, made her smile in amusement.

Listening to Nal describe the trap that the kids had rigged, Duinion couldn't help but smile in admiration at the cleverness. "Very creative, if you ask me." He muttered. To be honest, he rather enjoyed hearing about that little 'trap'. But it only got better. As Nal went on to talk about the glue and what result had come from it, his eyes widened slightly. He bit his lip, then brought a hand over his mouth to hide the amused grin trying to steal across his face. He managed to suppress the snickers well enough to cover up his amusement, which turned out for the best, as Nal's following comment turned the topic solemn again.

Eryn gave a little nod to Nal's words. "It wasn't your fault," She assured Nal. "I mean, he.. he did all this stuff. Not you." She frowned thoughtfully as Nal spoke about how Ryn had somehow figured out about Rip's brother, and then speculated that maybe they had sold the brother.

Duinion frowned as he tried to think of what he knew of the elder Androllius, and looked at Dom. "Sold his own son.. to the temple?" He frowned. "Do you think he'd do that?" He wondered, as his brother would be far more familiar with what the former captain was like.

Eryn slowly shook her head, feeling that such a theory conflicted with the theory she had been thinking of. "What if the brother was the one who cried?" She suggested, looking at Nal. "If they really were twins, I mean... maybe they were identical twins? Maybe, the other brother was the first one you met. You said everything was fine the first week. So, either something happened over the weekend that made him turn against you, or.. maybe it was a different boy that you met the second week?" She looked at the older two rangers, wondering if they'd had the same thought, then she looked back at Nal. "And, you also said sometimes he would be crying and act like he didn't know why everyone was mean to him." She shrugged, thinking it seemed like a reasonable conclusion, but then.. she hadn't been there. "Maybe he wasn't acting?" She suggested uncertainly.

@Rillewen

For the first time since the Rangers had gone off to the Meeting at the Barracks, they four (and Hattie) were all back together again. None of the tales shared between them though in this reunion had been pleasant to hear out, even if altogether the small details were starting to add up. The pride for Eryn and Hattie fighting back against their attacker, the reassurance of Duinion having been able to comfort Ryndir in his final moments, and even the amusing explanation of young ’Rip’ Androllius himself tearing his trousers .. Domanol had been forced to hold back laughter at the explanation of the childhood ‘Rip’ reveal. But the sober conclusion from his nephew had stolen the moment. And the weary inhabitants of the barn were faced with all the flavours of information they’d collated, to make sense of now. At such an hour when all were exhausted and ought to have been resting up in bed …


Unalmis found his hand’s way back to Eryn’s as the girl assured him that she felt no blame toward him. Not for the efforts of an enemy who hated him, and had clearly used her to enjoy a greater satisfaction from his cruelty. After offering a quiet “Thanks” to his friend, brown eyes did take themselves toward Domanol as well though. And the nephew’s troubled expression met a knowing, understanding nod from his Uncle.

As Duinion looked to him thenafter, the same elder frowned. Sell a son to the temple ? The former guard shook his head, albeit reluctantly. “He was a tyrant, and a louse,” he recalled, of the elder Androllius. “Definitely would not be told he was wrong. But selling .. or murdering .. children .. ?”

“This is the guy who suspended you,” Nal reminded him. To take himself out of the memory, of Trev telling him about Captain Ass, threatening to sell his own son to a slaver. It wasn't therefore so unbelievable a thing as perhaps the oblivious two elder men realised. But he had just effectively distracted them.

“Thorley has told me more than once, that I got myself suspended,” Dom shrugged. “He might not be falling too wide of the mark there,” he admitted. “I was young, and headstrong .. Acted rashly. Not like now.” He mused, and met a sea of unconvinced faces in response. “I don’t see him selling children to a sacrificial blood temple. Or even getting mixed up with mad occultist zealots either for that matter. Honestly I’m still trying to resolve how his kid got mixed up with Halsad in the first place.” he confessed then, dropping his wired chin into one the cup of one hand, thoughtfully.


Eryn’s theory then catapulted tired minds into new mires of shock. Identical twins ? “You mean like the twin sons of Liriel, the grocer ?” Nal recalled, who the girl might know from the market, as he trialled the idea with his memory of ‘Rip’. “Noone can tell them apart ..” He frowned.

“The sons of Lord Elrond Halfelven also,” Domanol put in, of his own experiences. “It is possible I guess. But if he is in fact real, where is the other brother ? Has anyone ever seen two of them together ? They’re much older than the grocer’s sons. Why didn’t they both go to the same school ?”

“I guess one did the chores while the other went to school ?” his nephew threw more wood onto their hypothetical bonfire. “I mean, he did say that his parents hadn’t wanted to lose out on help to clear their fields, and all that. But you mean they might have taken turns, don’t you ?” Unalmis sought for Eryn’s mind. But the more that he thought about it, the worse it seemed. And also the more plausible .. “You said that there were two identical versions of Cali’s report ..” He tapped his forefinger upon his lip as the cogs of comprehension whirred. “And when we went to the Guard HQ, the Captain’s log said that ‘Rip’ was even out on vacation at the time with the gate. But if there really are two of them .. one could have switched in for the other. But then which one is the real Guard ?”


“We know where the ruins of the family farm are, on the Pelennor. You went there. Do you think you could find it again ?” Dom threw the challenge at Duinion, rather urgently.

“Not now ..” His nephew started.

“Not necessarily this minute,” the Uncle relented. “But if we can learn the location, and we know the family name, and Eryn works at the Houses of Healing ..” He laid both palms flat as though he had turned over winning cards in a game.

“You think she can find the logbooks of which midwife would have visited that farm and delivered ‘Rip’, when he was born,” Nal realised. “You don’t have to do that,” he immediately turned to assure Eryn.

“It would prove it beyond all doubt,” Domanol refused to climb down from his excitement quite yet. “All births had to be recorded in the tome at City hall as well.”

“City hall was at least partly destroyed though, when the city was attacked,” he was informed. “That tome has probably been moved if it's not also destroyed. All we’d find is that the healer who probably delivered him has since then ever so mysteriously fallen over her own skirt and somehow fatally impaled herself on a small but exceedingly sharp stone,” Unalmis rolled his eyes. “I told you. You can’t prove anything against this guy. The red ink and the rip was such a triumph because it was our only triumph.”


“You believe that this was why this wretch murdered your friend !!” he was reminded in due turn. “Are you your father or his son ? Come on ! There has to be a way to prove it.”

“I need to tell the others,” Nal realised, and then took that acknowledgement to glance at the Tirdinen. Whom he was trying very very hard to convince that he was not as rash as that man seemed to think .. “We’ll make sure Cali hears what you tried to tell her father,” he promised Duinion. “And if you didn’t already find out who that girl was that went through the gate with ‘Rip’ already, we’d better look into that as well. Either she had no say in it, and is simply not as fortunate as Eryn to have people come looking for her, or else she’s working with him. Which means there would be three of them to consider, not just two,” he shook his head. This was .. a lot. He was never going to be able to concentrate on mucking out stables all day now. And in a room full of horses too, every one of them just waiting to be taken out for exercise …


Hattie on the other hand did not have any such obligations or complications either to concern her from the hushed whirs of conversation. Nose in the air, the dog checked twice for the scent that she had felt sure .. yes ! She definitely recognised that scent ! And leapt down from their loft seat, down a stair case of bundled hay, before any one of the distracted humans could stall her … from setting out with wild whoops of barking all across the dark field beyond.

@Lantaelen
He accepted the offer. She smiled; a sultry and pleased smile, directed at the oblivious knight in front of her. Men... they were, at their core, simple beings. Much less complicated to unravel than women. Or three, he said. Perhaps, the slight lift of her shoulder would tell him, although it was obvious she was amused.

She did like his laugh, and she listened with curiosity as he spoke of how he spent a lot of time training his body. Oh, what a welcome change from most of the men she was ordered to do business with. It was a rare pleasure indeed... to be able to play with whom she wanted. A man close to her own age, a muscular man, a handsome man. A witty man. A man who moved her shawl up for her, when it dropped. He was, therefore, unusual - in more ways than she could count upon one hand. That showed once again, when the gleam in his eye changed as his gaze rested upon his lethal weapon, propped onto one of the chairs. So grave... as if he caried an unfathomable weight upon his shoulders.

Who was he?

It was the first time she had really wondered. The first time she found herself wanting to know more... about the daring man seated so closely beside her.

His reply to her question, made her laugh quietly as her gaze dropped to the table. Torniel shook her head slowly, almost unable to believe he would say such things. But immensely amused that he would. When he turned the question around, so to speak, her eyes flicked back up to him, and instantly called forth caution. She would have to tread carefully. Knowing this, she stared at the bit of bread he offered to her. Returning the favour. Torniel met his gaze, then, and opened her mouth, allowing him to do as she had done to him. But her hand reached out, to wrap around his wrist. To keep him from pulling back too soon. Her lips most definitely grazed his fingers. As she chewed, she kept his hand where it had been, and after swallowing she guided his fingers in a brush along her jawline, and part of her neck, before letting go.

"We have more of this than we need, don't we?" she asked him, tilting her head toward the basket of bread. Not waiting for an answer, she took one of the large napkins that had been brought out with the bread and unfolded it. Wordlessly, she filled it with bread and tied it closed. Half of the bread was still in the basket. The other half, now in the napkin.

Torniel leaned close to him. "Don't go anywhere, Dauntless," she whispered, running one of her fingers along his jaw, now. "Please," she added - another rare occurrence. Because she did not generally ask for things. She simply got them. Slowly, she rose from the chair, choosing to stand on the side where the knight was sitting, brushing up against him as she did so. "I won't be long." A promise she most definitely intended to keep. But she had made a different promise as well, earlier that day. And no matter the crime lord who tugged at her strings to make her dance for him in whatever way he needed, her word was still her own.

Her hips swayed in that natural way she had, alluring yet not too on-the-nose, as she made for a hallway beyond the common room. Before stepping into it, she cast a look over her shoulder and smiled a slow smile at Sir Dauntless. She winked at him. And then she stepped out of sight, carrying the napkin with the bread in one hand.

The hallway held multiple possibilities. The stairway to the rooms, upstairs. A back door to the inn. And a second door to the kitchen, as well. She went to the latter, first. To call for the attention of the cook, and request some soup. In a mug that was expendable. She would pay for it, of course. For the soup as well as the possibility the mug might not make it back. It took some persuasion, but not too much. Most of what it took, was a little time. She thanked the man, explaining some of her motives. Making a few inquiries. He seemed sympathetic, yet uncertain about whatever they were discussing. The cook lingered in the doorway of the kitchen, watching Torniel as she made for the back door. The door outside. Once she had stepped out, he returned to his cooking pots, the kitchen door swinging shut behind him at the same time as the back door closed behind Torniel.

Anyone who might be watching, would see the gorgeous woman in the green dress, with nothing but a matching shawl to shield her from the winter cold, approaching the stables as she held the napkin with bread in one hand, the mug of soup in the other. Her shoulders hunched a little at the sharp bite of the wind as it blew some of the loose strands of her hair into her face. She called out a hello, clearly looking for someone, and stepped to the side of the building - still visible from the back door to the inn. Behind a padlocked crate, two small feet were sticking out. Torniel crouched in front of those feet. Held out the mug first. "Careful," she cautioned the girl. "The mug is a bit hot. Best hold it by the ear. When it cools a little, it can warm your hands." She put the napkin in the girl's lap. Soup, and bread... Nothing extravagant. But it would be difficult to bring a whole meal out here. Not to mention that the girl might not even accept that. Poor people still had pride.

She and the girl spoke quietly for a minute, before Torniel rose from her crouch. Looking down at the girl, she couldn't help but notice the way she was huddled in the small corner created by the stable wall and the crate. Hoping to find some small refuge from the wind. Torniel clasped her hands together in front of her mouth, blowing out her warm breath into them. And sighed.
Removing the green shawl from her shoulders, she stooped to settle it around the girl's. "You need it more than I do," she told the small thing, before the girl might protest. "If you dare return the mug to the kitchen... ask for Edgarion. He might agree to speak to the innkeeper on your behalf. For some work. It might keep you fed." Torniel wrapped her now bare arms around herself. "No guarantees, though. Sorry."

Unable to bear the girl's wide eyes staring up her as they did, Torniel turned away from her. Back to the inn. It was freezing out here. When she returned to the common room and headed for the table where Dauntless awaited, her cheeks were still reddish from the cold.

@Ercassie
Giving a wordless little squeeze to Nal's hand as it returned to hers, Eryn smiled faintly at him. She was now more worried than ever that this man might actually come back around to finish what he'd started. Whether that was to kill her, her father, her friend.. she didn't know. And she could only hope that none of that would happen.

As for Duinion, it was some small comfort to hear Domanol confirm his doubts about the elder Androllius. He couldn't really imagine any parent committing such a horrific act as that. To sell one's own child.. but then.. whoever his own parents were had apparently abandoned him somewhere, so who knows what sort of things people do, if they don't want their children? He glanced across at his daughter, and swallowed to think of how close he may have come to losing her. He couldn't imagine how he could endure such a loss. How could a parent not want their child, he wondered?

As for the question of how the man's son could have gotten mixed up with Halsad.. Duinion could think of no explaination. But when Eryn spoke up with a theory that might explain the conflicting actions of the bully Nal had described, Duinion blinked at her thoughtfully.

"Yes," Eryn agreed, when Nal asked if she meant like Liriel's twins. "Exactly," She nodded. "I mean, Liriel can tell her twins apart, but I can never figure out how. They look so alike, I bet they could pull off a swap with almost anyone, if they wanted to. And, well.. if they were old enough to do things like that." She shrugged. "What if this guy and his twin figured out they could do that? I wonder if these guys are working together, or if the one twin is making the other help, or what?" She added thoughtfully.

"Seems like.." Duinion frowned as he tried to remember something. "It's been a while, but it seems like I may have once read something about how, in sets of twins, there's usually a dominant one." He couldn't even recall what book he may have read that in, or if it had been a fictional book or not. Once he had gotten old enough to manage it, he had used to spend a lot of time in the library while waiting for Dom to get out of school, so he had read many books during that time. He glanced at Dom, when his friend spoke of the brothers of their queen, and nodded thoughtfully. Dom had come from the North, and likely had even had chances to work with the elven twins, but Duinion didn't remember if he'd ever seen them.

Eryn frowned thoughtfully at the ideas tossed around. She nodded slightly when Nal asked if she'd meant they could have taken turns. "It wouldn't be fair to make one kid stay home and do chores, while the other gets to go get an education. I mean, that almost guarantees that one kid will have a chance at a good life, while the other would only know how to be a farmer." She mentioned. "Of course, I don't know what their parents were like.. maybe they did plan on doing it that way, But even so, maybe the boys decided to swap up sometimes?" She shrugged. It seemed reasonable. She could see where doing the same thing all the time would get dull and tiresome, so swapping places with someone, if you can, would seem appealing. Right?

She nodded again at the mention of the reports. "Yeah.. only that one page," She added. "I've got them both.. up at the house with Aggie," She added softly. "I hid them up my sleeve to keep Hattie from them, and then..." She trailed off, listening instead to what Nal might be thinking. The thought of them swapping out even for the guard post... that was a bit alarming. She frowned. And suddenly, something clicked. Her eyes widened slightly as she drew a small intake of breath. "Wait.. didn't someone say he was a lieutenant?" She asked, as a memory hit her suddenly. But she stopped herself from saying more, at least for a moment. Long enough to consider how to actually say what she had thought of without saying more than she ought to. Long enough for someone to confirm the question. She hesitated. "I might have seen him before." She said quietly, thoughtful, then explained. "One time when Kaylin and I were together," She turned her gaze mostly toward Nal for this. "There was a young guy at the gate there, and he insisted on having the password. Kaylin had to vouch for me, because I didn't know it yet.." She cleared her throat softly. "That was before I was a healer apprentice. Anyway, I remember her calling him lieutenant. He was probably about your age," She recalled, nodding to Nal. "That's unusual, right?"

Duinion frowned slightly at the thought that this fellow, disguised as a guard, may have been stalking them all for some time now. That would explain how he would have gathered enough information to find his old house, pose as Nal, and all the other things the fellow had done lately. As Dom put forth a challenge, Duinion looked from him to Nal and back. "I most certainly could," He assured Dom.

"But.. you aren't going back there, are you?" Eryn asked, suddenly anxious. What if that was exactly what the fellow wanted them to do? What if he was waiting for them?

"If we do, it'll be in the daylight, and not alone," Duinion assured her. "You've nothing to worry about."

She looked a bit unconvinced, but gave a little nod. She frowned as she considered the possibility of checking into the records. She glanced from Nal to her dad, then turned to Dom. "I can check, of course... but I think Nal is probably right," She said quietly. "Either that, or.. well, as far out as they were, maybe they didn't have a chance to get a midwife out there, when her time came." She pointed out, looking at Duinion then. "Mama didn't." She reminded her father softly.

Duinion closed his eyes briefly and nodded slightly. Yes, he remembered that well. He also remembered hearing about how his little girl had run across the Pelennor in search of someone to help her mother, when Idhrenel went into labor prematurely. "Yes, that is a good point." He agreed. "If the birth happened that out at that farm, isolated and far from the city, and they weren't able to get a midwife.. maybe they didn't even report it." He shrugged. "Seems I remember hearing before that he was rather tight with his money, anyway." He glanced at Dom for confirmation on that. "And that was with the captain's pay. Once he'd retired and settled down to try farming? I imagine the coin was scarcer than ever."

He frowned at the question of whether this secret about the twin could have been the reason for Ryn's murder. Duinion felt as if he were missing something, but he couldn't quite place what that was. He was a bit distracted from thinking about that, however, when Nal assured him that he would get the message to Cali. He hesitated and nodded. "I'm sure it would be better coming from a close friend such as yourself." He smiled sadly. "I mean.. her father didn't react very well to it, when I came to tell him." He explained, then looked down. "I suppose he may have felt that I waited too long to share with him that I had a message from his son. But, he was just.. upset in general, I suppose." He cleared his throat. "At the time, we all thought it was a group of bandits," He sighed. "There had been a group of them spotted in tha area, not long before that, and then.. well, given the fact there was a slain deer not far from where we found him.. we figured Ryn had interrupted this group from dividing up the meat or something. Looked like an ametuer's work. I spent days trying to pick up the trail.. but the rain.." He dropped his head and shook it slowly. "It wouldn't stop raining." He muttered softly. "Anyway, I should give you the message for her." He looked up again, finding Nal's gaze. "It seemed important to him. He asked me to tell Cali that he was sorry." Duinion frowned. "He said he'd tried to keep his promise, and he was sorry that he couldn't." He shrugged slightly. "He did not explain what that meant, but I assume she will know." He was quiet for a moment after that, while wishing he hadn't entrusted those messages with the father. He ought to have known Damion wasn't in a good mind to remember to pass them along...

There was still the question of the girl. Duinion frowned as Nal brought her up, thinking about what he had learned of her. "I don't know who she was," He shook his head. "All I know is what I observed from her tracks. She had shoes.. the sort a girl wears around town, maybe. I think she may be about a size smaller than Eryn, but it was hard to be sure." He fought the urge to yawn, and during the time it took, he thought a bit more. "I know that she stood waiting patiently, without trying to run away, while he got the horse ready, and then got on the horse with him." He recalled from the tracks in the mud. "But before that," He frowned. "We followed the trail out to a clearing in the forest, within sight of the burned house. The girl waited there with the horses.. I believe she was there the whole time that he was chasing Eryn around." He explained, then recalled something. "She had a visit from Hattie, too." He added. "And she apparently made a sort of.. crown? Or something. Out of poison ivy." He frowned. "That was one reason I knew for sure that it wasn't Eryn who had been sitting there." he added. "Then, apparently after he'd put Eryn in the cave," He went on, "the man returned to this girl in the clearing, yanked her up from where she was sitting, and we suspect that he must have made her help him with bandages for his arm."

"So.." Eryn frowned, thinking. "Maybe she's helping him against her will, but he's got her intimidated into cooperating?"

"Either that, or she's willingly helping him," Duinion agreed. "Perhaps she feels she has no other option. Perhaps.. he has her intimidated? But whatever the case.. she could not have been bound, because she was making leaf chains and petting the dog. And bandaging his arm." He added, shrugging.

Eryn was about to say something about that, when Hattie suddenly startled her by leaping up and began barking. She looked at Nal, then at the older two rangers, alarmed. Had he come at last? She watched in dismay as Hattie took off before anyone could stop her. "Hattie, no!" She called in a whisper. "Come back.." Her muted attempts at calling her back were fruitless. She wished now more than ever that she'd made sure to bring her bow along. But she was fine, right? She was here with three rangers, one of them her dad. She'd be safe with them.

Duinion tensed as soon as Hattie began barking, losing most of the sleepiness immediately. Had the man come at last? His hand reached for his weapon as he peered intently down from the loft window, trying to see where Hattie was heading. If that man was coming, and if he hurt Hattie... His gaze flicked toward that of his brother, across from the opening. "See anything?" He whispered, unsure quite what to expect in the next few minutes. But whatever it was, he intended to be ready for it.

@Rillewen

A silence had descended over both Domanol and Unalmis when Eryn mentioned her mother. But the elder man had taken a look toward the girl’s father, to judge if his friend would need support at the recall. Of his wife, of what had happened to his wife. They’d spoken. He knew. And he knew how he felt when the fate of his first wife entered conversation. it had a way of stopping all else until the memory was satisfied. Of course, not a one of them might be stood here now, facing .. all of this, had things not gone the way they had, with Heraasi.

Unalmis was drowning in a few thousand thoughts of his own, foremost of which was that he knew more than a few farmers who’d argue with Eryn’s assumption that their lot was not a ‘good’ life. Cailon might even be one of them. But the thought .. of two .. of identical twins. Of all the times it might have been two of them, instead of just one ‘Rip’. Was that how he had managed to kill Ryndir ? That would have been a surprising revelation after all. And his friend had been a formidable Ranger, even in training. Even as a child, he’d been swinging around swords from the forge with his elder brothers. Eager, strong, able. But two of them, identical … that could have thrown things. He must have come across them, maybe hunting that deer … That must be why they’d killed him. Because he had found out. Because they didn’t want him to tell anybody else .. Two of them. He felt like he needed to sit down, except that he already was.


Domanol might have injected a thought into their mix, that even if Androllius Senior was (probably) not capable of murdering or selling babies; he had certainly proved he could be unfair. And if the farm work had proven as hard toil as Nal had been led to believe, then it made sense, not only that the father would have wanted help as much with his 'retirement' as he could. And also that he would want to know that the work would be well inherited, carried it on in generations to come. Leave your mark upon this land, he’d said before. Domanol could not help but ponder that now.

“So we’ve gone from one of them to contend with, to two, and now perhaps there are three of them ?” the former guard threw his hands up in the air, just as he noted that the dog had leaped down from their perch and the others were already calling after her. Had he startled the hound ? But Hattie was rousing up a raucous as she went, and tearing away with a determined air.

“She’s seen someone,” Unalmis sat up, just as Duinion asked the older man if he could see any thing.

“In the hedgerow, over that ways where the shadows fall,” Dom hazarded a guess. “She’s heading straight for someone,” he shrugged. “Quickest way out of the field is the other direction.” He explained his reasoning.


Retrieving his knife from it’s concealed guard, Unalmis considered the weapon and wished he had something a little more ranged to hand. “If I’d had any idea we were heading out to this,” he turned back toward Eryn, with regret. “I’ve had made sure to bring along that bow you had.”

“Might be that we ought to have at least stocked up with an arsenal, once we worked out some villain might be heading this way,” his Uncle put in with a slow shake of his head. But he did not turn his gaze back from where he had seen the dog head for. And his nephew took his eyes there too.

“We were in the process .. of working out exactly whether any villains would come here at all,” the younger man put in.

“Wish I’d brought the sword,” Domanol retained the mind enough to not claim the weapon as ‘his’ sword. The last thing they required right now was to begin another debate. He nodded to where what looked like a considerable blade was reflecting back against the pale moonlight. “Arrows ? Dui ?” he put to his blood brother, with a tone that was growing ever more so grim.


The black dog had been swallowed by the shadows now, so that only her sound escaped the blind spot she’d come to. Followed by a horse, which was clearly less used to the rowdy smaller animal than those more familiar with her.

“Riders !” Dom hissed, recognising the cavorting silhouette. “Three of them,” he then observed, as a further pair flanked the first and those folk mounted upon them sought to calm the first. Finally the startled horse puttered some feet away, and shook it’s head, as though it could drown out the barking. Hattie ran back halfway towards the barn, and then returned to whatever shape of a ‘herd’ she had just rounded up.

The two unaffected horses started in pursuit of her, the sword, if it had been a sword, now nowhere to be seen. The less stoic steed followed rather more meekly behind them. Hattie’s calls recommenced then, excitedly, as the dog herself stalled some hundred feet before the barn. A broad laugh escaped one of the unknown men, as the more flighty horse looked set to take across the field in new fear.


“That’s Narradir,” Unalmis knew, and found his feet as swiftly as his Uncle grasped his arm.

“You can’t be sure ..” Domanol pressed.

“I'm sure. Hattie’s telling us to come see what she found,” his nephew persisted. “I know her. And I would know that laugh .. anywhere.”

“It’s been a while for me ..” his Uncle admitted, with a shrug towards Duinion. “What do you think ?” A part of him was keen to believe this more positive explanation for the dog’s behaviour. Because it meant maybe reinforcements. But another part could not help but realise, that there was only one reason that Narradir Korsey would be riding out towards them now, in the dead of night. And that reason, being his brother by birth as well as blood, gave him pause enough to suck in his lips and hold a breath.

---

The dog had surprised them, as she had a habit of doing. But this time, as the last, it was both a familiar and friendly scent that Hattie had recognised. The horses which Addhor and Narradir had borrowed were used to hauling the forester’s timber wagon. But Thorley had brought one of the Guards’ own. Believing his mount to be the more ordered of the three. And so she had been as well, until the hound had entered the mix. His unhappy horse had never encountered Hattie before. And the Guard’s curses had led the forester to emit his tell-tale guffaws of laughter.


As the three drew closer to the barn, following the dog, all paused as a figure leapt down from the loft window, a small knife in hand before they’d even seen where it came from. “Bit late for a visit, wouldn’t you say ?” Unalmis raised one eyebrow. “You’re lucky they didn’t shoot you on sight.” He threw out the implication that he was being covered by more than one able archer, sheltered by the barn at hand.

“There’s still time ..” Domanol called out from his unseen advantage. He had not moved fast enough to halt his nephew’s advance. But he wasn’t about ready to join him.

“If this is how you’re going about, what was it again ? Ah yes, ‘making it up to me, no matter what ..’ ..” the eldest brother raised an eyebrow and even Unalmis glanced back from receiving happy Hattie to gauge his Uncle’s reaction to that. Addhor shook his head slowly as Domanol rolled his eyes. “We came to check you hadn’t done anything stupid.”

“Some of us felt left out,” put in Narradir, crossing massive arms across his chest, even as Thorley shook his head downward, and swiftly grasped the reins as his horse began to walk off and feed upon the grass at hand.

“Was that the way of it ?” Addhor turned his gaze upon his son, knowingly, if more quietly now.

“Was that not why you really came as well ?” the young man grinned, knowingly.

@Arnyn
Torniel laughed and averted her gaze, making Abrazimir wonder if perhaps his joke had been too crass…or right on the nose. Not that he would have cared. The answer wasn’t important. Only the smiles and laughs and desire to be in each other’s company. Her eyes did return to his, renewing the sensation in his mind of their vividity and piercing brightness, as he held out the bread to her. Wordlessly she consented, leaning in with her mouth ajar, holding his hand steady with her own as she clenched around the morsel with her lips, the tip of his finger included, and drew back taking the bread with her. And half his soul apparently. She still held his wrist as she chewed, Abrazimir watching with a silent grin. She could make the act of eating even a precious thing.

And then she pulled his hand forward, to brush against her jaw and neck. He didn’t need much coaxing then, his hand stretching out over the side of her neck, his thumb grazing over her jawline, feeling how supple and soft the skin was there. He never knew such delicateness could exist in the world. And to be blessed to have it right here in front of him. Most of the women he knew were formidable personalities who equally trained with weapons and tools of war. Torniel was unlike any of them, unlike any other woman he had ever met.

Then she did something strange. We have more of this than we need, don’t we? She said in reference to the bread. He didn’t even look. If it was too much, it might feed a bird or a beast. Not enough and it was hardly a few pennies to get more. She took half and folded it into a napkin, causing him to finally draw back from his exploratory caressing of her jaw and neck, examining what she was doing. Taking some away? As a gift? She got very close and his eyes shot to hers. Well, they darted first to her lips, thinking something sweet was coming, but no, she only leaned in to whisper to him…Don’t go anywhere, Dauntless.

Please.

The magic word. ”I’ll be right here, Torniel.” He said with a roll of her name on his tongue, leaning back in his chair, long arm reaching to take hold of his mug of ale as she got up and strode from their table. He watched, naturally. It was impossible not to, with the sensual sway of her hips as she went to the back. Oh yes, he looked there. And even when she looked over her shoulder and caught him looking, there, Abrazimir just smiled shamelessly and met her gaze before she vanished around the corner into the kitchen.

”Phew,” Abrazimir huffed, slumping back in his chair, filled with all sorts of sensation. Being out of her presence felt like a spell was lifted off of him, even if it might be a short while. It would be a short while, yes? He felt half and half now, one half of him in the world with Torniel, the other half back in the real world. He didn’t know what to do. He raised his mug to sip, because he felt hot – too hot. But paused midway, to pull at his collar and neck, loosening his garment there to let some cool air down his body, before finally drinking. Deeply. What was he doing? Having an illicit rendezvous with a woman he had only met a few days ago. It was nothing like the courtships or the arrangements he was used to.

But he didn’t care. This was of his making, or so he assumed. This was what he wanted. It was his experience and his alone. With Torniel. No one in his life would know or be allowed to judge him. This was his freedom. It was freedom, right? It felt both scary and liberating at the same time. That’s how he knew it was real. So very real.

And then Torniel returned, absent both bread…and her shawl. His eyes found her immediately upon her return and noted the bareness around her fine shoulders. She had the redness in her cheeks and nose, indicating at once she had stepped out for a moment. He stood up before she reached the table, sizing her up and down as if seeing her for the first time. ”Wind take your shawl? Guess the Valar were envious and wanted it for themselves.” He jested in observation, reaching up to his neck…to unclasp his own cloak from his broad shoulders. And stepping to her, he swept it up and around her, bringing it about her shoulders, clipping it at the front of her collarbone. Standing so very close, so very near, lips and eyes and faces only mere inches apart.

But now his broad blue cloak of Dol Amroth was about her shoulders, a size too big, but warm and covering enough. He took her hand to guide her the last few steps back to her seat. ”Is everything alright? Does your horse take bread I wonder? He could have a bit more.” He asked her, trying to gleam a hint of where she had gone and why. She had taken the bread and left. To feed…something. Or someone. Was she here with a companion? Should he worry? Or conversely, maybe it was she who was worrying, that she was here with a stranger who was capable of violence against his enemies and bore a large longsword and she needed to be careful. He shrugged off the curiosity after that. It was wise of her to be cautious, he didn’t blame her for that. He intended to very much be a gentleman, as he always was. Well, except for that one lapse that led to this moment…

”Will you have a drink with me now, to toast our shared triumph today?” He asked her again with a smile. From his own cup or one of her own choosing, whatever she wanted off the menu, on his coin. He glanced back, though not towards the bar, but towards the stairs that led upstairs, before glancing back at her. Wondering where she had gone still? Or wondering…what would come next now.

@Rillewen* @Pele Alarion**


Alas, Cadil was right in that, no. They could not fly. And there was about as much chance of that as there was of escaping through the solid gatehouse roof. No, there was only one route available to them here. No, two. They could go into the wagon as directed, or crawl underneath it. The latter of course risked pursuit by a bolt from the Guard’s crossbow. But the former … well, Nal for one was not keen to walk so easy into exactly where a Guard wished for him to go. Again. Considering the Guard involved ..

So while the tale that was offered up, was not so unbelievable, the young man nodded a quiet agreement back to his friend. And he certainly did not give up his name. While this might have been an entirely pointless defiance, as the Guard they had already annoyed today knew full well what his name was, the young Ranger did not want to give Cadil any encouragement to surrender his own identity. That was one piece of information they had held onto so far. The Guard/s had no idea who this bag-toting, other young man in their custody even was.


“I promise on my life, that I’m not taking you to the city dungeons,” Doluzor sighed, in response to the more suspicious of the pair. And jerked the loaded weapon in his hands, with meaning, before committing to his trademarking peacock stance, when he was named a Sergeant by the other official. As ‘Rip’ chimed in however, with the warning that he ‘would not let anyone accuse [him] of failing at his job’ .. Unalmis frowned with narrowing eyes. Had the Guard not just told them to go with this Harbour fellow, and ‘tell their complaints and protests’ ? At his treatment of them thus far ! Seemed a little contradictory.

“Just because we don’t particularly like you, doesn’t mean we’ve broken any laws,” he put in, as the Guard turned back from watching the gate just long enough to hurl a flurry of suspicion their way. It was important, as far as the Ranger could figure, for the new arrival to realise there was a grudge happening here, above all other concerns. And if Doluzor had been an honest to goodness Guard from the Harbour city, then he might have been truly concerned by the notion of bias and prejudice. But of course, he really was not a real guard. Though he was putting on his very best performance of being weary and in a hurry, from being overworked enough to pick up the slack in another department.

The accusations of course, about the two lads trying to avoid the gate and reluctance to have their possessions rifled through, might have even been explained away by the fact of a dislike for the Guard upon the gate. But when ‘Rip’ delved into allegations about smuggling and pirates, Nal’s brow noticeably furrowed in confusion. Pirates ? “If anyone has smuggled anything, it is the fellow you let through this very gate this afternoon,” he returned, with the confidence that he knew not what else the idiot could possibly be talking about. “And if you think making up some nonsense charges will mean we can’t report you, then you’re at least half as stupid as you look.”


Recognising that these were clearly witnesses, to what must have been Arkadhur passing through the gate earlier on, with his trophies .. Doluzor understood the importance of getting the pair out of here, before anyone who was a real guard turned up and chanced to hear such things. Closing in toward the wagon, he looked the two young men over with what he hoped was a very sympathetic expression.

“We’re not going to get this straightened out here,” he observed, in a ruse of sensibility. “Look, I’m simply giving you a ride to where you can make a report of it, if that is what you truly believe. It’s dark, it’s late, and we’re all more than a little tired. I just want this over with, so I can get home to my wife and little girl. So how about you help us all out. Do what you’re told, and hop in. Because no one wants to stand around here shouting at each other all the night and getting nowhere, do we ?”


Unalmis shrugged, disarmingly. “I suppose Captain Gorledir won’t exactly meet us in a keen light, if we make him work late. ...” he assumed, with a casual knowingness.

“The Captain of the Harbour Guard is called Gorhelion,” the Umbarian corrected him. And caught the other’s expression. “But you already knew that, didn’t you ?” With a roll of his eyes, he slanted his head wearily toward the wagon again. “Now, if I’ve passed your little test, would you mind awfully helping me out here ?” he sighed.


The Ranger glanced from the opened, iron-barred door which separated him and Doluzor, to conduct a brief inspection of what he could see of the wagon interior. The iron bars went all the way around the body of the transport vehicle, but the two sides and the front, up near the driver’s seat had a further wooden casing to hide this necessity from the public they might encounter along the route. There were shackles hanging at intervals down from the roof, with matching secured to the floor beneath them. Hands up high, and ankles below, it seemed. The Umbarian watched the quiet contemplation, and seemed to lose his patience.

“There’s no seats inside. But you’re welcome to hold on to those hanging down, if you wish to stand up," the Harbour Guard encouraged them. "Else sit down and hang onto those at floor level. Either way I’m afraid you’ll be rattled around a bit. This old thing wasn’t exactly built with comfort in mind. But I’m not looking to lock anybody up in fetters here. If that’s what you’re worried about. I’m just hungry to get home for my supper. So .. ”


Unalmis glanced toward Cadil for an opinion. He really did not fancy stepping into a second confined space in the span of an already trying day. But on the other hand .. even if he ran .. he’d have to keep on running. Resisting arrest was .. well ‘Rip’ could make sure that it was more than enough to see him into trouble. And even if he did run .. even if he could duck and elude the pursuit of a crossbow bolt … Cadil was probably not really up for such a feat. His friend had been unhappy about even running for the cart ride earlier.


He was still considering his options of common sense against a screaming instinct, when Doluzor noted a small object on the road, and picked it up to take a better look at it. Though it was dark, it was of interest enough that the taller man tossed the small broach into the back of the wagon. As though to show them where to go .. as though that was what was halting them.

Nal stared, as he observed one of Cali’s most treasured possessions sail through the air and settle next to the closest set of ankle fetters. Though it did not look like ‘Rip’ had even noticed, at least yet, and this other man clearly had no idea of what he’d just picked up .. a vast drop of the worst feeling sank inside the young Ranger. The barrels. The Umbarian. The reason that their long time enemy had let the evil foreigner go on his way. Toward Harlond …



Deciding that they had better take the chance of entering without being forced in and restrained, Unalmis swiftly moved from staring at the broach to apparently still considering their mode of transport. On the left hand side at the back, was where a padlock would easily secure the door to closed, and on the right side sat a pair of familiarly styled hinges, one above the other, that the closed side of the door was hung from.

“Make sure you bring that long nail I gave you,” he turned and muttered for only Cadil to hear. Then, as though he’d just spoke his assent to his accomplice, Nal nodded resolutely, took a deep breath and then set one foot, not at all eagerly, one before the other, until he had surmounted the small few steps which unfolded at the back of the wagon.

There was no more time to be wasted, when even the most unwelcome of journeys might be their best bet in getting where they needed to go. Into Harlond, after all. They knew which sort of wagon Arkadhur had driven his barrel cargo off in. He had a good idea wherethey’d be heading. And now, .. it was a horrific thought but one which explained why ‘Rip’ had not stopped the smuggling .. His friends were in those barrels. Cali definitely. Taking a firm grasp of some of the chains that hung down, Nal turned back to see if his friend had understood, and to get a second look, from a different angle.


Experience would suggest that they couldn’t pick a lock, clearly, but perhaps they might not have to. There had been no chance to remove the hinges of the gatehouse door, for those had been secured on the unreachable outside. But this time, where the iron barred- back of the wagon gave easy access to the hinge … it might take a bit of work. But they had a bit of a drive to get to where he assumed now that they might be heading. They had a strong coffin nail, and a sharp, if broken knife … And, unlike the usual inhabitants of this contraption, they were not going to be restrained so that they could not manage such a plan. Or so it certainly seemed.


Doluzor was not entirely sure why or how he had convinced at least one of the two young men to comply with getting aboard. But neither was he fool enough to overlook the opportunity. “You want to stay here all night, like he says, locked up alone this time in the little shed ?” he asked Cadil and gyrated the crossbow in a move which was very lucky not to unload it, but gesture for the one young man to follow his friend. “I made you a promise, didn’t I ?” he continued to feign friendship. “No shackles for the way, and no city dungeon for your destination,” he made clear. He certainly did not intend to lock them up by the restraints if he could possibly get away with it. First of all, because he could only hope the key for such things were within the heavy ring of options that he had found on the belt of his guard uniform. Even if they were, it could take a while, and if there was any delay in delivering them inside, once they got to the Chandlery … no, a delay would be bad. The main key, which had to be to lock the wagon door itself, was much bigger than all the rest. He was confident about that one. And locking them inside, if only for safety so that they didn’t fall out and hurt themselves …. Well, it should be enough.


The other reason was in plain speaking, he did not wish to have to drive them through the growing dusk with a lot of shouting and protesting going on in the back, which everyone and anyone who he drove past would not be able to miss. If they believed there was no cause to complain, they would be more likely to keep quiet. So yes, better to play on the friendly approach. He found it worked very well on the Harbour guards he drank with back in Harlond. It worked even better on the wives and daughters of the Harbour guard back in Harlond.

It took everything he had for the Umbarian to not glance toward Naluthor when it seemed the prisoners had chosen to comply after all. He was very proud of himself for having caught that fake captain name slip before. And was determined not to mess it all up now.

Unaware of course that a certain lost broach, dropped by a female blacksmith, .. had already messed things up for them. Or at least it had set the first few small snowballs of an avalanche to come, in motion.

@Ercassie
The thought that there were two of these guys to contend with was a heavy weight on all of their minds, and it seemed that some time was needed to properly process this news, for each of them. Duinion couldn't help wondering how he could have missed something so incredible.. and important. And he also wondered how it was that Ryn had come to make this discovery. All thoughts of anything flew out of his mind when Hattie took off barking. If that was an enemy out there.. she would have just alerted him.

"What if it's him?" Eryn asked in a whisper, but she could not conceal a hint of alarm in her voice. This fellow.. Rip.. he had wanted to kill Hattie. If he was the one approaching out there, and she was running right toward him.. then she could be in serious danger!

Duinion peered intently toward the hedgerow that Dom had pointed out, while one hand gripped his bow, eyes seeking the target as his ears followed the sound of Hattie's barking, and the neigh of a horse. Rip had had a horse, he recalled. One part of him was glad to hear that Eryn did not have her bow.. while the other was regretful that she did not. On the one hand, he was glad that he would not need to worry about her acting impulsively and possibly firing arrows off without knowing for certain who was out there. But on the other hand, it would have been good to have some backup. As it was, he was the only one present who had a bow on hand.

"I've got arrows," He muttered in response to Dom's question. "Plenty of them." He added, with a little nod toward one corner of the loft, where he had been storing the excess of them so as to keep them out of the rain. Alas, he did not have an extra bow on hand, however... except, wait. Yes he did! He had Dom's bow up there, with the arrows, to keep it out of the weather. Good think he had moved it in here, after some heavy rain a couple of weeks ago.

About the time Dom recognized three silhouettes on horses, Duinion was readying an arrow for his bow, although he would not shoot until he was sure of who was approaching. Still, it seemed rather uncanny that they had just determined that there may be as many as three foes out there, possibly with plans to harm the entire family out here... and here there were three unknown people riding out here in the dead of night. Far too coincidental for his liking. Duinion's heart was racing as it seemed some sort of action was about to happen tonight, after all.

Eryn remained very still, her breath caught in her throat as her hand tightened slightly on Nal's hand. She agreed with him; she wished she had her bow. Perhaps.. this Rip guy had left her in the cave so that he could go and get his brother. Maybe they had both come back so that they could smuggle her out of the Pelennor, and had found her to be missing. Knowing what she knew, he wouldn't want to let her get away, right? Because she could tell... exactly what she'd told her dad, Nal, and Dom. And what she planned on telling Arnyn, as soon as she had a chance. He would want to get rid of her.. and all of them.. before they could spread the news. He would want to do the same to them as he had done to Ryn. She knew it. But they could handle him.. right? Her dad, Dom, and Nal could certainly deal with them.. she was sure of it.

And then the laugh rang across the dark field. Duinion blinked, frowning in confusion as he glanced toward Nal when the youngest ranger among them recognized the laugh. Duinion's tired mind was a little slower to catch up, but he nodded when Dom looked toward him questioningly. "Yes, that sounds like him." He agreed softly.

"It's definitely not Rip," Eryn whispered helpfully. That was certainly not the same laugh her captor had used.

Duinion rested his bow on the floor of the loft, breathing out a slow sigh. He had no idea why Narradir would be coming out here, and he was trying to think of who the other two could be with him, when Nal suddenly leaped down from the window before Duinion could think to stop him. He opened his mouth to protest, but Nal was already speaking to the 'intruders'. Duinion nearly let out a laugh when Addhor responded to Dom's comment. Duinion relaxed, but only slightly, to hear the light banter between the newcomers and the other two. While it was a relief to know that the three were friendly, he was also not entirely convinced that they needn't worry about their enemy coming here. He hated to remind them all of the potential danger but he could not forget it. Leaning out to the edge of the loft's window, so that he was in sight of the newcomers, he waved a hand in a motion intended to invite them to come inside. "Shhh! All of you, get in here, quick." he urged them hastily.

Of course.. Addhor would not be able to climb up the ladder, would he? Duinion realized that a bit belatedly, and so he figured he ought to meet him on the ground level. Turning to the ladder, he soon stood upon the ground once again, and then waited to help the newly arrived reinforcements with their horses.

"Should we stay up here and keep watch?" Eryn asked in a whisper, turning to Dom after her dad had gone to meet Addhor and the rest on the ground. She moved to take her father's place at the window, opposite from Dom, and pulled her father's bow into her lap, since he had left it there so not to hinder his ability to climb the ladder.

@Lantaelen
She only smiled when he asked whether the wind had taken her shawl, foregoing a verbal answer, made easier by the rest of his jesting. But then his choice of removing his cloak to drape it around her, effectively silenced her beyond her own choice. The cloak was warm, warm to the touch even - warm with his body heat. And the thought behind putting the cloak around her...

He guided her a few steps closer to the seat, asking if all was well. Torniel merely searched his eyes, wondering just how genuine the man was behind all the words and those acts of gallantry. Could she speak of the girl, to him? Would she dare risk the subject? Would he think what she had done woefully inadequate, since she had the means to do more for the girl? Or would he think her actions a sign of weakness and frailty, a woman taking pity on anyone and everyone?

The question about a drink and shared triumph, was confusing. They had done little else but drink, as they'd sat at the table. And what triumph? She did catch his look toward the stairs, however. That was a look she understood all too well. Realizing she had not yet spoken so much as a word since her return, she did not reclaim her seat as the two of them hovered so closely near their chairs. Instead, she moved half a step forward, until their bodies touched ever so slightly. Torniel whispered something against his neck, her lips brushing against the skin below his ear as she spun her carefully chosen words, before stepping back slowly, her hand still in his, holding it in return, as she gently coaxed him along with her. To the stairs.

@Rillewen


Domanol had found his bow, hidden near to where Duinion unveiled a considerable store of accessible arrows. Thankful that they were still armed enough then, he readied his range to cover from the opposite laterality to the Tirdinen, and lowered the weapon only after their host invited the new arrivals to come join them inside. “Good idea,” he met Eryn’s eager want to take up at her father’s then vacated post. “Anyone out there still watching could take advantage of our being distracted.”

“If there were anyone else out there, Hattie would have made it known,” Unalmis mentioned, as he ensured the dog came in without further alarming Thorley’s ride. It was hard to miss his pride in their treasured pet. “That’s twice now she has observed people lurking in the shadow before any of us noted.” He climbed back up the ladder, so that Narradir could hand the hound back up to him, by climbing a few steps up himself with both arms full.

“You still need to work on her responding to your calls to halt,” his uncle put in, seizing at the excitable pup before she jumped right back down out of the loft again. His bow clattered out of his hands, arrow too, falling down beside where he was sat, as he neglected the tool in favour of grabbing the unruly animal.


“She’s not the only one who needs to work on that,” Addhor put in, as Duinion held his horse, for his careful dismount. “What were you thinking, leaping out of the loft like that ? You’re lucky we didn’t shoot you !” Brown eyes met those of an unrepentant son.

“I had cover,” the younger man shrugged. “I mean, while your attention was took by me, the master shots up there could have easily taken you out, if you were not .. well, you.”


“It might take me a time to climb up there, Dui and twice that to come down,” Addhor turned from arguing sense with his son in front of an audience, and noted their host’s swift descent, to greet them. “First tell me if there is a need even ? For if the lot of you are merely come out to share stories with the cattle, we will leave you to it.” The man’s tone suggested that he had caught at least some of the group sneaking off for late night shenanigans before now. “Though the measures taken to sneak out and partake in such revels seemed to suggest a rather more significant motive,” he explained his concern nonetheless.

“What measures ?” Nal asked out of one side of his mouth to Thorley who shook his head. But whether the Guard did not know, or simply did not wish to tell, was difficult to discern.

“You found it, demonstrably,” Domanol muttered, mostly as though he was speaking to Hattie.

“Take it again, and I shall take one of yours,” his brother promised, without going into any further detail. “Duinion,” the eldest present looked to the man who’s land they had invaded, for the best chance of a responsible explanation. “After the day you and Eryn must have had already, it must be some feat indeed to keep you both from well earned rest.”


Though it was not technically a question, an answer was expected. But while the elder brother asked, the younger brother cast his glance stubbornly out across the field anew. Narradir sat down and crossed his legs with an almighty thud near Eryn, and Thorley glanced up at the shift and small shower of straw that came down as a consequence to where he was still stood below. Unalmis calmly took over a hold on Hattie, but could not help a sigh.

“Noone could rest easy until this was managed,” he uttered quietly. And to the resulting enquiring looks that garnered, “You’ll be sorry that you asked,” he prophesised.

@Ercassie
Though she held the bow in her lap, Eryn did not attempt to actually ready an arrow. But she nodded in answer to Dom's words, keeping her eyes fixed on the fields beyond. The new arrivals had made quite a lot of noise, and she felt a bit anxious about the possibility that someone could be lurking about out there. Waiting to find out where they were. But of course, Nal's words then made her realize that he was right. "True," She answered softly in relief. And she would definitely know the scent of this Rip. And that made her wonder, too. Would Hattie be able to tell the difference between the twin brothers?

As the northern ranger dropped his bow in favor of trying to catch Hattie, Eryn hastily reached out to catch the weapon before it might fall out of the loft along with the dog, and offered it back to him once he had recovered from his lunge forward.

After seeing that their horses were brought inside the barn, Duinion took a glance out through the door. There was little to be seen in the dark, however, and he remembered that Dom was still up there, keeping watch. He turned to Addhor. "I wouldn't ask you to climb up there," He assured him quietly. As Addhor commented on this keeping them from 'well-earned rest', Duinion couldn't help but feel just a bit amused, that both of his 'brothers' were now present, and both were among the few people who could always tell when he had gone too long without sleep. He didn't expect to be able to fool him now, by claiming he was not tired. Exhausted, in fact. Therefore, an explanation was due, to convince the former ranger that he had good cause to deny himself rest. He drew in a slow breath and let it out, sighing before he began.

"I'm here because there's a very real possibility that the man who kidnapped Eryn today, may come here, tonight." He explained, having once again lost track of which day they were currently in. "He knows far too much about all of us, your family included," he added to Addhor, "And he made some threats to her, implying that he might harm me, or one of the other family members, while we sleep. Which is why Aggie and the rest are not here, tonight." He spoke in a grave tone as he revealed the information, although he had enough presence of mind not to reveal where they were, just in case anyone might be lurking around outside the barn, eavesdropping. "I wasn't expecting Eryn and Unalmis to show up, nor even Dom, but.. we've been comparing notes on what we all know and have learned, and what we've learned is that we all hold a few pieces of the same puzzle that needs to go together so as to make a bit of sense." In his state of tiredness, he wasn't sure if that sentence made sense even to him, but he couldn't think how else to word it at the moment.

He sighed and continued. "We've established that this fellow is working with Dom's enemies, but he also happens to be a long-time enemy of Unalmis, too." He frowned. "Which means, we aren't really completely sure who the trap was actually meant for, but he hoped to use her to lure someone into a rescue attempt.. which he then set up as an ambush for the rescuers. While keeping her tucked away someplace else, where I suppose he thought we'd never find her." Duinion tried to make his words clear enough so that his new audience could make sense of why there was such alarm present for them all.

"He had her hidden out in some cave in the Pelennor, and then went off elsewhere to set up a false trail that was meant to lead us to a little surprise he'd set up for those who came looking for her." His gaze drifted to Thorley, recalling that the man was a guard, and one that he knew was not crooked. "He promised her he would be coming back for her, but he didn't specify how long he would be. So, we don't know when he will discover she's gone.. but.. when he does, we figure he'll want to come after her as quick as he can." He lowered his voice now so that it would not carry beyond the three of them who were still down below and looked at Addhor again. "Eryn is frightened. And she doesn't frighten easily, you know that. She believes that when this fellow finds that she's not still where he left her, he will come here and perhaps kill the whole family, or something of the sort."

He looked again at Thorley. "He has plenty of reason to come after her, after the things she saw and heard. She knows things he won't want getting out, and we suspect he's killed to cover up his secrets, before. We even discovered a dead body, out there... someone else he'd obviously killed in the past." He explained, frowning in worry. Back to Addhor, he met the other man's eyes solemnly. "We've also established, without a doubt, that this is the same guy who killed Ryndir Dringolben," He said quietly. He didn't know if Addhor knew how significant that was to Duinion, but he ought to know the significance of that news, to his son, at least. "I doubt anything about it could hold up in court," He added to Thorley, with a sigh, rubbing a hand over his eyes. "But it's him. We're certain." Looking up again, he sought Addhor's gaze once more. "And if this guy dares to show up here tonight, or any other night... I intend to be waiting for him."


Up in the loft, Eryn couldn't hear some of what her father said, but she didn't really need to hear it. He would be explaining to the newcomers what was going on and why there was a need for all this. She smiled at Narry when he plopped down near her. "Thank you, by the way." She said softly. "Nal told me how you had people looking for me out in Ithilien and all."

@Rillewen*
Though it was imperative that she stay focused on their perilous situation, still Iole’s head was suddenly full of Trevadir. These were sailors from his father’s ship, for certain. The odds of waking to find Cali trying to protect her, and now the prospect of running into the other friend she hadn’t seen for years .. the young woman was starting to wonder if this were all some wild dream of convenience. Maybe she had simply swooned from the heat back at the festival. After all, the all of it else .. she was not sure quite what to do with.

Of course she did not appear to have much say in anything that was happening regardless. The two rough-looking men went back and forth between themselves as she strove to not swoon again. But when she was pulled about, to the backdrop of foul insinuations, blue eyes widened, before they were blinded by that deftly employed bonnet. This time she could scream, and small shrieks certainly escaped her, as Iole was raised up off her feet and .. bourne she could not say (for she could not see) where .. along with her friend. For ‘Got the other one ?’ could only mean that Cali too was headed to wherever she was. At least they were not to be separated.


It was tempting to kick hard where she knew would inspire the man to drop her. But since that would mean falling, and she could neither see nor do much else to save herself, with her wrists still tied, the young woman fought back the want to antagonise the man, and simply held on with all that she could manage. Their terrain was ungainly, she realised swiftly and their passage was not at all comfortable. Grasping onto the man wherever she could, all that Iole could reason was that if he was going to drop her anywhere, he’d be lucky not to come along with her. But in time their path seemed to even out. Though when he set her on her feet, she tottered a little, shakily to find her balance.

She was not permitted to see any better yet, although the men’s voices held more of an echoed tone now. Cold air rain goosebumps up her arms, and she could hear dripping. Warily, Iole raised her hands blindly once, before growing brave enough to reach out before her searchingly, when she was knocked off stance yet again. The word ‘Captain’ was shared, before the resounding sounds of a dispute. It seems the spoils were once more causing some disharmony.

And it occurred to her, that maybe she could take advantage of that, if she could only figure out how exactly. Making any sort of move when she couldn’t see her friend was unwise though. Maybe if the men simply fought and dispatched one another, she and her friend could sneak out. If she could only find her friend. If her friend was in any way able to do anything right now .. Quietly, she prayed for Trevadir to come upon the scene, as he had last time. Maybe even his father could be reasoned with. He had let her go home the last time. He’d just asked her to deliver the message, that his son didn’t want anything to do with any one of them ever again.

---

As Nikulas assured Rurik that ‘their friend’ had just volunteered to cover the watch from upstairs, Arkadhur took that to mean that they approved. At the very least, the pirates were not going to stop him from doing something which left the pair of them alone with two innocent and helpless young women. Without a moment’s hesitation, or remorse, for the fate of the girls then, their abductor calmly climbed the stairs and left the parties he had brought together to whatever they would. It had never been his intention for things to end up this way for the unhappy maidens, but the one girl had been naïve and the other interfering. They wouldn’t have lasted a week on the streets of Umbar, although .. of course the likelihood would be that is where they might end up now. He would not lose sleep over it. It was all just a means to an end after all.

The evening was well into staking it’s claim over the night sky and this was not the first time he had disappeared, before anyone who’d known he was there thought to look for him. They’d assume he would have left town with all haste, of course. But there was no actual need for such panic. Not with his vast array of desguises. He had set up financial accounts under at least a half dozen separate names. He could bide his time, comfortably overlooked, until all the hue and cry had calmed down.

If he had only been able to manouvre what remained of the real Lowendir's (now) widow into his plan, he might have even smiled, satisfied. But of course, the inconvenience only made his own determination to ruin Naluthor stronger than ever. So it was time to sit back, and wait for the seeds of all his sowing to bear fruit.

@Arnyn
Words were spoken against his neck. Shivers ran down his spine, dancing in nervous yet excited anticipation. A hand gripped at his and Abrazimir had but one brief delay before he surrendered to the sensation. The mug of ale, the bread, her tea, it could all be forgotten. The longsword could not. He snatched it up with his free hand as his other was occupied by Torniel’s grip, leading him towards the stairs, nimble footsteps walking up them as if even the slightest noise might shatter this fragile threshold to paradise.

Later, the footsteps echoed a sense of satisfaction as they returned down them, crunching through a small layer of snow on the way to the stables. In the absence of her shawl he had loaned his navy blue cloak, while he had a spare in his saddle bag, a left over blanket he could wrap himself in for the ride back to the City. Hand in hand they walked, a single finger hooked together, until they came to her stabled horse. Like a gentleman he had her wait while he drew forth her steed and ensured it’s harness was tight and secure, before turning to Torniel. Without permission, his hands went under her shoulders and with a mere application of his strength, hefted her up and set her sideways upon the saddle of her horse, where she could properly adjust herself for the ride.

Will he see her again? He sincerely hoped so. But the whole rendezvous had passed without the exchange of names or identities. Real ones at least, though there might be signs and proofs upon his gear and equipment that might give clues to his own. But none upon her that even hinted at who she was. All apart of the game right? From the masquerade. The ability to be oneself truly, without norms or expectations. He felt even without names or labels, they were the realest and most honest versions of themselves. In these prior moments.

”Until next time, Torniel.” He said, with a lovely purr and stretch of her name, beaming up at her with an oh-so-knowing smirk. His hand settled on her leg, just above her knee, giving it an assuring shake and squeeze, before he stepped back and allowed her to ride out and depart.

And then he turned and made ready to depart as well, moving to the stall where his own horse was stabled. Though, not before he caught sight of a familiar hue, and saw a young girl huddled between the crates. Homeless. Wearing…the shawl. So that was where his lady friend had gone to for a short time. Despite the sad sight, Abrazimir could not help but smile at his companion’s charity. It was a rich shawl. And now it shamed him, because could he do any less? The girl all but shrieked when the coin pouch was dropped unexpectedly in her lap, disturbing her shivering slumber, the knight walking away without another word, leaving her with her bewilderment of suddenly having enough coin to be housed and fed for a week or two, while he rode out of the stables with a zeal and zest back towards his destination.

@Ercassie @Pele Alarion
Mar was growing impatient, but he kept quiet for now and let Doluzor handle this. Primarily because he knew that he'd never convince Nal to trust him. And if the other fellow could convince him that he was really taking him to the guard headquarters to make a report against Mar, then let him believe that.

At the accusation about him letting a smuggler through the gates, Mar merely raised an eyebrow as if that were the most absurd accusation he'd ever heard. "The fact that you recognize a smuggler, when even a lieutenant of the guard does not, suggests that you are very likely in association with them." He pointed out. "If you saw a smuggler passing through the gates, a law-abiding citizen would have made it known to the guard, so that he could stop them." He added with a feeling of smugness for how he'd managed to turn it around on Nal. While ignoring the stupid comment as well as he could.

He held back a sigh as he cast a glance toward the dark fields beyond the road, in the direction of the city. How much longer until his relief arrived? They couldn't stand around here talking for much longer, or they might just have to disappear yet another person. Which would leave a lot more for him to do, to cover up yet another disappearance. It could be done, but it would be much more convenient if these two idiots would just get in the stupid wagon and let Dol take them off to Umbar, like cooperative little fools.

As he heard the wagon creak slightly, Mar looked back to find, to his amazement, that Nal had actually done just what Mar had wanted! It took a bit of effort not to stare in astonishment at this new development, but he managed. Somehow. Instead, he glanced next at the unknown fellow. "Well?" He motioned with his sword in such a way as if to say 'go on', hoping to encourage him to join the other idiot. "I'm sure they'll have some cushions for you at the guardhouse." He added, barely managing not to sneer. "The sooner you two get your reporting done, the sooner we can have all this nonsense behind us." He added with a sigh. 'Please, please get in the cart already,' He thought, feeling a sense of urgency about this whole thing, by now.

---

@Ercassie
"What's going on here?!" Dev's voice broke through the noise as the two men began to raise their voices, arguing over the girl, stopping them just as a bit of pushing and pulling had begun, centered around the conscious one. He pushed his way through to find Nik, Rurik, and a couple of other fellows all gathered around a pair of girls whose faces were obscured by some sort of bonnets. None of them actually working. "We have a deadline you, slowpokes! Get back to work!" He ordered. Then, turning to Nik, he scowled. "You're supposed to be up top, keeping watch. What are you doing down here?" He demanded.

"Captain, I was coming to see you," Nik answered hastily. "There's someone keeping watch, but I didn't trust these two with any of them," He explained with a nod toward the guys who were reluctantly turning back to loading, casting glances back once or twice.

Dev folded his arms, waiting. Not very impressed, so far. "Alright. I'm here. What's so special about them?"

Nik kept his arm 'protectively' around Iole, as if to ward off the other pirates, while Rurik shifted Cali and looked for a place to set her down. "Remember back in Pelargir, that day, when your boy fought Samroth?" He gave a little nod toward the girl. "It's her." He was certain of it.

Dev's gaze now shifted to the girl, tempted to take the bonnet off her head, but then.. she would see the cavern. And he didn't want to risk that. Still, his interest was certainly piqued. "And the other?" He asked, looking toward the one Rurik carried.

"No idea bout that one," Nik answered. "But I'm sure this'n is the same as we saw that day."

Dev considered this for a moment, then looked toward the boat that was about done loading. Another was waiting just behind it. He nodded. "Alright. Put them in the next boat." He ordered Rurik, and started to walk away, then paused. "And..." He hesitated as he looked back at Nik. "You, get back to your post."

Rurik smirked as he shifted Cali so that he could hold her draped over one shoulder, and took Iole by the arm with his free hand as Nik reluctantly relinquished his hold on her. "You get to come with me, now." He grinned at her as he led her toward the pier to await the next boat.

"Oh, Rurik," Dev thought of something and turned back. Dev paused, frowning as he caught sight of the arm of the girl Rurik had over his shoulder. "Who did that?" He demanded.

"Not me!" Rurik insisted. "T'was the fellow who brought them, I swear it. He said she wouldn't cooperate."

"That's true," Nik confirmed. "Brought 'em in in barrels, and when we opened the barrels up, she was already like that."

Dev held back a sigh and folded his arms, frowning. "Alright. Well, I was going to mention.. we'd probably better keep them out of sight, just in case." He added in a quieter tone. "Barrels, you say?" He considered that, giving both girls an appraising look up and down, then nodded. "Alright, do that, then." He decided. "We've got a few empty ones lying around. Then no one will know what's being loaded on the ship, at the other end." He gave Rurik a knowing look, thinking of a certain defiant crew member who would surely protest this. "Head down to the pier, I'll send someone with some empty barrels or whatever we can find." He ordered, then set off to find something suitable.

As Nik hastened back up the stairs, Rurik led Iole down to the pier where he all but tossed Cali to the bank, then pushed Iole to sit nearby, before plopping himself down between the two, intending to take a break from any other sort of work while he waited for the empty barrels to arrive.

@Rillewen , @Ercassie
Carpe Diem

Cadil, making decisions

It seemed that all his arguments came to nothing, so Cadil bristled inwardly and tried to come up with something else smart that he could retort with. And yet, the choice between stepping into the wagon and getting locked up in the guardhouse for who knew how long was unavoidable. He stuck his hands in his trouser pockets and stood his ground, feet slightly apart, frowning at the two men.

He opened his mouth to speak again when a glint of something the Harlond guy threw into the wagon. Whatever it was seemed to have an effect on Nal, or so it appeared to Cadil. His frown deepened, as the fingers of his right hand closed around the nail in the pocket. He really did not want to go into that wagon, but then again he was not keen on getting left alone or leaving Nal to tackle whatever trouble came of this on his own.

"Fine. But there will be complaints forthcoming nonetheless," he grumbled at Rip, gathered up his heavy backpack and half pushed, half tossed it into the wagon and then scrambled in after it himself.

"At least we won't starve, if anything," he said quietly to Nal, as his lips formed a lopsided grin. "I've got a few more sandwiches..."

@Lantaelen
There it was. Still. The Bregolalph.

Its presence had taken her by surprise, earlier that day. She had come to Harlond on business - the negotiation kind, and had needed to attend to that first and foremost. It had been an easy job, all things considered. The man had needed no additional persuading. Thankfully, for he had been old and had smelled like he could have used a bath before meeting with her. After having mercifully only having needed smart words rather than anything else, she had passed by the harbour again on her way to a suitable inn where she could eat. The ship had been staring her in the face, then, as well.

So. Once she had eaten a small meal, and after using the inn's facilities to make sure she was still looking her best (which she was), she found herself gazing upon the warship for a third time in one day.

For that had been his ship's name. It had sounded so ridiculous to her, that collection of vowels and consonants in the Elven language she did not speak. She had looked up its meaning, after the last time. Fierce Swan. She'd rolled her eyes. But looking at it, now... the masts, the rigging, the sails... she sort of understood. It no longer seemed so pompous and unnecessarily poetic.

Torniel bit her lip. Considering. Debating. They had all but agreed so far, to keep their trysts a secret. She knew she was not being followed. She had made sure of it, after leaving the inn. If she were to board the ship... no agent from the Hand would know. But his men...

Feigning a casual walk along the pier, she approached the warship. Nothing seemed to move - not nearby, nor upon its deck. The boarding plank was still there. With no one around to monitor it. Torniel raised an eyebrow at this. That did not seem right. Any thief, any cutthroat, could simply board the ship, at the moment. That decided it. If any criminal was going to be boarding this ship - she had best make sure it was her, rather than anyone else.

Her movements were swift and silent as she prowled the deck, making her way to the parts of the ship that offered more cover. She was so curious... and playing with fire, she knew. Yet she couldn't help herself. Upon hearing a voice after she turned round a corner, she whirled, pressing herself into the shadows. Luck had it that the voice and his companion did not pass her by. They took a different route.
The almost encounter did have her thinking more clearly, however, and she froze when she passed by a door bearing a sigil that looked all too familiar. She had seen it on his things. That sun, with four spears sticking out. The small ship above it.

Pulling a pin from her sleeve, Torniel started working the lock. It took only a moment before she was inside, soundlessly closing the door behind her. Might it be...? His cabin? Light was starting to fade outside, and it was darker here in the cabin, so her first order of business was to find and light a candle. Once that was done, she perused the cabin. It was smaller than she might have expected, and it looked to be mostly used for sleeping and little else. As she moved along one of the walls, she saw a cloak hanging from a peg on the wall. She put down the candle and took a closer look at it, holding it out to the side. It looked like a similar cloak to the one he had draped around her shoulders, last time at the inn. The one she still had, packed away among her own things. She'd always had a good eye for fine clothes, but could she trust it as enough proof to stay here?

Moving to the other side of the bed, something gleamed on a chair. Torniel blinked at the sight of the longsword, positioned atop the chair as if it were a person. Just like he had done at the inn. A smile flashed across her face as she shook her head. Silly, silly man... But now she was sure. This was definitely his cabin. The longsword was too unique. Its position... equally so.

Taking off her own cloak and hanging it at the empty peg on the wall next to his other cloak, she turned back to the cabin. A few more candles, she figured, to combat the encroaching darkness of winter's late afternoon. And then, perhaps, another layer of her clothes was to be removed? With a little smirk, she set to work.

(Private flashback)
The evening was a little bit cool for the end of July. Stars twinkled overhead, and somewhere in the distance, a barn owl called softly into the night. A few other creature noises reached her ears as Strawberry sat before a small campfire, waiting while her meal cooked. She glanced around without alarm, carefully identifying each noise in her head, and smiled faintly to remember how frightened she had been just a few years ago, out in the woods alone, without a clue what this or that noise was. Now, most of those noises had become quite familiar to her. She no longer jumped at the sound of a screech owl, or the bark of a fox, or the soft grunt of a deer, or any of the other nighttime wildlife noises.

Despite that, she sensed, somehow, that she was being watched. Lifting green eyes up into the forest beyond her campfire, Strawberry found herself staring back at a pair of eyes. Catching her breath, she swiftly assessed what else she could tell of it. It was small, whatever it was. But judging from the height, she thought it must be much taller than her. Slowly, she let her free hand slide to the dagger tucked into her belt and continued watching, her heart beating fast but steady. After what felt like several minutes, the creature shifted its position somewhat. Moving closer.

But as it moved, it came just a little bit closer to the firelight. As she continued to stare at it, Strawberry’s eyes were able to make out more details, and she almost laughed. It was only a raccoon, perched up in a tree. She shook her head slowly, a tiny smile crossing her face. “Sorry. There’s not enough for us both.” She spoke softly. As soon as she said it, the eyes withdrew. She assumed that her movement, and the sound of her voice, must have frightened it away. But it was amusing to think that the raccoon had understood her, and had gone away in disappointment at her words.

She looked around, seeing no other curious ‘visitors’ around, and then checked on her meager meal. It seemed to be done cooking at last. Good, she was quite hungry. Holding back a sigh, Strawberry settled back to begin eating. She already missed Gwand, and couldn't help thinking about the many evenings that they’d spent together. Eating meals together. Talking. Even laughing. It felt so… distant, already. As if it had been months ago, rather than only a couple of days, that she had left the city. Idly, she wondered if he was really any safer with her having left. Because she feared that her presence there, in his hiding place, would be his downfall. Her enemy had begun to trouble him and his family, and she couldn’t shake the feeling that the evil man would, sooner or later, discover her there, hiding with him. And if that happened, he would undoubtedly do something terrible. Either to Gwand, or to his family. And she couldn’t bear for that to happen. It was better for everyone if she kept her distance from those that she cared about, although it was difficult. In fact, it hurt a little, withdrawing away from others. She never should have stuck around long enough to develop a connection with him, or anyone else. At least this way, her enemy would turn his attention away from her friend and those he cared about.

With a little frown, she brushed a stray tear away from her cheek and gave a little shake of her head. No sense in crying, she told herself with a little scoff, and rolled her eyes at herself. That was stupid. No good would come of it, after all. She finished her food, cleaned up after, and curled up to sleep. After a moment, she repositioned and ended up gazing up at the stars, thoughtful. She did miss having someone else around to keep watch while she slept, though. They used to take turns at that, she recalled with a faint smile. That had been nice. ‘Stop being so silly and.. whatever that word was.’ She scolded herself mentally, letting out an audible sigh.

Was that what it would have been like, to have a family? A father, perhaps? She couldn’t help the thought. It just popped into her head. She scowled and rolled onto her side, instead. He wasn’t her father, she told herself. Gwand had his own daughter, and Strawberry surely had a father of her own.. somewhere. Whether alive or dead, she didn’t know. And she doubted she would ever know who her father might be, or might have been. She suspected he was dead, whoever he was. Either that, or he just didn't care enough to look for her. Those thoughts pursued her into sleep as she eventually dozed off into a light, fitful sleep.

---

Waking with a jolt, Strawberry sat up with wide eyes. Some hours had passed, although she wasn't sure what time it actually was. The girl looked around, struggling not to give in to the panicked feeling left over from whatever dream she had been having. But the dream wasn't what had wakened her. She took a few slow, measured breaths to calm herself as she looked around, trying to figure out what had wakened her. She was shivering, she realized. It had gotten colder while she slept, and there had been a heavy dew, which meant she had become rather damp while she slept. Her fire had burned down to nearly nothing. Then, she heard it again. It was the sound of crying that had awakened her. Who was crying?

Looking around as her heart slowly settled into a normal pace, Strawberry eventually ascertained that the crying sounded like a young child. It seemed to be coming from nearby. She got up quietly and looked around, then began to slowly approach the source of this sound, though she remained highly cautious of what she might encounter. It could be a trap of some sort, after all.

To her surprise and confusion, as she neared the bank of the nearby stream, Strawberry found two young children huddled under some thick bushes, clinging to one another. The little girl was crying, and the boy, who seemed just a bit older, was trying to comfort her. They both looked up with wide, frightened eyes when Strawberry approached, the boy moving slightly protectively toward the girl, as if to shield her.

Strawberry glanced around, confused about what these two children were doing so far out from anything. There was no one else around. “Hello.” She smiled and tried to keep her voice friendly. She was met by uneasy silence and wary looks. Silence, that is, except for the girl’s sniffing. "Are you lost?” Strawberry guessed, a little unsure what to do or say.

“Who’re you?” The boy asked warily.

“No one important,” Strawberry shrugged. “You can call me Strawberry." She smiled. "What’re you two doing out here?”

The girl spoke up, then, through sniffling and sobbing, “We runned away and got losted, and now we’re stuck in the briars, and we dunno what to do!” She buried her face in her brother’s side, squeezing him tight as she dissolved into tears again.

Blinking, Strawberry offered a reassuring smile. “Ah.. well, let’s see if I can help with that.” She reached to pull out her knife, then paused. "I'm not going to hurt you." She assured them, then stepped over to the briar patch as she slowly pulled out her knife, taking a look at what branches she might need to cut. The children were shivering, she noticed. She remembered that she had also been shivering when she woke up, and they hadn’t even had a fire to keep them warm through the night. How long had they been out here, anyway?

Eventually, with a few winces as her fingers got stuck on the sharp thorns, she had managed to extricate the children from the briars. Once both were free, she led them back to her campsite, built up the fire again, and put her blanket around both the kid’s shoulders to warm them up a little faster. She sat across from them as they sat close together, sharing the blanket and enjoying the warmth of the fire in front of them, while looking at her with wide, curious eyes.

“Alright.. so, what’s this about running away?” Strawberry wondered, curious why such young children would want to run away. The boy couldn’t be older than six or seven, and the girl looked somewhere around four or five, she guessed.

The boy hesitated, then sighed and dropped his head down. “It’s my fault.” He mumbled. “We weren’t s’posed to be throwing stuff in the house, but we did, cause we were playing with the dog, and she went chasing after the toy and..”

“We broke Mommy’s butter churn,” The girl sniffled.

“Yeah,” He admitted. “And, so, me and Della figured they’d be really mad at us, so… we decided to run away before they found out.”

“They might even send us back to the orfalimage!” Della added with widened eyes.

Strawberry nodded slowly as she heard this, inwardly noting the use of the word ‘back’. “Right. Makes sense.” She agreed thoughtfully. “Make your escape before they find out you did something bad. That way, you're long gone before they can punish you." She said, with a nod of approval. "How long ago did this happen?”

“It.. it was right before bedtime,” the boy answered with a little frown. “We were going to try to put it back together and glue it, but then Mommy called us to go get ready for bed, and we didn’t have time...”

“Yeah, then after she tucked us in and read us a story and kissed us goodnight, me and Berion sneaked out.” Della explained, rubbing her eyes tearfully.

“She'll probably see it first thing in the morning though." Berion added. "So, we figured if we were gone when they find out about the churn, they couldn’t send us back to the orphan place, and they couldn’t yell at us or anything. We’d be long gone.” He explained, looking rather unhappy, himself.

Strawberry looked from one to the other, trying to make sense of this. She considered for a moment, then nodded. “So, they yell at you a lot?”

Berion paused. “Well, no.” He acknowledged. “But we hadn’t known them long.”

“Right, you mentioned the orphan place,” Strawberry nodded, recalling that they had mentioned that twice now. “You think they’d really send you back there?”

“I dunno.. but we didn’t wanna risk it.”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Strawberry nodded. “They threatened to send you back there, then?”

“No..” Berion frowned. “They’ve never said anything like that. But..”

“But.. they expect you to behave perfectly all the time, right?”

“Well, they..” Berion paused. “I guess they understand kid stuff, well enough.”

Strawberry tilted her head. “So.. let me get this straight. They got you from the orphan place, and they give you goodnight kisses and bedtime stories, and they don’t yell or threaten to send you back.. but you thought they would?” She asked in a confused tone. “Did the orphan place make you go live with them or something?”

“No, they came and asked for us.” Della answered. “They had to borrow lots of money from Uncle Dui, so they could adopticate us.”

“Adopt,” Berion corrected her with an eyeroll, then turned to Strawberry. “They’re real nice. They came and asked for us 'specially, and..” He frowned slightly.

Strawberry looked surprised. “Really? So, they paid a lot of money to the orphan place.. so they could adopt you two? They asked for you special and everything?”

“Yeah, we met them at the bonfire thing, and they were really nice to us and kept us safe from the scary people.” Della added.

Strawberry looked from one to the other. “Really? Huh... that's strange.”

“What?” Berion looked at curiously at her.

“Well, it’s just.. when you said you thought they’d yell and send you back, I thought maybe they were really mean, scary people who didn’t really want you.”

“Oh no! Not at all!” Della insisted, her eyes going wide.

“So, then, I figured maybe they didn’t understand that kids sometimes make mistakes.”

“I guess they understand,” Berion acknowledged thoughtfully. "They took care of cousin Eryn when she was still a kid." He frowned as he thought about that. "I guess maybe they know about kids messing up sometimes."

“Wait.. so, you don’t think they’ll mind the broken churn that much after all?”

“Well.. I guess they'll be upset, because now they can’t make any butter.. and it is sort of a big part of how they make money.” Berion answered thoughtfully. “But I guess maybe not as upset as I thought, before.”

“But you also broke a rule," Strawberry recalled with a little frown. "Your mommy might be more upset about that.”

“I guess that’s true,” Berion nodded and looked down. “But they’ve been real nice to us, so far.”

“So, would you say they love you?”

“I... guess so?” Berion frowned. “I dunno. We haven’t known them for very long.”

"They're a lot nicer than Ms Esme," Della spoke up quietly.

Strawberry nodded, but didn't ask who ms Esme was. “How do you think they’ll feel when they find out you’ve run away?” Strawberry wondered quietly.

The kids went quiet, glancing at each other briefly. Berion spoke up first. “Sad, I guess.” He answered, dropping his head down.

Strawberry nodded slowly. “Worried, maybe?” She suggested.

“I bet Uncle Dui’ll come looking for us,” Della added hopefully, rubbing her eyes. “Then he can bring us home and we can be back before mommy and daddy wake up.” She brightened a little at that thought.

“But it’s still the middle of the night.” Strawberry pointed out. “How’s your uncle even going to know you’re gone? And besides.. even if he does, it’s still pretty dark out. It’ll be hard to follow tracks. Does he even know how to do that?”

“Oh yeah, knows lots about that stuff. He’s a ranger!” Berion answered, then paused. “But.. you’re right. It is dark. And we’re a long, long way from home. And...” He frowned as he remembered. "Oh... yeah. He had to go sleep in the ranger place tonight, way up in the city." He looked down and frowned further. “What’ll we do?”

Strawberry leaned back on her hands, glancing up at the sky. There were still few hours before dawn, she guessed. “Well, what do you want to do?”

“I wanna go home.” Della said, sounding like she might burst into tears any moment.

Berion nodded his agreement. “But we don’t know the way. We’re lost.” He added, discouraged.

Strawberry considered the two thoughtfully. They looked so downcast, now that they had realized that they wanted to go back but couldn't. “Maybe.. I can help?” She suggested, hoping she could help them.

“Do you think you can?” Berion looked hopeful at this new possibility.

Strawberry hesitated, unwilling to say for certain. “I can try." She answered. "Where do you live?”

“It’s called Daisy Dairy farm." Della answered.

Berion nodded. "Do you know where it is?”

Strawberry thought for a moment. “I'm not sure.. but it sounds familiar.” She said thoughtfully. A dairy farm? “Lots of cows, right?”

“Yeah, and there’s a sign at the end of the gate, it says ‘Daisy Dairy Farm.”

“With a picture of a daisy on it.. right?” Strawberry nodded, recalling having passed a place like that, maybe half an hour before she'd stopped to make camp. She was relieved, because that meant she could help them. “Yeah, I passed by there." She told them gladly. "I know right where it is.” She smiled slightly at the kids. “So, want me to take you home?”

“Yes!” Both answered eagerly.


It took very little time for Strawberry to pack up her small camp and put out the fire, then set off with the kids. It was still cold and dark, so she let Della keep her blanket around her shoulders while they walked.

It took about half an hour to walk with the kids trailing along, but eventually they arrived at the sign at the end of the road leading to the dairy farm. Strawberry stopped there. The shape of the farmhouse at the end of the lane was visible by the moonlight, so there was no chance the kids could get lost from here. “Will you two be alright from here?” She asked softly.

“Yeah.” Berion looked much happier. “We’re home! Thanks, miss Strawberry.” He grinned and took Della's hand.

“Don’t mention it. Really, I mean that.” Strawberry looked at them seriously. “It would be best if you don’t tell anyone about this...” She didn't really want word to get out that she'd been spotted around here, because it might draw her enemy's attention toward this area, rather than away.

“Don’t worry,” Berion assured her. “We won’t be mentioning this to anyone... Ever!” He insisted. “Right, Della?”

“Right, we don’t wanna make mommy and daddy sad that we tried to leave.” She agreed with a little nod, then handed Strawberry’s blanket back to her.

“Good.” Strawberry smiled slightly. "Now, the next time you decide to have an adventure, make sure you know your way back home, alright? And.. maybe get permission first." She suggested, then waved as she watched them set off down the road to the house. She waited a moment, then trailed along after them at a distance so that she could ensure they got inside safely. Once she saw them climb in through an open window on the ground floor, she nodded to herself and set off back the way she'd come, walking at a brisker pace now that she didn't have to match her pace to the kids'. In the distance, she heard a couple of barks from a dog, but it sounded like it was inside the house, and no dog came after her, so she guessed it was probably not able to get out.

Ironic, she thought, as her thoughts lingered on the encounter with the kids, with a little sadness tugging at her heart. Strawberry had no family she knew of, and yet she wished she did have someone and didn't know if anyone wanted her... while those kids had been chosen by a couple who sounded like they really loved them and wanted them, and they had thought of leaving because of one little mistake. Strawberry was glad she’d been able to help them, and that she'd been in the right place to find them when she did... they could have died from the cold before their family ever knew they were gone, otherwise. As she strolled along the road, she was thinking about that, and couldn't help but wonder… did she run away from home or something, once? Is that why she was off on her own? Considering the fact that she was currently 'running away' from yet another place... it struck her as a somewhat plausible theory. But that still didn't answer a lot of other questions. Like what happened to her memory.

Sighing, she shook her head and decided not to worry about it all. She had to find a way out of the Pelennor, and since she was already awake and had her camp packed up, she figured she might as well set off toward the gate that would take her toward Lossarnach. She'd figure out how to get through it when she got there, and she could only hope that she wouldn't run into any trouble when she did.

@Arnyn
”…and now he thinks he can fix anything with a bucket of cooking grease and roofing nails!” Calenaur exclaimed to some other sailors, throwing up his hand in emphasis of the ridiculousness of the statement.

The gathered men in blue cloaks and tall helms all gave a chuckle to the statement of Calenaur’s, chief engineer abroad the Bregolalph’s, friend and colleague which he relayed to them. A few other mariners were in process of bringing a few other crates and barrels of supply to the ship, in readiness for a week long voyage on the high seas. Most of the work had been completed during the evening and the last were being loaded now. Lord Abrazimir had even given some of the crew the evening off, to explore the amenities of Harlond and get some enjoyment before they would be on the seas again. Isolated, to teach some Rangers the drill and experience of being at sea for so long.

They were lax though. The Captain was overseeing the final acquisition of some necessary supplies and was on his way back now. The guard was lax too. They were in Harlond, the chief port and dockyards of Minas Tirith in the core of Gondor. There would be no danger, from inland or across the Great River. Not that there was anything of especial quality to guard aboard the Bregolalph either. It was a warship, of lumber and iron and steel. It bristled with deck mounted trebuchets at either end and many oars in neatly rows along it’s side. Shields rested on the railings around the hull and rigging and rope and other devices of sailing was placed neatly on the deck. But there was no gold, silver, gem or anything of precious note that a would-be thief might carry off or pawn with any success.

So nobody really took note of the hooded figure, or any other figure, that prowled along the docks.

Lord Abrazimir Dimaethor though soon made his way back, accompanied by a few other men, bearing some scrolls and paperwork in a stuffed ledger under an arm. Calenaur moved to greet him to receive reports or orders on the loading. ”Hail, Lord.” He switched to the elven tongue to speak to his superior.

”Good evening,” Abrazimir replied, ”Who knew there would be a shortage of lemons and limes in the dead of winter. But Uirchanar found a supplier. He will be along shortly.”

”Would it be so bad if our Ranger friends teeth rotted out from scurvy?” Calenaur joked drily.

”It would actually, yes.” Abrazimir answered. ”Be here to receive him when he arrives, then once it is all stowed away you are free to spend your evenings as you like. Within reason. There will be an early morning roll call before our guests arrive. And tell Uirchanar to bring me the receipts when he arrives as well.”

”Very good, Lord!” Calenaur nodded and him and the others continued to wait on the pier as Abrazimir, alone, with his stuffed ledger of invoices and receipts made his way onto the ship.

The City and Rangers would be compensating him for the expenses incurred in this training expedition and he wanted to make sure all the accounts were in order, as the King’s representatives would no doubt be very thorough and would go through his books with a fine comb. Abrazimir just wanted to have everything in order tonight. Then…he could relax himself. Get an early night. Be up bright and fresh to receive the Lieutenant and her selected squadron of Rangers for their sea training.

There was a fragrance in the air, most uncharacteristic about a port city or town, though it was very faint. Abrazimir assumed some of his mariners had dabbed themselves up with a perfume or cologne before they attended to the taverns in Harlond, to impress upon some folk. He grinned and shook his head to himself. Simple men, though apart of him would not have minded in joining the revelries. But by the Valar, it was cold, and there was work to do. Business first, as well. He made his way to the cabin, having an awkward moment of balancing as he shuffled his ledger to the other arm to dig not a breast pocket for his key, then shuffle it back as he realized the key was in the other pocket. Then he got it out, unlocked the cabin door, and entered.

It was dark. Or rather, it should be dark. Who left a light burning in here? Wasting the good whale fat! Not just one but many. Oh, those fools. ”Precious Uinen,” Abrazimir huffed a curse, entering but his face on the door as he swung it open, then shut it, and then he turned…

His heart skipped a beat when he saw another person within. His mouth dropped too, when he saw who it was. And his eyes accidentally, or perhaps not so accidentally, dropped to the very prominent display before they corrected themselves, darting back to her own eyes. What…? How…? ”Wha…whence came you?” He stammered, as he laid eyes upon…Torniel. Here. Onboard his ship. In his cabin. Looking so…damn beautiful. He dropped his ledger on his desk and looked about, as if expecting an ambush or trick or prank to be revealed. No, it really was her. Alone. Just her. Alone. In his cabin. Alone.

Alone with him.

He wanted to rush and embrace her and feel her against him but the surprise had momentarily paused and paralyzed all his processes, thought and action especially, while his emotions began to bubble and simmer powerfully. ”Torniel, I…It’s good to see you but…How’d you get in here? How’d you get past my men?”

@Lantaelen
The curse upon his entrance made her bite her lip in amusement. He hadn't seen her yet.

When he did, though, his reaction was all she could have hoped for, and more. The valorous knight, the hardy sea captain... so flummoxed. Just because of her presence. It made her feel powerful. It made her want to kiss all the questions from his lips.

Yet she was not so cruel as to refuse a reply. Not to him.

"Maybe," she began, speaking very quietly, her voice only audible if he was paying close attention to it, as she took a few slow steps toward him, bridging the distance between them in the small cabin, "There was no one to get by, Dauntless. Maybe I just walked onto your ship and into your cabin, without anyone or anything in my way. Your men, then,must have all been terribly busy with other matters..." Her teeth caught her lip again, just for a second, as she smiled mysteriously.
"Or maybe I am not here at all. Maybe you are simply dreaming of me."

Torniel stepped closer still, so she could brush a hand up his chest, over all those pesky layers. He would barely feel the touch. She looked up at him through her lashes. "In either case, I saw no one. No one saw me."

She leaned into him, gently - and whispered into his neck. "And here I am." Pulling back, just enough to look at his face, she smiled at him, and angled his chin down for the lightest press of her lips aginst his. "I do hope you're not too busy," she whispered.

@Pele Alarion @Rillewen



As the two (fake) guards encouraged Cadil to enter the wagon also, Unalmis released his hold on the hanging chains from above and instead squatted down, as though preparing for the reportedly ‘rocky’ journey to come. Shifting the toe of his boot very carefully from where it had softly concealed the small broach, he now closed one hand around the rare trinket and eased it properly into his pocket. The last thing he had wanted was to let the guards observe his clear interest in it, but right now his friend had their full attention. Cadil’s already infamous bag was flung in before that young man himself, and as he moved over to make more room, Nal suddenly was struck by the satisfied grin on the Harbour fellow’s face and the same doubt which had made him hesitate on obeying before, now resurfaced.

Had the Guard seen that he’d noticed the unusual broach ? Had the man known that he would recognise it, and so flung it in her quite on purpose, just to make them believe that Cali was in some dire straits ? The last her friend had heard, the smith’s daughter was staying with kin all the way out in Dol Amroth. But Iole had not long returned to the White City. People who had loitered in their safer havens were slowly beginning to return. More every month. She must have come back, like Iole did. For how else did the young woman’s so treasured gift, from her late brother, end up here ? Could it all be just some coincidence ? That would have to be a crazy lot of coincidence ! Dol Amroth was near the sea. Dol Amroth was where Gael had told him that she’d been taken from …


Doubt wrestled with panic for a moment now that it was too late to change his mind. But as the wagon door was first closed and then locked behind Cadil, the Ranger told himself it made no difference really. While his brain had seen large enough containers and an out-of-place Umbarian, and immediately assumed they were smuggling people inside … because that’s what had happened to him, several years before … maybe this was still just paranoia or a wild assumption. But still; still … that had most certainly been Arkadhur. There was no doubt in his mind about that. The truth of it was even now crawling like some insect down the back of his spine. That voice, that face … he would never ever forget the Umbarian. Of course, while it made sense that a foul little toad like ‘Rip’ might have ignored his proper duty to let some villain take Cali, or her belongings at the very least, out of the city .. because he’d not care in the slightest that she was being harmed or robbed … in the long run, it didn’t make a difference if he had .. in fact .. not. There was a wrong occurring here, and it needed putting right.

Clearly Arkadhur had just gone from Minas Tirith toward Harlond. The rogue was roaming about at his leisure, rather than facing any punishment for what he had done before the war, and so .. yes .. he required following. That much was inescapable. The fact of both ‘Rip’ and now this other guard acting suspiciously, .. only added more options of quite what the Umbarian had been up to. They’d both been awfully keen to have Cadil and he leave the gatehouse all of a sudden. Why on Middle Earth would the guard who had clearly given them cause to complain, be so eager for them to hasten towards complaining about him, to his superiors ? And all that rot about ‘promise you’re not going to a city dungeon…’ That had been a rather odd thing to be so sure on, given all the allegations which had been hurled upon them in return. And though the harbour guard had known the correct name of the Harlond Captain, he had seemed quite terribly defensive about proving who he said he was. It was all a lot of bad feeling, with nothing concrete except that all together … it was a lot. Maybe he was just losing his mind.

On the positive side, they were finally out of the stupid gatehouse, at last. And they had entered already with a means of escaping the wagon. So long as Cadil had definitely brought it with him. There was no way of assuring himself of this fact though, until it would be too late, if it was a ‘no’.



“Yes yes I am sure,” Doluzor shook his head in response to Cadil’s parting ‘threat’. “Just bear in mind that with all those chains rattling along in there, I will be unlikely to ever hear you complaining until we get there anyway. So, if I were you, I’d waste neither time or effort until we arrive. Just hold on.”

Having checked, twice, that the barred door was absolutely locked, the Umbarian nodded once to Naluthor, then hopped back up onto the driver’s seat of the wagon. Hopefully the noise, for he’d noted on his way there that it had been quite substantial, would drown out any sort of complaints that might be hurtled from within. It was not exactly ideal that the sound would draw attention to the vehicle in the first place, but maybe the advantage would cancel out the disadvantage against him.


Nal could not help a smile, despite it all, when his friend promised there were somehow further snacks still in the bag … until there came the unwelcome notion .. That they were being accused of smuggling and of refusing to be searched, and still no guard had confiscated Cadil’s bag, not once … Suspicious and more suspicious.

“Please tell me you still have that nail ?” he asked, quietly and rather more concerned about that than about his stomach. Though they’d been locked in the gatehouse for the entire afternoon, hunger had not come his way yet. If anything, the rush of panic and adrenalin was presenting with a thought he might throw up at some point. “Hopefully we won’t be in here half as long as before,” he confessed. “We’re just hitching another ride to get to Harlond faster than walking.” The young man’s tone was surprisingly upbeat, although instead of winking with mischief, instead Nal held out his palm, hopeful of receiving the tool that would liberate them, now they had no audience.

“You remember Cali ?” With his other hand, Nal retrieved the broach that he knew Ryndir had made, since it was safe to share the discovery now with his companion. “This belongs to her. I know it. It’s one of a kind, and she rarely ever doesn’t wear it,” Though it was nigh dusk, there was more light streaming in through the barred door than there had been within the strong walls of the gatehouse. There was also no means for the driver of the wagon to see what was going on in there, unless he came all around to the back of the vehicle, and looked in through the bars. He’d have to stop the horses and climb down before he could do that. They’d have warning.

“So either she was in one of those barrels herself, or else her stuff has been stolen and they’re smuggling it,” Nal supposed aloud, although not very loud really. Whatever else might have been off about the harbour guard, he had not lied about the noise. It was not unlike somehow sitting inside of several ringing bells that were all horridly out of tune. “Once we get closer to Harlond, we’ll jump out without his noticing, and find the Umbarian with that cart of barrels,” he proposed. “Do you still have the rope in there ?”


If Cadil wanted to chew his way through several sandwiches along the way, that would not hurt any. It would mean less to carry if they had to run or manage who knew what yet, once they had escaped. Catching a foreign menace about some badness and proving too that ‘Rip’ had, at the very least, neglected to perform his proper job .. that would certainly cancel out any backlash of a nonsense report that would come at them from any of this, right ? Unalmis had to hope so. Because if they did nothing, they would undoubtedly end up in a lot of bother. Whether Umbarians were involved in it or simply guards with a grudge.

The greater concern, that his friend might well be in some real peril .. he was not entirely ready to face quite yet. The mere possibility was enough to see him want to have it disproved. But there was only one way to accomplish that.

@Rillewen


The coarser cacophony was swiftly brought to an end, by a more authoritative demand, and somehow that brought little comfort. With ‘Nik’s arm ‘protectively’ around her, Iole could not miss all that the pirate spoke to his Captain. And while the man had kept her from the grasping hands of his peers, it seemed that it was only to hand her over to their leader.

Unsure if she was trembling from the cold air or from the cold words she overheard, there was no mistaking the intention. ‘Put them in the next boat’ ! She had no desire to go in any boat, not with these men, and certainly not when she could neither see nor swim, should anything go awry. The only good news was that references to ‘the other one’ meant that her friend was still close at hand. And while she would not wish for Cali to be here, any more than she wanted to be herself, still they had not been split up. It was strange because they had not seen each other for years until today .. and now .. it seemed like the worst possible outcome to be parted. She could be braver while she knew she was not alone, she could think of her friend, and not only herself. Or at least she told herself so, when she was passed from one man to another with a greedy ‘You get to come with me now’ that left little to the imagination.


The talk of more barrels wilted the young woman’s heart further. Again ? Really ? And hadn’t it just been declared that the transport by barrel was how her friend had been ‘damaged’ already ? They wanted to risk more of that ? She very much wanted to cry. Until a few other things which she heard fell into some kind of another place.

‘keep them out of sight, just in case …... Then no one will know what’s being loaded on the ship …… at the other end.’


The Captain clearly did not want somebody on his ship to see them being brought aboard. It was entirely possible of course that, given the very recent flurry of unwanted interest, the man was hoping to avoid further falling out amongst his crew, over such ‘spoils’. But there was still a chance … that maybe that meant there was somebody on his crew who would not want to see them loaded aboard at all. And she could only think of one person that could possibly be. Trevadir.

Of course there was something further disturbing as well. The fact that the Captain was informed they’d been ‘brought in barrels by some fellow’ and he did not seem concerned or interested enough to wonder who exactly might have sent him a couple of live girls. Or for what reason. How many people were there likely to perform such a mean feat ? How commonplace a deed was this for him to be faced with ? How many others had found themselves in this position before she and Cali ? How many would … afterwards ?


Deciding that she did not want to proceed any further along that line of thought, Iole tagged along where she was hauled, and then stumbled where she was shoved down. There was water, she discovered, belatedly, when her bound hands lurched out blindly before her as though they were any form of shield … and found themselves soaked near to the wrist in water. Before her mind could begin to untangle how they’d been carried, without the means of barrels, right down to the waterside of the harbour and now they were waiting .. for boats .. but there must be many people about who could see, who could help … ?

With a sniff, she struggled to right herself a little so that she at least was no longer resting with her foot on the hem of her skirt. And as she moved instinctively to wipe her nose, and of course failed, wet hands nonetheless made the cheap cotton of her bonnet transparent. As much as that might be useful regardless in what seemed to be dim light. But no. As she settled back, and tried not to make it obvious, Iole observed the clear shape of her bound hands, raised before her face. She lowered them, found sure ground, and tried not to worry about what a mess her runny nose was going to look like by the time that this stupid bonnet was ever removed .. Without moving her head, she scanned the scene as much as she was able, which was not a great amount to be fair. But it seemed .. like some sort of a cave ? How had they come down from the paved harbour to here ? And most importantly, where even was here anyway ?

@Arnyn
She didn’t have to whisper. These walls were thick. But even in a whisper her voice carried with the force of a thunderstorm to his ears. Closer Torniel stepped, Abrazimir feeling as if he might uplift, his toes curling and his heart racing from the strange yet not unwelcomed encounter. Yeah, maybe she did do all those things. But this was definitely not a dream. No, not even his dreams were this nice. This had to be reality. Only reality could be this shocking and raw.

He returned her smile with one of his own, confidence starting to brew, as he could read a room very well. And it wasn’t as if she wasn’t trying to be transparent, given what she was wearing. It was all but written. A foe to match the intensity of her eyes, he supposed. Her hand brushed up his chest and his hands were no longer shy, going to hold her steady as she pressed to him.

And here I am. I do hope you’re not too busy.

”I am…” Abrazimir paused midsentence, as with just the faintest touch of her lips against his drew him into a strange state of paralysis. Like his whole body froze to see what would come next, even if he did know what would come next. After the brief embrace, he nuzzled his forehead to hers, his nose brushing against hers, as he managed to finish his sentence several heartbeats later. Oh, he missed this so much, just this sensation of being…wanted. ”…so very busy. But I can…squeeze you in, to my busy schedule.” He teased lightly.

He separated though, to pull at his cloak and whip it off his shoulders to hang on a peg next to the others he had. He wore a vest over a longsleeve chainmail shirt, which he began to loosen casually, turning back to her with a half grin. ”What have I done to deserve this surprise honour though? I figured you’d leave one of your notes, but maybe I lacked the skill to detect the one warning of this visit.” Abrazimir asked, doing a quick pat down of his clothes, as if he might discover a note there like last time. When no note seemed forthcoming, he began undoing the first few straps of his vest, then loosening his sleeves and rolling them up, before peering at her with a fuller smile now, drifting near again, his hand snaking around her waist.

”Would you like something to drink? I keep a fine bottle in here, from the Prince’s own cellar, in the case of…glorious triumphs.” Abrazimir offered her, willing to share a bottle that Prince Imrahil had given to his own father years ago, for military successes, now to be shared with a…partner. A gentleman should at least ask and offer, right?

@Lantaelen
Such a surprising man, this one.

Urion had surprised her too, often in fact, but Urion had been little more than an entirely inexperienced and utterly infatuated boy. The knight in front of her was a man - a man who had seen battle, who had taken lives, who had navigated the sharp tongues of the nobility, who had been out to the unruly seas with no more than wooden boards between him and a cold, wet end to his life. He was inexperienced when it came to certain dealings with women, as she had understood by the words they had previously shared - not that she would have drawn the conclusion had he said nothing at all. For this man... this man was a natural.

Moreover, he did not simply pounce at her the second she gave him the opportunity. As evidenced yet again, now she stood here in his cabin. She enjoyed the touch of his forehead, his nose, against hers. A simple thing, but so different from the much more greedy responses she was so used to. He had restraint. Torniel closed her eyes, smiling as he teasingly finished his sentence. She wanted to say something smart in return, but he distracted her from doing so when he actually stepped away from her (!) to take off his cloak and hang it up. Revealing chainmail as part of his outfit.

Torniel tilted her head in thought as she regarded him. She had not seen him in chainmail before. As he began to loosen his vest, and asked her to what he owed the 'honour' of her visit, she gave him one of her sultry smiles. Amused when he looked for a note he might have missed, Torniel kept her eyes on him. When he approached her again and put an arm around her waist, she hummed quietly. "What fun would it be if I became predictable?" she said in regard to the note. Nimble fingers of one hand slowly started working at the next still closed strap of his vest. "As to what you have done to deserve this..." She lowered her gaze to the strap momentarily, not really eager to delve into anything that might be too... real. Too confrontational.

"I enjoy you. Is that not reason enough, Dauntless?" She added in the use of her nickname for him, to emphasize how he had not shied away from any of the dares she had presented him with to this very moment.

Her eyes lifted with surprise at the offer of a bottle from 'the Prince's own cellar, in the case of glorious triumphs'. Her fingers had just opened the strap, but now stilled at the next one. Wait. Dauntless was a knight from Belfalas, that much she knew. She might have known much more by now, had she wanted to. But she had managed to curb her curiosity for now - aided by knowing that what she did not know, she could not tell in case anyone found out about her trysts with him and thought about questioning her. But anyway - the Prince he was talking about had to be Imrahil. Not that it mattered which Prince's bottle it was.

What mattered in the first place was that... it had been given to him. Did he really hold such esteemed position?
And secondly, what mattered was that it had clearly been given to him for a particular purpose. And that he was willing to forget all about that and... spend it on her, instead. Didn't men like Dauntless hold bottles from lofty Princes in high regard?

Part of her marvelled. The knight holding her, the knight she was leaning into - he was more important, then, than she had previously realized. For a man like that to have any interest in her - it was... shocking. For, yes, she had dealt with important nobles before, but... Never any like him. Never anyone who would cover her shoulders against the cold. Never anyone who would walk her to her horse. Never anyone who would open a bottle gifted to him by a Prince, just because she was in a room with them.

That part of her wanted to melt into his arms and say yes.

Another part of her sank. There was no way he would hold her like this, or offer her this bottle, if he knew more about her. If he knew all the terrible things she had done. The threats she had uttered as if it were nothing. The number of men she had been with. The deaths she was responsible for. It would not matter that she had done so because she had never known life to be any other way. It would not matter she had done so because whenever she thought of leaving this way of life, she knew that trying to leave it would be the end of her life, total. He would be hurt. He would feel betrayed.

That part of her wanted to decline. He should not waste such a thing on her. She was nothing. No more than the dirt left on the side of the road in the evening. Something he might not even want to walk into with those fine boots of his.

What am I even doing with him? What am I playing at?

Her fingers lifted from the strap to his lips, touching them briefly.

What am I hoping for?

"You hardly know me," she said quietly. "I'm not worth spending such a bottle on. You should keep it for its original purpose."

@Karis Ziranphel
He had procured whatever he thought was necessary in regards to additional supplies. And gifts,naturally. Macardil had never been stingy with his money when it came to Hal's children. He was not about to break with tradition now. Especially given the enormous surprise and joy of Alyssa's survival... he may have gone slightly overboard.

In addition, he had decided on a carriage after all. It would fit all of their luggage and gifts easily, and it would still enable two people to sprawl out over the cushioned benches - or seat four. He did not think either he or Ziran would make much use of it. Even if the Ansellidus castle and estate was not that far - or perhaps because it was not that far. For who knew what they might decide on after visiting Alyssa? And carriage or not, the road to Imloch Melui was wide and even. Unless Ziran and he were to push their horses, they would not make it there much faster just taking their horses. That the decision to take a carriage had pleased his mother, had been the lowest on his list of reasons...but it still counted.

They did take horses, however. Macardil was riding Nightshade, and Ziran had chosen to ride a horse of her own choosing, at least for now. The business where Macardil had rented the carriage had procured a driver and an additional horse. If they would take to the carriage, they could hook their own horses onto it, thus making make for a fine arrival at the Ansellidus estate, befitting of a Lord and Lady of one of the noble houses of Belfalas. Not that Macardil cared overmuch for appearances... However, he had admitted to Ziran upon her first view of the carriage and driver, that he would not mind leaving a bit of an impression on the young Lord Ansellidus. Given that he had married Alyssa, any reason for him to treat her every bit as the Lady she was, would do.

In the end, they had only left close to midday. Their travel was easy and pleasant, despite the winter cold, and the rest of the day was passing swiftly. Soon enough, they would choose an inn and halt for the night.

@Arnyn
She had a point. Predictability might lessen the fun, but in a dalliance such as this, Abrazimir thought of it as impossible. She was simply too…sultry and gorgeous, that he could not envision any decrease or diminishment in the fun. It was still so new and sensational for him. Still very much in the springtide of the electrifying emotion of the tryst. So much so that he almost never thought of the consequences of it. Even now, in his very base of power, upon his warship, with subordinates and mariners of his House so close at hand. Discovery was prevented by a simple doorway and four walls, with a ceiling and floor. But did he stop to think of the danger? Not once.

He was diving in face first into the well of pleasure. It was hard to think of anything else with Torniel so near at hand, rising to approach him, to help him with loosening the straps of his mariner garb, vest and chainmail. All his senses were smitten by her. Touch and smell and even a phantom taste from the last time, causing him to lick his lips, as his eyes bore down at her. She enjoyed him, she said. Was that not reason enough? Abrazimir found it hard to believe. He felt like it was still too good to be true, that the other shoe was yet to drop, and some hidden catch might be revealed. But he wasn’t going to dwell on that too much. A fair and gorgeous woman was here. And there was no time to waste! Others might return, and he could not be as…free and brash, as he’d like to be.

But still, there was…certain procedures to follow, when in the presence of a lady. He was not banal or crude. There were certain rituals to be observed first. A lady deserved that much. He turned from her, his upper garments half loosened and open, to open one of the bottom drawers of his desk and rummage to the rear, to draw out a glass bottle filled to the brim with crimson wine. Unopened, but he had a cork as well, setting both upon the desk. He really, really thought she was a lady of noble background, who might appreciate and understand such a high vintage from the cellars of the Prince.

He held the bottle by the neck, working with a singular focus, adamant in only getting it past her lips and his, before there would be an absence of any further obstacle…between her lips and his. The vintage ought to think itself more honoured, to grace the lips of so beautiful a woman, and tasted so opulently from those same lips. Abrazimir felt so giddy, as he began to cork the bottle open.

But Torniel spoke up, a little doubt, a little hesitation. It was indeed a grandiose thing, was it not? ”I hardly know you?” Abrazimir repeated, not even deigning to glance at her, thinking that was such a silly statement. But it was a honest one. What was her name, Abrazimir? Her real name? Not some alias he gave her. Or she gave him. ”I say otherwise. I say this moment is no less deserving of…say, the sinking of a Corsair flagship, or slaying of the enemy commander, or even the return of all of Umbar to the rightful authority of Gondor.” He said, putting their rendezvous on equal measure with all those things. At least this moment wouldn’t have to do with death and violence and bloodshed, right? That was admirable in itself, right?

The lid came free with a pop and there was no turning back. Abrazimir turned towards her, holding the bottle, but looking left and right with a sudden confusion. Whoops. He didn’t have any cups in here.

”Here’s to us,” Abrazimir just raised the bottle in a toast to her, then swigged directly from the top, feeling the fine, potent wine trickled down his throat. He then offered her the bottle, to mimic the gesture. ”Sorry, a bit crude, but this is neither inn nor house. Had I time to prepare, I might have done something more special for you. Because you…are worth spending time and effort on, Torniel.” He said, rolling her name with a purr as he liked to do. With the bottle pressed into her hands, his own was free…to reach out and rake through her hair gently at her side, feeling the silky strands run through his rough fingers. Something so fair and supple was certainly out of place on a warship of iron and wood like this. He was so very lucky.

”How’d you know I was here, though?” He asked with a little smile, genuinely curious how she learned of his movements. One of his men must have been babbling and she must have been nearby on her own business, coming across by sheer coincidence. It had to be that. Anything else…was an immense failure of operational secrecy. And that…would mean a lot of trouble.

@Lantaelen
It was true. She did enjoy him. She enjoyed his wit, his interest, his gestures. His... respect. She also enjoyed that he allowed himself to be free enough to be as he was with her. She enjoyed being free enough to be as she was with him. There was no alterior motive. There was no... scheme. No hidden objective. Just... enjoyment. Escapism.

He was already retrieving the bottle. Working to open it. When he questioned her statement, went against it, and claimed this moment they were spending in his cabin was on par with the sinking of an enemy ship, taking down an enemy commander or even... Torniel blinked. He could not be serious. It felt like he was serious. Were her instincts going blind? He was laying it on so thick. Why did it not feel as empty as the flattery from all the others? It had to be empty. For if he was serious, then... then they were getting in much too deep.

The bottle popped open. Torniel's lips parted in disbelief as he drank from the bottle itself, before apologizing. Before telling her that she was worth spending time and effort on. Her hands curled around the bottle. The words had to be empty. They had to be driven by another truth. Yet the way he played with her hair was gentle. The look in his eyes was honest. The smile on his lips was soft.

"I had no idea," she spoke so quietly that her voice was barely above a whisper, "until I - coincidentally - saw the name of the ship. The name of your ship." Torniel looked at the bottle in her hands. "To... us," she repeated, before finally taking a slow sip. He had opened it. He had actually opened it.

"I had business in Harlond and passed by the harbour," she backtracked a little. "When my business was complete... and your ship was still here..." She offered the bottle back to him, putting it to his lips and waiting for him to tip it. "I could not resist. Should I apologize?" she asked of him. Once he had had another drink, she took a few gulps herself this time. "This wine is... very good," she admitted, holding it back up for him. And potent. It was a good thing she was used to wine, or this would go straight to her head. It also allowed her to recognize that, if he was lying about the Prince giving him the bottle, it was at the very least a very expensive one.

"What has brought you and your ship here, Dauntless?" she inquired, angling her head to look past the bottle, gauging those grey eyes of his. Her gaze meaningfully flicked to the ledger he had dropped on the desk. "Work, I assume?"

@Arnyn
Maybe he was exaggerating the occasion of their rendezvous a little. Certainly not a worthy occasion of popping such a vintage! Especially given it’s…illicitness. But he couldn’t have a Lady in his cabin and presence and not have something to offer her either. Decorum still mattered. And she was a Lady, right? Between her beauty and rich garments, what else could she be? Just another soul like him, looking for love and belonging, against a backdrop of restrictive social norms. It was just some harmless fun between two consenting adults.

Besides, the look of astonishment on her lovely features at having such a bottle shared with her was adorable. How could he keep that level of amazement in her eyes and face while he had her here? Well, she was here, for one. She had seen his warship and decided to pay him a visit. And on no initiative but her own, Torniel decided to pay him a visit. Well, he thanked whatever stars had set her on that path then!

The toast was shared and she drank from the bottle. That was sufficient. He took the bottle from her, letting go of her hair, enjoying a sip and holding it by the neck as she explained her own presence in Harlond and how this coincidence came to be. Should she apologize for dropping in? ”Certainly not.” Abrazimir gave a light laugh, leaning back against the desk. She took the bottle back and proved her own formidable qualities, taking several more gulps this time, making his eyebrows quirk. Was that a challenge? She enjoyed the wine though. As expected. He took it from her, still grinning, putting it to his lips and drinking…four, five, six gulps… It was definitely going right to his head.

But what was the reason behind his presence in this coincidence? An innocent and casual question, but one he could never answer truthfully, as despite his excitement he was very much aware of his duties and responsibilities to King, Prince, and Realm. He let her look at the ledger. Like she would understand the numbers, right? One page would hardly convey the entirely of the context in which it accounted for. ”Work. Duty and service in the name of our King.” He said vaguely and at the mention of the King, that deserved another drink, so he raised the bottle in a silent toast to King Elessar,

And then handed her the bottle to drink as well to their King. They were moving fast through it. Hardly a minute had passed since he popped it and half of it was downed between them. He liked that about her. She knew how to have fun. After her drink at the mention of the King, he would place the bottle back on the desk now. It had impeded the desire of his hands long enough. The space in the cabin was minimal, so even against his desk it was easy for him to use his free hands to reach out and hold her own hands, their arms linked between their forms.

”But such activities will resume in the morning. Nights are for my own use and time. And I’m happy to spend this one with you, Torniel.” He said, with the usual purr of her name, looking into her eyes, along with a brief flicker to what was framed beneath her gorgeous features. But her eyes were just as potent a pair. ”Or forever long you are able to. I know this is not the most ideal of settings for a lady such as yourself. I could get used to this sort of surprise encounter though.” Abrazimir grinned, feeling the wine starting to churn it’s way into his senses, his mind and heart. All his senses seemed so much more vivid and emphasized. The touch of her hands, the sensation of beholding her face, her scent and fragrance wafting all about him. He wet his lips with the anticipation.

”Your business, I hope, was a lot less duller than my own?” He said, inquiring about her circumstances, to take off the attention on his own sensitive activities. Even to a fellow citizen of Gondor, such things could not be openly shared.

@Lantaelen
The King, and not the Prince. Well, well. She accepted the bottle back when he offered it to her, and she took the hint smoothly and drank even more from the heady bottle. "Classified, I take it?" she asked him with a smile, after lowering the bottle again, her low voice and playful expression turning the question into a tease. The wine seemed to be swirling around in her head. Such quality, and potency - at least when consumed so quickly. He put the bottle down on the desk he was leaning against. They were drinking it too fast to be considered wise. But did she really wish to be wise in this moment? No. Especially not with him taking her hands with his, and him inviting her to spend this night together, once more stating his pleasure at her surprise visit.

When he asked about her own business here, she leaned forward against him. "You are right, of course," she whispered, referring to his statement that his activities in service of the King would resume in the morning. "We both have plenty of work, already. I came here for play." Torniel closed the distance between their faces, kissing him on the lips slowly. "So let's play, you and I," she offered, guiding his hands to her lower back before sliding hers up along his chest and to the back of his neck. Her lips touched the side of his neck before whispering a request in his ear. After another slow kiss, she added a promise. The wine and his words were making her take a road she had not travelled with him thus far. She was not sure how much convincing this would take. Usually, men required next to none. This one, however...

"Shouldn't we make this count?" she asked him rhetorically, making eye contact again. "You deserve to let loose, with everything you do for Gondor and for your family. You deserve the best kind of fun." Her voice lowered to a whisper again, and a slow smile claimed her lips. "I have the evening, Dauntless," she told him, reminding him of what qualities he possessed that had earned him that nickname from her. "And the night."

@Rillewen


It was a sombre and, in some cases, yawning company who headed back toward the city, still with a few hours before dawn had rightly arrived to take note of them. The more latterly-arrived members of the party had swiftly grown as wearied as those who shared what they’d missed. Of course Duinion’s exhaustion, combined with Domanol’s paranoia, Eryn’s recent trauma, and Unalmis’s overactive imagination .. it was hard to imagine anything remotely reasonable emerging from the late night brain storming session. It was in fact much of a relief to the ‘Old Guard’ who had come to find them, that such wild conspiracies and theorising had kept the more reckless folk from heading off who knew where to do who knew what exactly. It could have been a lot worse.


The older men had listened, although they already knew enough to avoid becoming entangled in the emotionally loaded conversation themselves, nor to antagonise those who already were affected, any more than necessary. It still took longer than anybody might have expected for them to herd all of those they could away from any further endangerment. Nobody had in fact appeared to attack anybody at the farm, and most if not all who had gone there were in need of rest. It had been a particularly eventful couple of days, as well as more than one night, not even including this one.

Even Thorley eventually found himself relenting, in the face of reported dead bodies in the Guards’ jurisdiction. After all, if a Ranger Lieutenant amongst others had also witnessed the evidence, then maybe that would stand up in court rather better than papers which were openly revealed to be ‘fakes’ and ‘copies’. Given who had apparently found those, it might even be claimed the gathered group had concocted such evidence themselves, to frame a mutual adversary.


It was always them. If not directly, then somebody else who would do anything for them. Which made proving anything that they uncovered without bias very difficult. The Guard did ensure to liaise with Sergeant Hâdhon of the Night shift though, to request extra guards for more extensive checks on all gates in and out of the Pelennor, and the city itself. But it sounded as though, if the kidnapper/their wanted fugitive had been involved in all of this, he’d clearly already had his fun and left them only with the promise there would yet be more to come. And who can believe a liar ?

When the sun finally rose, it did so upon a new day. Whether that day should herald new hope, or even rouse any with a tired head, before the bell for noon, remained to be seen. The night that had been slunk into it’s assigned place in history, assured that it was a night that few who’d seen it would ever forget.

Lantaelen wrote: ↑Sat Jan 18, 2025 4:18 am @Rillewen

Lord Abrazimir Dimaethor & Lady Gaerlothriel Dimaethor
December 22nd, Marketplace, Minas Tirith, Gondor

All this talk of Mr. Orc and dragons had Gaer giddy with excitement. It sounded like something out of a legend or myth. Or very recent history for this City at least. She didn’t have anything to add as Linny momentarily mentioned their brief practice a few months ago. And how eventful that whole ordeal had been. But this time would be different. Eryn presented herself like a willing and capable tutor and the opportunity to learn properly was tremendous.

Abrazimir was not opposed to the girls learning archery, to any basic degree. A part of him wondered though if the girls parents might have some protestations though. Where Gaer was concerned, he could cover for her and ensure his parent’s trust due to his ‘supervision’. But for Dulinneth? He didn’t know if he had that sort of influence or trust with her parents. They might severely disapprove of her learning. But if it were entirely up to him, he’d say…let them go at it! The teacher, Eryn, seemed competent from her regaling of her private range.

And Eryn was kind to offer some activity for him to do. Her father, a former Ranger, might have some interesting anecdotes about the War. He just returned a nod of acknowledgement to Eryn about meeting her family. Lead on. In truth, he had been expecting to just be sitting there off to the side, minding his own business. He had a lot to think about anyways, especially regarding a certain note he received today, and a secretive yet brief meeting with a formidable lady.

Farm environs and animal husbandry were not unknown to Gaer or her family. The Dimaethor estates were not as populous or urbane as their neighbours, and within the castle town of her familial keep was often an abundance of local farmers, shepherds, and other rural folk attempting to sell their wares in the marketplace, as from there it could be taken by ship to other ports in Gondor, all apart of a robust and expansive economic trade structure. Cattle, goats, horses were all commonplace. And her family owned their fair share of herds too, as wealth manifested itself in more than just coin. They just never let her around it. Not appropriate stuff for the hands of a daughter of nobility to be interacting with. Or archery. But who was really around to enforce those customs? Abrazimir was agreeable to them going.

”Not opposed at all.” Gaer answered, rejoining the others. They would soon passing under the gate and into the cultivated fields of the Pelennor. ”Just means we have a cup of milk readily at hand if we want.” She beamed with her jest. She enjoyed milk and didn’t care if that made her akin to a feline. Like Linny though she had never been allowed up close to a cow though. And to pet one? Linny had the right idea. And Eryn seemed to find that very amusing.

And…there was also a dog! Hattie. Gaer made a little squeal of excitement. They got to handle bows, shoot at target, pet cows, and there was a dog? This day just continued to elevate and get better. ”Let’s get going. We’re so grateful to you for taking us on like this. I do hope your uncle and aunty won’t mind. If there’s anything we can do to help make us more tolerable, let us know.” Gaer said, wanting to be as courteous as their gracious host was.

”Do you name the cows as well?” Was the next, natural inquiry, as the three girls and their chaperone made their way out of Minas Tirith and onto the main road that ran right to Osgiliath, and the crossroads beyond. Along this ancient and royal road, to a new friend’s house, for an evening of fun and activity!

[Exit to the Pelennor Fields]

@Lantaelen
Eryn laughed at Gaer's jest about having a cup of milk on hand. "Exactly." She grinned and wondered if either of them had any interest in learning to milk a cow. It wasn't for everyone, but some people were curious and interested in trying new things. She wouldn't be opposed to teaching them that, if they wished to know, but she decided not to be the one to bring it up. "And no, my family won't mind at all." She assured them. "Aunt Aggie might even invite you all to stay for dinner." She pre-warned them.

"Oh, do you think we could?" Linn asked, looking at Gaer, then back at Abrazimir, uncertain. Her attention quickly returned to Eryn at the mention of a dog. "Oooh I love doggies!" Linn declared happily. "I've never gotten to have one, but my brother did, once. I don't remember if I was born yet, or just too little to remember, though."

"You'll love Hattie," Eryn promised, smiling as she led the way down the lane. "And there's horses, like I mentioned," She added to Linn. "If you want to come back another day when it's still light, we could go for a ride, maybe." She suggested, although she only had one other horse to offer for them to ride. Maybe some sort of solution could be made, for that.

Linn happily looked around the Pelennor as they walked, eager to see this place they were going to. "I can't wait to see all your animals!"

When Gaer asked her whether she named her cows, Eryn grinned. "Of course! I'll introduce you to all of them, if you like. One of them," She added with wide eyes, "was born during the evacuation and stuff. My aunt and I stayed behind for as long as we could, because her mother was about to give birth and we couldn't really leave her, you know? My uncle went ahead, to take the rest of the cows to safety, and then after the baby calf was born, Aunt Aggie and I joined the very last wagon that was leaving." She explained. "And," Eryn smiled, "that's how I met Wisteria. She'd gotten separated from the group she was supposed to be with and got left behind. She'd missed all but that last wagon, so they sent her with us. And she helped me name the baby calf," She added with a small grin.

The riding was mostly pleasant with the bright sun making itself felt despite the cold and light breezes as they led the carriage along the road to Harlond and then turned west along the main road that led along the northern region of Lossarnach toward Imloth Melui rather than continuing on the southern road to Pelargir. Smaller roads branched off to lead up into the higher valleys or down into areas of broad fields that lay fallow over winter. They led the way, with the carriage following within calling distance behind them, Macardil on his beloved Nightshade, and Ziran on a beautiful dark bay mare with black stockings that had appealed to her with its good lines and the calm but eager look in its eye.

Her mount was eager for the journey and had settled well into making good forward progress, leaving Ziran to enjoy the scenery, fresh air, and sense of freedom she got from riding. She did appreciate that Macardil had gotten the carriage, as it meant packing had been easier, and they could not only arrive the next day in style, but could shelter from the elements if the weather turned inclement. In addition to her regular winter clothing and additional warm riding clothes packed into saddlebags, she’d packed two dresses with all appropriate accoutrements into a small chest that was lashed with the rest to the luggage box of the carriage. A dark blue dress of heavy wool for traveling and a lighter one that would be more appropriate for dinner attire.

Ziran also hadn’t minded Macardil's insistence that he did not want her sleeping outside in the cold, even though it had earned him a low laugh at the time. Camping in winter was not exactly relaxing, and their travels could last longer without the need to stop, pitch tents, and cook. Indeed, they could look forward to the prospect of an inn with warm food after their long ride.

The horses had managed the travels well, delighted to run for sheer joy for a short while, and then settling into a steady trot over the many miles, matching the team that followed with the carriage. There were no flowers this time of year, but the scenery was beautiful nonetheless, with windswept rolling hills that were drifted in places with snow, and stark trees against the sky. They passed several small hamlets but pushed on as the sun began its descent, finally reaching the edges of a larger town in the valley famed for its roses with the last bright rays of light gilding the roofs of the houses and leaving the streets in shadow. Inquiring after a decent inn from the guards at the edge of town, they were directed to a sturdy looking cartier’s inn. Ziran had stiffened from the long ride and the cold, and was grateful for the warmth of the Inn’s common room once they dealt with ascertaining that the place did indeed have rooms available and stabling the horses. There was a fire lit and the smell of good food permeating the air. The Innkeeper was delighted to have a lord as a guest, and showed them to the best room he still had available. A slightly cautious light was in his eyes when he inquired whether they wished to dine privately or would they choose to join the company in the common room? It disappeared when Ziran mentioned that they would be happy to dine below, and she could see it had been the right thing to say, even if the man wouldn’t have expected it. In her mind it made sense to join the company in an already warm room and hear the stories and songs shared instead of sitting in their own room while a new fire was built to drive away the chill.

Food was ordered for themselves and their driver, and then they took time to refresh themselves and don cleaner clothes that smelled less of horse before going down for dinner. The company was good, and a minstrel entertained the room for a few songs before the scattered tables descended once more into conversation and gossip sharing, and it proved interesting enough that they stayed a while after finishing the simple and hearty fare to enjoy the gathering before begging off to find their rest. The next morning would bring further travel and hopefully a joyous reunion.

@Karis Ziranphel @Rillewen
Yesterday had been nice, if quite cold. Not even the thick winter riding gloves and the warm socks and boots had kept his fingers and toes exactly comfortable by the end of the day. Therefore, the timing of the inn was opportune. While some lords might have considered it too low-class for their business, Macardil had no such qualms. If the guards had recommended it, why would he second-guess it, after all?
The inn turned out to be clean and comfortable, though with decidedly less luxury than Belfalasion nobility had come to expect. Macardil had no complaints. He had been able to go to bed with a well-filled stomach in a warm room, and woke up well-rested. Was that not what one needed to expect from these establishments?

At breakfast, the wagon's driver had once again sought out a place by the bar, rather than joining them. Yesterday he'd explained his preference to eat alone at the inn, since he did not wish to impose. Macardil had not fought the man on it. It was different, sharing a meal with Ziran in a place like this, while travelling. The situation seemed to change the whole setting, as well as some of their behaviour.

Since the both of them were practiced at such things, it did not take them long to gather their belongings and set out, once they had finished breakfast. Soon they ahd left Imloth Melui behind them. It was not raining, which once again allowed for riding, and Macardil could tell that Nightshade was very pleased, which added to his good mood. His message would reach the castle this morning, he supposed, leaving little to no time for extensive preparations. Which was the goal, naturally.

Macardil grew increasingly restless as they travelled the winding road, with countless switchbacks, up the mountainside. When the road split into two, one way leading to a multitude of steps to the front gate, another way supposedly leading to a different entrance for wagons, Macardil halted briefly. It was clear that, with the wagon and the horses, they would be taking the second road. He pondered, however, whether or not he wished to arrive in the wagon, or on horseback. After a short talk with Ziran, in which he told her he would stay seated upon Nightshade after all, he awaited her own decision, made the necessary arrangements if necessary, and then they moved on.

@Arnyn @Karis Ziranphel
His booted feet pounded on the stone-paved road leading down the mountain, breath ragged as he pushed himself to keep going. It took a lot of concentration and caution not to slip on any patches of ice, and fall on his rear, but he didn’t slow down, even though the path was a little steep. Desperation pushed him to keep up the swiftest pace he could manage without tumbling down the hill. The young man was dressed in the uniform of the castle’s personal guards, which made it just a bit harder to move around than if he’d been in regular clothes, but it wasn’t too much different from the Minas Tirith guard uniform he was used to.

Coming around the bend in the road, he saw the carriage ahead, coming toward the castle. Toward the bridge he had just come from. In turn, he would now be in full sight of the travelers in the carriage. Whoever they were, maybe he hoped they might help him, and that they would not end up working against him. He didn’t know how much time he had, but maybe he could convince them to aid him.

Waving his arms to try and gather attention, he hastened toward the carriage with renewed hope. “Help!” He cried out breathlessly as he spotted them. He was out of breath from running, but he couldn't waste another moment. He focused his attention onto the man riding ahead of the carriage on a black horse, who he assumed to be a guard for the travelers in the carriage, since he had no way of knowing if anyone was even in there or not. The young man hastening toward them had no visible weapons on him, and held his hands up in a sign of peace as he approached, hoping they would not immediately attack or think him a threat. “Please... I need help!” He repeated, now that he was better within range to talk with them. He was breathing hard and looked up at the stranger with pleading, blue-green eyes. "They're after me... I don't have much time, but please... help me, sir. I'm desperate."


(I didn't want to make any assumptions about what karis had chosen, so I just didn't refer to where she is, but this will have happened after you guys had moved onward, after she had chosen whether to ride in the carriage or not)

@Arnyn @Rillewen
Ziran had considered being more formal and wearing a dress for the second leg of their journey, but decided it was worth her own comfort to wear her usual attire again and ride her bay alongside Macardil again. They were still closer to Minas Tirith than Belfalas with its tighter expectations of behavior, and she didn’t feel like being stuck in the carriage alone while Macardil rode, as her saddle wouldn’t accommodate the skirts of a dress to her satisfaction. Thus, she rode warmly bundled, with the edges of her cloak tucked over her legs for extra warmth, and with her scabbard, bow, and quiver attached to her saddle as was usual for her on journeys when she had the luxury of riding instead of walking.

It had been a pleasant ride in the sunshine despite the cold, but she noticed Macardil’s mood shifting somewhat as they left the valleys and started up the sloping road that ascended the mountain to their destination. Her alertness heightened in anticipation as she saw the wall and gates, the steady strike of hooves against stone lending a steady rhythm to the quiet. She had wondered if they would switch to the carriage for their arrival as they had discussed at one point, but when her husband decided to stay mounted for the last approach, Ziran nodded and indicated that she would do the same. It felt less confining to be going into an unknown situation astride a horse with the advantage of height, independent movement, and speed that were not afforded in a carriage. She settled her bay in to walk just behind and to the right of Macardil and Nightshade as they started towards the second gate.

They hadn’t been going long when the sound of running footsteps preceded the figure of a man in some form of uniform pelting down the road they were on. Was that a cry for help? A ruse? What to make of his call and waving arms as if he was escaping some dire predicament in a castle that was their aim? Ziran narrowed her eyes and shifted her mount further to the side of the road as the man directed his attention towards Macardil, then touched her heels to its sides to send it striding forward and turning to wheel past the man and stop. Her movement effectively blocked him in while shielding him somewhat from sight of the castle. She would let Macardil do most of the talking, as he was good at putting people at their ease, and the desperate seeming man had addressed him directly, but that last statement drew out her own question. “Who is after you?” The carriage might serve to hide him if need be, but he was running away from their destination. What was going on in Ansellidus lands?