A Morning Inquisition (Three Horses and an Ass TP)

Archet

The village of Archet lies under the watchful eye of the Chetwood, which waits to the east. A small stream flows into the village from under the eaves of the forest and passes behind a large woodshed, before collecting into a small pool at the northern edge of the village. Along with the Woodshed are several smaller buildings, almost all of them of a residential nature. The village land south of the stream is dotted with tree stumps, a testament to the village's chief function as supplier of wood to the Bree-lands.

Contents:

Muirgheal

Menelglir

Muir's Garden

Obvious exits:

 Muir's House leads to Muirgheal's House.

 Wooden Doors leads to Woodshed.

 East leads to Forest Path.

 West leads to Archet.

[Muirgheal(#32535)] April is possibly early to be working in a garden, but that's just what Muirgheal is doing on this warm, bright spring morning. She's got her hands in the dirt, a faded blue dress on her thin figure, and she's looking as domestic as a woman can look while wearing a longsword at her side (the dress being belted and having a scabbard hanging from the belt). She hums something to herself as she works, but very softly, because she's also listening to the sounds of her children playing in the grass behind the house. Already some weeds have started growing in her neatly tilled rows, and it's these she rips from the dirt by the roots.

[Arathis]

The cadence of hooves against the earth, albethey at no more than peace’s canter, herald the arrival of two horsemen before the home and garden of Muirgheal.

The taller of the twain, armored and too with blade aside, lingers atop his black steed. A curious glance considers his fellow and then the lady. With no more than an incline of his head, he gestures the former forward.

[Menelglir(#17324)]

"Lady Muirgheal?" Meneglir says as he nudges his horse forward at the Knight's unspoken direction. The Squire, too, wears a sword and armor, though his armor is leather and covered mostly by his white tunic, which gleams in the April sunlight.

"Good morning, that is, I mean," Menelglir continues. "I hope this is not an intrusion but..." A glance back briefly to the Knight. "This is the Isildrim Lord, Sir Arathis."

[Muirgheal(#32535)] Being engrossed in her work under the sunlight, Muirgheal doesn't notice the sound of horses for a few heartbeats. At last, she looks up, dark eyes slanting against the brightness of the day. As if self-concious, she rises to her feet, standing tall and brushing the dirt quickly from her hands at the sight of men in such finery. "The White Squire, is it?" the young woman recalls. "My little girl has been talking about you." And so she lapses into familiarity with this man. "Is this what your people do, back home?" Muirgheal wonders. "Come calling at odd hours, when there isn't a meal even near ready to serve?" The name- Isildrim- means nothing to Muirgheal, but she understands 'Lord' well enough, and gives a quick and rough curtsy. "To what do I owe the pleasure of such fine company, and so early?" She asks the other man, Sir Arathis, looking past Menelglir to him now.

[Arathis]

“Isilrim,” corrects the knight atop a slight smile. His gaze, if not unkind, remains keen, sharing no amusement. Dismounting with certain fluidity, he peers queerly at the lady’s sword, ere openly noting the scars upon her hands and neck.

Wryly espying Menelglir, he descends then in short bow for Muirgheal. A bass, unused to Westron, rises up in a manner of state, “Hail, Lady Muirgheal. I am Arathis. I have come along with Menelglir from the South. We have brought gift for your husband, who we have heard hails from Gondor.

“Hopefully he has unlearned such customs,” he adds, the slight smile returning.

A bottle is presented then, seemingly of wine.

[Menelglir(#17324)]

Needless to say, Menelglir colors at his error, such that he cannot even meet the Knight's gaze.

"It is early, yes, I'm sorry, miss," the Squire stumbles in an apology. "I had thought that the ride out here would be longer and also we did not want to chance missing you..."

[Muirgheal(#32535)] "He does," Muirgheal says immediately, trying not to interrupt the man but eager to confirm his assumption about her husband. With the bottle of wine offered forth, Muirgheal's cheeks flush vivid pink, a rare sight. Her lips part slightly in surprise- no one has ever offered her family a gift just for visiting their home. "That certainly wasn't necessary- but thank you," the tall blonde adds quickly, taking the bottle with bright eyes and dirt still beneath her fingernails. With her free hand, she pushes back golden curls that fall in her face. "You didn't want to miss -me-?" Muirgheal asks that with bewilderment. "I'm something to be missed?"

[Menelglir(#17324)]

"Missed...? I uh...that is, not to ride out here only to have you not be home, Lady," Menelglir replies, stepping toward the Knight to take his horse's reins and so hold both horses.

[Arathis]

A palm rises to dismiss the squire from the mounts. Arathis eyes the youth flatly then, and grates likewise in the tongue of his homeland, “ They shall not run, for they are trained for war, as too your friend.”

The smile, ever shallow, persists through the exchange of Menelglir and Muirgheal and when they are finished, a query pushes lightly from it, “From which fief, if I may ask? Perhaps he shall know of the vineyard, and so too the lands of my line.”

The bottle itself is unmarked.

[Muirgheal(#32535)] " You are talking about your- the horses?" Muirgheal asks, her words a bit stilted from ill use of the language. Expectation waits in those dark eyes of hers she anticipates a reaction to her speaking the Elven tongue. The question that Sir Arathis asks, however, is answered in Westron. "I wouldn't know. I know so little of Gondor he doesn't tell me everything. Did the White Squire," here Muirgheal shoots Menelglir a perplexed look, "Not explain to you that my husband isn't always quite himself anymore? He isn't well, and some memories are best not disturbed.."

[Menelglir(#17324)]

Menelglir lets the reins drop, cheeks red again. "Yes, sir," he says simply, then nods in vigorous reply to Muirgheal's question to Arathis. "I did say something, yes. Though I was not quite certain how to explain or what was wrong...just that he was ill."

[Arathis]

“So he has. Perhaps we shall speak more of such later, if our arts may aid him.”

No more tokens the Dunadan lord save the same smile, near flat and tried and with it his cold stare, yet pit upon the lady before him.

“ I see,” he begins, freely commanding the Elven tongue, “your husband has not told you of his homeland, though he has, perhaps, found it prudent to teach you the tongue spoken there.

“For it is spoken seldom elsewhere, and you do not appear yourself to be from Gondor. Indeed, it is not custom for the women of the South to bear arms nor so does it seem to be custom in Bree.

“Tell me, good Lady, which land may prove so blessed as be your homeland?”

[Muirgheal(#32535)] The cold look and smile stir something in Muirgheal, and she stands a little taller. Her voice is firmer this time as she replies, " I have friends other than my husband who speak in this tongue. I learned it in their library, from their scholars, but yes- my husband has been a constant tutor as well." She continues in Sindarin, her voice picking up heat as the questions put her on the defensive, "Of course I am not from Gondor I am from Dunland." Not knowing some of the words for what's to come, she explains in Westron, "The bastard child of a soldier in Rohan- at your service, great Lord. Being such, the sword has always been quite necessary, from the time I knew how to hold it."

[Menelglir(#17324)]

"But...I had thought, from what we encountered, that the Dunlendings and Rohir hate each other? How could..." It's like an imprudent and impudent question, and Menelglir does not continue with it beyond that, instead suddenly finding it necessary to adjust the saddle of his peacefully grazing horse.

[Arathis]

“ Yet the script is not to be found in Bree and the folk of Dunland do not read,” replies the Isilrim lord swiftly, his words spaced deliberately and borne upon a certain aloofness, despite the smile. “You must be well-travelled, with friends from distant lands friends with reason to have scholars, as you say.”

For some moments, Arathis permits a dull silence to reign, burdening the air about him. Heeding then the children, he switches back to the common tongue: “Your service I would not ask, as the duties of a mother are already many.

“What of their ages? Perhaps they would meet us.”

[Muirgheal(#32535)] A quelling look is sent Menelglir's way from Muirgheal's chill, dark eyes before she gazes at Arathis again. " Gondor is indeed a strange and far land, Lord Isilrim, if the customs of its people include the pretense of bearing gifts when one truly desires an inquisition." Her arms fold across her chest, the bottle still held in one hand carefully. "And it seems you have already concluded where I gave birth to my children, and where I have spent a few years past. Those healers have even seen to my husband. Does your skill surpass theirs?" The talk quickly turned to the children, Muirgheal replies, "The twins are five- a boy, a girl. Her name is Caoimhe, and she is enamored of one squire here with you. They will certainly want to join us for a talk, if you'll indulge them. Eiliant- our youngest son- is three." Muirgheal is yet young herself, still in her twenties.

[Menelglir(#17324)]

"I am sorry, Lady." A third blush so early in this day from the Squire, though that does not stop him from further opening his mouth.

"Already concluded?" Menelglir asks, looking between the pair in confusion. "I don't understand...where would that be? And where in these otherwise desolate and dangerous lands would there be scholars and books and learning? Surely not here in Bree?"

[Arathis]

"No," answers Arathis simply. The squire's apology earns displeasure from the knight it is found firstly in his eyes, which narrow deeply upon Menelglir, ere reverting to the lady.

"You will forgive, I hope, that we travelers are curious amidst new lands." He is then quiet, accommodating the query of the squire.

[Muirgheal(#32535)] "Don't look at him like that," Muirgheal snaps at Arathis. "You aren't -my- lord, and I have to say I'm glad, if that's the way you treat those that answer to you. He's just curious. Haven't you ever had a conversation where folks were talking about things you didn't understand?" It's quite easy to earn this lady's displeasure, and her whims change with the wind, evidently. "If it would satisfy your curiousity, you may step inside for a cup of tea.." Muirgheal begins to offer.

That's when all three blonde-haired, hazel-eyed children come tearing up from behind the house where they've been playing, having just noticed that their mother's got guests. They stop beside her, and though the youngest hides behind her skirts, the five year old boy and girl stand proudly beside their mother and say together, "Hi." Menelglir, of course, gets a wildly excited smile from the girl, Caoimhe.

[Menelglir(#17324)]

The smiles of the children, especially Caoimhe's, is answered warmly, but Arathis' look--and worse, Muirgheal snapping at the Knight--is enough to send the Squire a few feet away over to the horses, which apparently need some sort or other of urgent attention--though from the looks of it, that attention is likely nothing more than checking straps that are already secure.

[Arathis]

“You will forgive too, lady, that I would save you the suffering of inquisition, when the answers are themselves quite clear,” smiles the Isilrim lord still, seemingly unaffected by the attempted rebuke. “But some brief tea would prove favorable.”

At the arrival of the children, the features of Arathis, otherwise lean and fair, lighten. The smile buds, perhaps genuinely, to greet them: “How now! Caoimhe, Eiliant, and --,“ pausing upon the eldest boy, “your name, lad?”

[Muirgheal(#32535)] Muirgheal says nothing for a long moment, her hard eyes watching the Lord Isilrim much more intensely than the eyes of her children do. At last, she offers him a little smile. "Well, alright then. I'd be happy to have you inside for tea." And just like that, her spiteful mood has vanished, and she's like sunshine or honey, warm and animate, bright.

Caoimhe, the girl, gives a big smile (showing a baby tooth already missing) when the man says her name. "Hi, man!" she says happily to him, giving a small but practiced curtsy. "I'm Elfaroth Coruciel, Lord," says the quiet twin, who evidently knows something about addressing strangers more politely than his sister does. Eiliant only dares to peek out from behind Muirgheal's blue dress once or twice, with a gasp of breath and a look of awe before hiding again.

A bow answers the curtsy, extended so before the trio of children. “Hail, Master Elfaroth Coruciel,” greets Arathis then, the boy’s surname lingering upon his tongue. “I am Arathis Alcarin Isilrim, Lord of Calembel and Dolwinion, son of the late Lord Sirion. Such is the manner of address typical to my home, Gondor.”

Rising, Arathis again regards the lady, although a swift glance too scans for any response from the boy. A mark of hesitation takes him: “I would not enter without the blessing of your husband, good Lady.”

[Muirgheal(#32535)] Elfaroth bows quickly, his eyes widening. "You're -important- with.. all those names!" the boy breathes, awestruck, and honest in his childlike way. "You came to see my mama?" That seems to amaze him, and he isn't used to speaking up or asking so many questions. Indeed, he'll find it hard to get another word in, as Caoimhe moves away from her mother and toward the man from Gondor. "I like your hair," she tells him, still smiling and showing her tiny white teeth. "Want some of mam's pie?"

Muirgheal smiles, not interrupting her children at all, but rather waiting for a break in their chatter while she picks up her youngest son and begins to carry him toward the house. "Come on, everyone," she calls, including Arathis in this and looking back over her shoulder at him. "My husband would be ashamed if I turned away his kin at the door- so please enter." That said, she continues heading toward the door.

Arathis remains unmoved, even as the family retreats inwards. “If he is ill, and I can do no more for his wounds, then I would allow him peace,” he explains casually. “Thus I shall not enter. But the wine is from Belfalas the soil is there sweet, and life springs freely. Perhaps it shall give him respite.

“Lady Muirgheal, I would speak with you more of your travels in Bree, should the opportunity arise. Farewell.”

With this, the knight mounts his destrier and makes to depart.