Seamstress Seems to See unSightly Things.

[BetaFlame]

Gloria was perhaps the unluckiest person in Myrkenwood. Every day it was something for her.

Today, on the path she got to witness something. Crackling purple lightning forming, spiraling up from the ground, then arching back down to form a perfect dome as it twists and writhes. The brightness of it makes it hard to look at in the morning light. Then suddenly those tendrils of light have pulled back, ripping back into the ground and leaving a pattern of burned dirt and grass upon the ground.

And in the center is a man.

The man breaths, but does not move. He wears a heavy cloak, plain black but in the same cut as one Aleksei River, without the fancy designs across it. Blond hair spills out across the brown and black dirt, and a hand reflexively opens and closes, much like a lizard would move its tail.

Across his back was a slender curved sword, single edged and wrapped in black leather.

[Rance]

A mid-morning meal at Darkenhold had been light. She regaled Proctor Duquesne with colorful stories about what produce was available in Jernoah, and about the infamous soup-stock boiled from jah'zoon urine and saltstones. When that was done, he gave her the expectation of what she should read for the following day, what letters to practice -- and like that, she made the return trek to her room at the Broken Dagger, newly inspired with the day's learning.

An hour's ride along the paths was either an enlightening or torturous thing to her escort, whose proud horse galloped with some impatience in front of her. The seamstress did, after all, have so many words, as if Duquesne had poured her full of them and only now did they begin to find their way back out.

She did not ride a horse. Nor was it a pack-mule, or a donkey. It was something else entirely, with a browned fur harder than a horse's. It had two backbent horns above its dull eyes, and because she'd only a few days' experience in riding, she was as stiff as iron upon the saddle. Its pressed-in snout had a dangling beard, and when it breathed, it wheezed around the bit drawn against its glistening jaw. Its only tooth that remained was a single, cracked fang, jutting up against its upper lip, curling it into a forever-sneer.

"Have they removed the other teeth on purpose, Messa Woger?" she asked, clicking once, twice, trying to steady the prancing beast. "And what must you feed it? I have never seen a thing like it, and the poor fellow appears almost too old to handle this trek. I fear that -- that I am too heavy for him.

"Caliir," she said, leaning forward to pat the docile but unattractive creature between its horns. "That is what I think I would like to call him. Caliir, when we return -- oh, oh, do not lean that way, I will fall right off -- I will give you a good patting, and a brushing and--"

A snarl of light caught her eyes, flickering between the brush and the branches. A movement of colors, a playing of illumination that seemed almost unnatural. Before she could blink once, and then twice, it was gone. Caliir ambled almost drunkenly, but she ticked her tongue and dug her spurs -- the excitement of having spurs did not lose its appeal for the desert-girl -- with regrettable intensity into Caliir's rough hide.

"Odos, odos," she whispered, for how would he be hers if she did not train him in Jernoan? "Odos, Caliir. Yes, just like that. Steady. Odos."

When the light was gone, she squinted into the underbrush, and then flicked her eyes back to her handler, the silent fellow on the horse beside her. There was a fearful grit to her teeth, a discomfort in her smile that displayed, without discretion, her nervousness. Caliir shuffled in place, and her black-gloved hand was a snare around his reins.

A man. A man was there in the woods across from them, just off the path. The stink of burnt grasses crawled into her nostrils. She might have paid more attention to the clothing, to the shape of the body, to the color of the hair, were it not for the image of the blade upon his back.

"I do not like swords, Messa Woger," the girl whispered.

[Duquesne]

Woger was a simple man of simple birth, who lead a mediocre sort of life in a mediocre cottage with mediocre thatch, which was ruled over by the rather obsessive hand of a rather compulsive wife. He had for his legacy a number of battles, some successful and some not, a brief commission in a lord's personal guard, and a brood of children whose obsessiveness and compulsiveness rivaled that of their mother (though not quite, for she was the summit of such characterizations). Nevertheless, this Woger rarely complained about his circumstances, for it was his good fortune to resign his mind to quietude. He was never prone to exercise it or expand it unduly as a result, nor lend himself in the dull hours of long winter evenings to deep musings over the state of the world, or of his corner of it, nor even of his even smaller corner near his wife's mediocre fireplace. In short, the man made the perfect soldier, wholeheartedly willing to receive and obey commands, and his life's work had been about just such activities... until the day when an axe was fatefully swung, resulting in a mild limp for his leg with a mildly lazy foot attached. His career as a military grunt was over, and though the man suffered a mere moment in which his mind shook off its apathy and imagined vividly some other life, some other occupation, there as clouds parted to admit great beams of enlightenment, for he could be anything he chose to be! alas that epiphany was short-lived, for it nearly exhausted him to death and prolonged his inmacy in the army infirmary. And so, Woger, with five children and another on the way, had no way to make a living.

However, Fortune would smile on him just once and through a series of seemingly random events, would auspiciously place him directly in the path of a one Syl Duquesne, who subjected poor Woger to a series of the most direct and discerning questions ever uttered in the simple man's presence. Whatever replies he stammered and stuttered must have satisfied that young lord, for Woger found himself suddenly employed and collecting a somewhat larger wage than he had ever earned in all his five and thirty years. He also was given adequate lodgings, a healthy spit of land to own for his own self, and an assortment of other investments acquired by modest request. And in return, Woger offered the most pure and most sincere loyalty an earthly, mortal soul can offer, so that when Duquesne asked him to escort a young female student to and from town, the man agreed without question.

Woger O'lgrud, forty years old this past fall, in a most uncharacteristic and sudden evolution, has himself a thought. And it is the merest inkling ever, but a thought it certainly is: a tax on his good fortunes have finally arisen. His charge, Miss Gloria Wynsee, spoke so ceaselessly he imaged she had bellows in her belly... for she had not stopped since they rode through the gates at Darkenhold nearly an hour ago. For just over a week now, the once-soldier has been riding with her four days per week, two hours per day, and he had been barraged with so many questions and washed over with so many comments he had often felt like he was safely at home among his troop of chattering offspring. The first two days, he did his utmost to respond... but soon changed his mind, offering her a mere and occasional acknowledgement or affirmation in the form a kindly grunt or nod or sometimes a chuckle or a concise response if he was feeling inspired or generous (the same attitude he applied to his home life). All in all, though, never could a young student be in more capable, more protective company, for though Woger was simple... he was no trifle.

"One tooth were yanked out, miss, on account 'o bein' rotten," he says of the beast she rides, he from his bundled slump in the saddle atop a proper horse, "and two he broke chompin' at the stall. He be mean an' unnatur'l, miss; mind yer digits."

But here is a thing which has Woger's rein-hand tightening in quick order. Odd lights, the likes of which defy his understanding, though this was not the first time he had witnessed seemingly otherworldly events. A frown sets into his mouth-corners as a man materializes there and Woger's hand lowers to unmask a sword-hilt slung in his saddle leather. He knew Gloria disliked such weapons, so he had placed it in a familiar but inconspicuous location so as to put her at ease. Now, though, he has a stable and steady hand and will draw if he is made to. "Settle, miss," he murmurs to Gloria reassuringly, while his eyes never leave the figure of the man who has suddenly formed so many yards distant. "We be on our way," he adds wisely, "no sense hangin' about here."

[BetaFlame]

If they had been luckier, or if Gloria had not be there, they might have gotten away before the man woke. Or perhaps if he was not who he was. There was a groan, soft from the man's lips issued forth. The groan of a man that had fallen down a wall, or off a roof. One filled with pain, regret and perhaps shame at being stuck in this predicament. Two hands, gloved in soft black leather, flatten to the ground and slowly he pushes himself to his hands and knees, giving his head a slow shake. Cobwebs in his brain. Dust in his mouth. He coughs out, and slowly sits back on his haunches, only to be faced with.. people in the back of.. what? He had read about those, he thinks. His sun bronzed face is a strange contrast to his wheat blond hair.

He lifts both hands to chest height, palms up facing the sky. He's demonstrating he is unarmed.

One woman on a.. uh. And a man on a hoorse? Hm. He licks his lips and tries to speak, now. "Miash tommar?" Damn, the spell broke, and he cannot force himself into their language. His teeth grind in frustration as he tries to recall the words of the mainland, the Trade tongue. "Ah. Um. --" He gestures about and frowns. "Where? Me.. nisath, I? Where I?"

It was not coming easy to him, this Trade tongue. He will have to renew the spells later, but casting in front of strangers could go poorly. This could be another Rodel.. or worse.

[Rance]

Caliir ambled with a weary imbalance, his four legs bending almost like a knot below him as the seamstress tried to keep him steady. She yanked the rein, bent her body left, then right, compensating for his disquiet. The unnatural beast clacked his gums in displeasure.

"No, Messa Woger. No," she said, her heels keeping her legs like straightened branches in the stirrups. Her response fought against her bleary desire for self-preservation. "If the Proctor was here, he would stop. You see? Or the Marshall. They would stop, and they would ask ser, what is wrong, or ser, are you lost or misguided, and we should aspire to the same."

Yet, to go wholly against what Woger desired would have been to put to shame Duquesne's appointment of the man as her handler. She pleaded with her bonnet-shadowed eyes in that moment that he might listen to her, even as the man kept his distance and thrust high his hands to show that they are not armed. Caliir had been trained well enough, at least, to know the signs of tension -- instead of bleating out his pain when his rider's unconscious fear came in the form of perpetually-applied spurs, he shifted himself in a protective fashion against Woger's great horse, his leader, his better.

"This is the woods, messa," she said, a response offered without Woger's permission, her eagerness to speak getting the better of her. "I am -- I am Gloria, and this is Messa Woger, who has many little ones -- some older than I -- to whom he is determined to return tonight. There should be no cutting or funny business.

"Is that what it is called," she said to Woger, a whisper. "Funny business?"

[Duquesne]

Woger will eye this stranger with a strange tongue and in a strange land, to boot. While his charge has more generous sentiments than he, the man will retain his suspicion--it was his duty to do so. And thus, with sword-hilt bared and within easy reach, he heave a slow sigh out as steam, casts the briefest look at Gloria for her kindnesses, and then resumes his studious watch of that fellow there.

"Like you'd have it, miss," he says in a low tone, conceding. "There be no approachin' him, y'hear? If 'e be trouble fer true, you turn round an' use them spurs." And with that, he will be silent and will sit his horse in calm and caution, spurred heels and hands at the ready. But her question will cause the vaguest perplexity on his simple brow. "Supposin' so," and it emerges as a whisper. "It'll do."

[BetaFlame]

He frowns. Not a threatening, snarling frown. Just an general look of displeasure. Aleksei was the smart one. Why was he doing this? "Nisath. Um. Woods, doe? Mythago ta Myrken?" Then he is sliding a single thumb into the loop that holds the sheathed sword across his back, and pulling slowly. He keeps his eyes on Woger, the battle ready one. If he were to attack, that would be the man that would stop him, that would fight back.

So slowly the weapon is pulled away from his body with that single finger, then laid upon the ground. He mind strains out to find the words he needs. "Peace, doe? Search." His eyes shut tightly for a moment. This would hurt. A spell silented and stilled, and suppressing the glare of power from his eyes. But he does it anyway. Pain is nothing but impulses in the mind. Aleksei was better at that too. Mikael grits his teeth against it, fighting it as he pushes through the spell. Would they notice the faint light that spilled between his tightly clinched eyes? He hoped that they would see it as a trick of the Sun.

But his eyes open after what feels like ages, and is in reality no more than two or three seconds. "Words.. I remember? But slow, doe? You.. talk slower?" There are red specks in each of his eyes, burst blood vessels. "Name, yes. Mikael Rain."

[Rance]

Myrken. That was a word she recognized. Struggling with the Standard as her own second language -- she had taken to speaking it with proper efficiency, but writing it was a wholly different battle. She thought, suddenly, that she had a responsibility here. That he unhanded his blade made that feeling swell.

"Peace, peace, yes," she said, settling the disquieted Caliir with a few snaps of noise from her tongue. Then, she turned her cheek to Woger and gave him a proud smile. Only a week into learning all about rhetoric -- and she had scarcely begun to learn her Standard alphabet -- and she was already utilizing her knowledge for quieting tension.

Many years in the future, though, she might look back on that very moment and realize that Woger was right: that to leave the man be might have been smarter, that she was effectively playing with her handler's life by engaging the fellow so carelessly.

"I will talk slower," she said, stretching each word out to its conclusion. The flicker of light paused her -- did the Glass Sun dance, did it reflect, were her eyes merely seeming afterimages of Darkenhold's white-stemmed candles? -- before her ugly mount dipped its head and started impatiently noshing at grass it had no teeth to yank away.

"Hello, Mikael Rain. I am Gloria," the seamstress said, bonnet yanked down around her neck. "Are you lost?"

A glance to Woger, the kind that asked, how am I doing -- and simultaneously, it teased, as if to say she'd known the hole time nothing dangerous could have come from a bit of courtesy.

[Duquesne]

It is sure this veteran has eyes for that cautious motion, the thumb under the sword-strap, the careful removal of that weapon and its placement on the ground in the relationship to the stranger's feet. A sheathed blade was an object, and an object in proximity to a fighter with talent could still kill, be there bared steel or not. Mikael Rain, it is memorized. His gesture was appropriate, even appreciated, but by no means does Woger relax his watch. His eyes fleet over their surroundings, a quick surveillance before his attention is restored. Alas, poor Gloria's glance up at him is gone unnoticed. He was present to protect her, not to teach her of social interaction--that was the task of her teacher.

[BetaFlame]

He taps the side of his head and nods at the girl. "Learning. I am.. learning. This.. wordmaking. Language?" He frowns a little and shakes his head. "Knew it, uhm, once? Distant time ago?" He shrugs at the pair of them helpless to convey more than he has already. Instead he chews on his inner lip, pondering her question and letting the words roll in his mind, translating them. "Lost? Shoith? Yes. I used.. Gate. Missed?"

He gestures then at the burn marks upon the ground, the small circles of blackened earth. "Gate marks."

"Where.. this?"

[Rance]

She knew nothing of magic or ritual; they were wholly foreign things, concepts that she could scarcely wrap her young mind around. She had seen miracles happen for those who ate sand, though, and had seen Brothers and Sisters act as conduits of the Nameless. They had performed great and unlikely healings; at the whims of the gods, augurs had communed with the future; most importantly, though, she had seen her people draw water from the earth.

But that was not base, human magic. That was something greater, something the girl could -- and never would -- be able to fathom.

"I am learning wordmaking too," she said, with a vibrant smile. "We are -- are not so very different then, Messa Rain. Both of us are displaced, yes? I am not from here. You are not from here."

The seamstress leaned over toward Woger, almost sliding right off Caliir as she whispered, "I think I deserve quite the good marks for this."

She examined the scorches strewn like black, starburst tattoos across the ground. To dismissively escort a man who could cause such a thing into the commons of the town without going through the proper channels would be a mistake. Could be dangerous. Detrimental. Potentially problematic. She was, in the end, just a seamstress, not an envoy, not an emissary. A Myrkenite, and nothing more.

"I think you quite missed," she added. "If you had missed any more, ser, you might have disappeared into the belly of a beast. Or Nameless forbid, a lady's dressing room. This is Myrken Wood, Messa Rain, and because I am new, too, we shall observe the formalities.

"Woger," the girl said, relishing every moment of this interaction as if she were some great female dignitary, one of those h'utpak ladies who ate grapes, meddled in their husbands' political business, and shaved the pits of her arms. "Shall we lead him back with us? Perhaps to the Constabulary, or -- or to the Marshall, or someone under her eye, that this man who makes light should be first be deemed perfectly welcome in the town."

[Duquesne]

Once more, she will find her guardian to be a silent slump in his saddle, bundled and grim. He was eager for supper and a hearthstone to warm his feet on, to be restored to the veritable chaos of his home and his neurotic offspring, but sensed that he may be late for a warm meal tonight. And if he were of a party to welcome outlanders to Myrken Wood, he was suited for it, being dismal and otherwise suspicious of everyone he did not know personally, everyone who was not vouched for by people he trusted, and everyone who was unknown to everybody else, who were themselves also without vouchers from people he trusted or that he knew personally--which generally meant most of the population of the world, as Woger Ol'grud knew hardly anyone at all and trusted half that number, therefore everyone and everybody was untrustworthy and suspicious and otherwise dismal too. Excepting the few he did trust... who were few.

These were the reasons he had been and remained a proficient guard and simpleton of the most noble order.

A dedicated hand remains near his sword-hilt--as the elementary brain to which that hand is linked remains unconvinced--and the man stares with immeasurable gloom at the foreigner, silently scorning his butchery of the Common, even though Woger himself routinely and masterfully massacred every verbalization that his unfortunate mouth had opportunity to emit. But the man will turn a weary eye on his young charge, breathes in a slow and tempering sort of breath, then sighs it away in a film of cheese-trimmed vapors--Darkenhold tended to host an irresistible variety of wheels--and he looks back to the stranger in the midst. "Be beggin' yer pardon, miss. If we be takin' 'im anywhers, we need fer us answers fer some par'tic'lar inquiries." And he was mightily pleased with that large word, having no mind for its special definition but had heard it used in such situations and figured it to be appropriate. With a hard-boiled tone, and mustering his language that he be very clear about his expectation, the soldier slowly asks the question Gloria should have asked directly: "What is your business? Why are you here?"

[BetaFlame]

Every word, every though vocalized increased his understanding of this tongue. But still, it was slower coming than he liked. The idea that he could have ended up in the belly of a beast, she she put it made him smile, then idea of a woman's dressing room? That drew out a laugh. Something that seemed out of place in his weather and tired face, lifting the sadness lines from the corners of his mouth and lighting his eyes, but just for a moment. Then the small laughter disappears.

But he knows what they are about, and it brings a slight grin to his face. Indeed, they wanted to escort him to someone better able to watch him. But if he understood his target, the man he so carefully chased, that is where he would be. In the company of those powerful. Aleksei couldn't help it, he was drawn to power like a moth to flame.

"I am here.. searching. Looking for a.." He paused a frowned. How to put this into words. "Old friend. Someone.. hunts. To kill him."

He shrugs again. He could take the gamble. If these two are not Aleksei's friends, then he will likely have a fight on his hands. But the girl is no threat, and the man? Well, he would not like to have to hurt him. "Aleksei of the River."

[Rance]

Old friend. Someone hunts. To kill him.

The precise and exacting thoughts reminded her of when she had first learned how to speak the Standard. Each phrase was as sharp and as directed as an arrow, but when mashed together, they had been inaccurate, aimless, confusing. It took a moment for her to understand exactly what he meant. Was he the someone who hunts? Or was he the old friend seeking to inform? To protect?

Woger had taken the helm of the inquiries, keeping them specific and simple. She clutched her hands around Caliir's reins, settling the impatient and miserable beast with a wary pat between its crumbling horns. She intended to let Messa Woger lead of the curiosities and questioning -- he had an old soldier's mind, and all she could think of were back-stitches -- until she heard a name, a name--

"Oh. Oh," the girl said, chin shooting up. "Aleksei." A thought from days before, when Catch had spoken about Ser Aleks, Ser Aleks, the discussion of a dispute, a mention of an Eight (what was it, save for a number, a confusing and transporting bit of Catch-poetry). Amid it all, the vaguest narrative.

She leaned to the side, deferring to her handler. "What of him, Messa Woger," she asked. "Where should we bring him? Is there a protocol to this sort of thing?"

She watched Mikael the whole time, her young eyes curious. There was a hardness in them, though, a sense of propriety and responsibility, a pride infused from a mere week of schooling. A chance to speak as though she was someone more than just a threader of needles and a worker of embroidery. She leaned to the side, deferring to her handler.

"Aleksei River," the girl clarified, for though she knew the man -- not well, scarcely more than acquaintance -- this hunting would not do, and Mikael Rain was very suddenly a bringer of great news and dangerous secrets. "You are here to be the one to help him," the girl asked, "or to hurt him?"

[Duquesne]

The explanation penetrated the soldier's mind and fortunately the terms were stated in a manner he could understand, for hunting men had been included in his job description for many years. That Mister Rain provides a name is even more useful, though not for Woger, who, as previously stated, knew hardly anyone at all.

But Gloria does, and she knows this name.

The old soldier will offer her a neutral look, some motion of a rough-gloved hand to defer the matter back into her judgement. He was, after all, her security measure and not a schooled diplomat like she was.