Elendor

In search of the past: A fork in the path

In which, courtesy of Uannve, Brev learns that not all roads lead east
Sort Date: no date set
Location: East Road - Near the Trollshaws
Game Date: May 3047
IC Time: Dawn
Description: East Road - Near the Trollshaws

    The road here passes through rolling hills. There is hardly any difference between east and west, but the land seems to be rising to the west and dropping to the east. A small footpath leaves the road toward the south. You can see very little in the darkness, though you can sense tall shadows looming around you. Probably only trees...

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                      Dunland Time and Weather Forecast
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Real Time is:       Wed Jul 08 14:43:31 2009
IC weather is:      Wind: fresh - Clouds: sparse
IC Moon is:         Not visible
IC time is:         Predawn
IC date is:         Highday, Day 19 of May in the year 3047.

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[Uannve(#23880)]
    The hour exactly between dawn and dusk has long passed, and morning is quickly on the rise. Wisps of fog wander in and out of the trees along the East Road here, or so the fog might appear, for it is as still as could be as it rests parted around Trollshaw growths. Those same trees are dark brown and green silhouettes slowing taking on their color from more grayed-out tones. The horizon is more than a sliver of light, but the actual sun is not yet seen above the ridges of the Misties.

    A figure moves down off the gentle climb of earth and foilage to the north and down onto the road. The figure is Uannve's, feminine if anything but more of the wilds than anything domestic.

Shadows move within the bushes, and there is a faint rustling as though of a nocturnal animal. The shape that eases its way carefully through the vegetation is human, though, for it carries a sharp-tipped spear cradled loosely under one arm. One foot, pause, the next ... the hunter moves slowly forward.

And freezes. It is the faint sounds of motion that capture Brev's attention first. The spear is carefully shifted to an overarm grip, and held ready for throwing. Then, however, that dark, distinctively human outline comes into view and the shaft is not loosed. Neither, though, does the man step forward from the bushes where he crouches - not yet. He waits for the figure to come closer, to see what he can discern of it in the half-light - if his own movements have not already betrayed him.

[Uannve(#23880)]
Uannve moves boldly upon the road, turning quickly to the west and moving that way, heading away from the Misties. Her step is quick and her stride is simple as she goes and her washed-out eyes turn for the bushes not more than fifteen feet from Brev's location. They glance away they and go to the opposite side of the road. No weapon is brandished as she goes and as she goes her hand lifts to brush some debris from her hair. Her expression shows only mild irritation when a rather long twig is cast to the earth. On she walks.

The motion towards the hair is watched and seemingly discounted, for Brev waits only a moment longer before rising to his feet and calling out, in singsong Common, "I was hoping for a deer. Doesn't look like you've got enough meat on you to pass for one." His tone is dry, seemingly amused.

The spear is still held at the ready in his right hand - in these parts, who does not keep a weapon close? - but its tip is pointed upwards now. The washed-out light is too faint to reveal details such as facial features as yet, and he peers at the traveller warily.

[Uannve(#23880)]
Uannve, at the first onslaught of noise, has darted for the opposite side of the road and nearly vanished within the bushes, but it is quickly realized the nature of the voice and Uannve is just as quickly back on the road, albeit on the side of the road, a hand on some brush otherwise desiring to be where she stands.

A brief moment of silence lapses as Uannve peers toward the source of the voice. "Then you are not an orc," she states, asking then, "Who are you?"

"Today I'm a hunter," comes back the response, still in the Common. "Not from round here - we're just passing through. And you? For all I know you could be an orc, a very shapely and well-spoken one." Still there is that faint ripple of amusement in his voice. "Can't see enough to tell. Wait."

The man, Brev, steps lightly down to the road, using the spear-butt for balance. On he treads, closer, then-

"Kiern! You." The exclamation bursts out almost unthought, and amber eyes fix on the pierced nose and lip silhouetted against the paling sky. A muscle starts jumping in his cheek.

[<#23880>]
Uannve, having been about to comment twice, falls quiet longer than she otherwise may have intended, returning Brev's gaze only. " Me?" she remarks at length, doing her best to discern the figure's own facial features before her while searching her memories. She does not back up or move forward and still she holds the branch of the bush she is near. Her eyes have narrowed, though they are already narrow naturally. " An orc," she murmurs almost under her breath, " you might not be far off." Still she studies Brev intentedly but does so quietly rather than offering more.

Brev continues his approach, halting a few feet from the woman if she does not retreat. His right hand is clenched around the spear-haft so tightly that the knuckles are white. "An orc?" he repeats, keeping to the Dunael, his tone carefully level. "Funny, to me you look like a certain Uannve of Stag, who left Dunland six .. no, seven years ago. In my father's company." His voice suddenly hardens. "Where is he? I don't care whether he was in on it or not, I just want to know-" The man's voice cracks, and he falls silent, cheek still twitching. Damn emotions.

[Uannve(#23880)]
There's a moment of shock in Uannve's expression partway through Brev's words. "Barseg?" she asks, also continuing in Dunael, but her tone barely makes it sound like a question. "You are Barseg's son?" she asks, taking a step forward and letting the brush loose behind her. She watches Brev's eyes intently, almost eagerly. Her eyes are now only as narrow as they usually are. "Information for information?" she proposes when it might seem she was not about to speak further.

"Aye, I am," Brev concedes in his native tongue, a slight hoarseness to the words. "The one that's left." His tone is bitter, and his own gaze is shadowed, distant for a moment."

The woman's proposal seems to bring him up short, for he stares at her blankly for a few moments, then nods. "Very well. Information for information." The words are flat. His cheek must be irking him, for he lifts his left hand to rub at it.

[Uannve(#23880)]
Uannve's eyes dart to Brev's cheek just prior his antic and she is quiet for a moment. At such a proximity it is hard to miss the suggestion in her washed out eyes that she is lost to moral failure, or that her face is just flesh, almost as if dead, and mottled with spots of dirt. And yet, Brev's agreement has brought some light to her countenance. "Bosten," she begins, glancing at Brev's necklace, "did you--you or me first?" she interrupts herself. "You came all--how did you find me?" Her eyes narrow again. "Were you looking for /me/?"

Brev lets his hand fall away, the twitching in his cheek gone for now. He listens to the jumble of words, frowning as he tries to make meaning from them. "Bosten?" he repeats. "Think I've time to keep track of every Stag born?" His tone is derisory. "Could be living, could be dead - for all I know he's earning his keep for Fian Shadrack, who's the nearest they have to a Ceann these days." He shrugs, his leather jerkin creaking.

"And yes. After Bree, when I learned you'd been seen and my father hadn't - I started looking. The fact Carac's quest brought us this way was rather convenient." His tone is dry. "So. Anything else you need to know before I get my answer?"

[Uannve(#23880)]
Uannve's eyes narrow with Brev's words. "He's not with you though?" she asks insistently. "No, he's not with you," she determines calmly. "Good," she finalizes, shaking her head and looking down the road to the west. "Barseg. We...I don't know where he is. We parted ways not long after... I... left Dunland." Her eyes come back to Brev and there's something more in them than her prior insistence, or even the carelessness of her answer just given.

Brev gives a short bark of laughter at the first question. "No, he's not with us. Hardly think he'd take up with the Hawk." When Uannve glances west, he does not follow the motion his own gaze is fixed tightly on the woman, as though he were judging her.

At the answer supplied, he tenses. "What do you mean, parted ways?" he demands, through clenched teeth. "Did you fight? I don't care whether you were lovers or accomplices," the twitch that has restarted in his cheek gives the lie to that, "I just want to know what happened. If you killed /him/ then by Kiern you'll pay. Carac will avenge me." That last is added as carelessly as Uannve's own words, and accompanied by a shrug.

His grip on the spear he holds adjusts slightly, as though he were readying it.

[Uannve(#23880)]
"Kill him!?" Uannve declares, looking suddenly startled. "Who could kill Barseg?" she reproaches, as if it were some Bear saying. "No, no," she says earnestly, shaking her head. "He was a fine man. I've not met his equal." She exhales tremblingly and her eyes go beyond Brev's face, over his shoulder to the road beyond. Shaking her head again, she adds, "We were not lovers. He never dared show intention of touching me. That's why I do not know his equal." Her eyes come back to Brev and she swallows hard. "He went north from Harthunn in search of an herb." She shakes her head dismissively. "He needed it for something, and it grew in those lands, the northlands. Bosten," Uannve continues more slowly, closing her eyes for just a moment, "made me flee, and I went that way too."

Emotions flicker across Brev's swarthy features, here and gone too quickly for the eye to decipher. Not even when Uannve glances beyond his shoulder does the man turn - if another is approaching him undetected, he will surely make an easy target. At one particular jibe his features tense - is he remembering a callow thirteen-year-old boy with little better to do with his time than gawk? "Needn't tar us all with the same brush," he mutters resentfully.

At the rest, though, he lets out a long sigh, then stands in silence. Eventually he volunteers, "If you didn't kill Barseg," is there a slight stress on the 'if'?, "then when did you last see him? How far along the road?" His amber eyes are clouded.

[Uannve(#23880)]
"Needn't .. /tar/ with the same /brush/?" Uannve repeats uncertainly, her eyebrows lifting a little in the middle. She seems reluctant to move on readily to the second part of Brev's words, but just when it might seem she isn't going to response further until something more is said she does. "Why are you searching for Barseg?" she asks. There's a hint of demand in her voice. "I remember everything he told me, and I'm not sure I trust your motives."

Brev snorts at Uannve's uncertainty, clearly in too sour a mood to elaborate. "Oh for Kiern's sake!" he retorts. "Think I'd walk up and stick a knife in my own father? It's none of your business." His lips clamp shut, and for a moment it seems that is that.

Then he speaks again. "If you must know ... there was a lot of things left unsaid. Or said that shouldn't have been." He scowls. "Always thought he was dead. Then I began to wonder ... what if he wasn't? Maybe for just once in my life I'd like to do something right." He glares fiercely at the woman. Almost under his breath, he adds a last confession, "Dunland doesn't need me, or others like me. It needs men like him."

[Uannve(#23880)]
Uannve measures Brev's words with narrow eyes. "I give you my word, I did /not/ kill your father," she reiterates quietly. "And can you point your spear somewhere else? I'm not a monster!" It is said in a more clear voice and adamently enough to employ her countenance. "I'd like to live for another few days." She hardly pauses as she adds, "Anyway, that's noble, what you're trying to do," she doesn't sound to entirely mean it, but she's not being sarcastic either, "but don't let ghosts of old heros keep you from being what's needed. Maybe I don't know exactly what you're talking about, needing men like Barseg, but why can't /you/ fill his boots? You're a man."

Brev eyes his own spear, shrugs and reverses it so that the tip rests in the dirt. "Doubt I'll find many targets for it, with the noise we've been making," he remarks flippantly. "And I agree with you about the living. I'm quite partial to it myself." A shade of his old sarcasm creeps back in.

The final query is answered with a snort. "Sure, I'm a man. I've got more sense than to play the hero, though. Think I can lead men in battle? Think I even want to? Carac's the leader, the one men follow - but it's not enough. When he builds up, there's too many folk like me trying to tear things down." He favours Uannve with a lopsided smirk. "Dunland's half-rotten, these days."

That assessment given, he frowns and presses an earlier point, "You didn't say where on the road you last saw my father. The marshes? The downs?" He scrubs wearily at his face with his free hand.

[Uannve(#23880)]
"What're you trying to tear down?" Uannve asks, drawn by curiosity that is more dark or argumentative in nature than earnest. "If it's not good, it needs to be torn down." But that's all she says on that, shaking her head. "Don't listen to me. I'm a fool. Look where I ended up." Her eyes venture past Brev's shoulder again and tense. She's quiet several moments.

"To answer you, I don't have anything that ... Harthunn," Uannve begins and then answers over herself. "I saw him last in Harthunn, but I tried to follow him. I followed footprints, but ... I was no tracker then. There were many prints, and all I could think about was finding some man who was going to comfort me. I sought Barseg. I never found him. I thought I'd find him along the way, but I'm sure I passed his herbs just as blindly as I've lived." Her expression is again what it was when Brev first spotted her, just as determined and matter-of-fact. "I can't help you. I'm sorry."

Uannve's query, which might at another time raise a scathing response, is completely ignored, in light of the rest of her words. Brev's shoulders shake as he gives voice to a sudden bray of harsh laughter, then he leans his forehead wearily against his spear-haft. "Kiern! All this way ... all this time ... and he wasn't even near." His mouth twists. "And if I turn back now, Gidon will never find /his/ father. What in the name of the Black Pit do I do now?"

The murmurings cease for a while, and then he raises his head to stare at Uannve almost blankly. "Thanks for - ah, enlightening me." His tone is bitter. "In a day or two, if you need any more ..information.. you'll find me back at yon village. Now, though, I'm off hunting." He nods toward the forest, jerks his head and starts to walk away.

[Uannve(#23880)]
Uannve finds no mirth in the situation and watches Brev go momentarily. Her eyes dart to the tree line opposite her side of the road briefly and then back after him. She exhales, and then the brush moves as she turns for it and into it.



Players: Uannve, Brev
Located in: Dunlending | Yfelwydan