Elendor
In search of the past: Crossing the border
The Dunlendings and their guide have reached the Last Bridge, and Gidon must decide whether to go forward or back
Sort Date: no date set
Location: The Last Bridge
Game Date: March 3047
IC Time: Morning?
Description: The Last Bridge
The Mitheithel runs between the three great stone arches of this ancient bridge. To the west the road climbs a steep grade into the barren plains that lie to the south and west. Only the weather hills break the horizon in that direction. Forest girds the eastern banks of this river as it runs from the north. The road continues eastward between these tree covered hills. It is clear that the river is the only reason these forests have not spread westward, for they grow quite thickly.
Contents:
IMPORTENT-Signpost
Obvious exits:
West and East
===============================================================================
Dunland Time and Weather Forecast
===============================================================================
Real Time is: Tue Jun 16 15:34:07 2009
IC weather is: Wind: fresh - Clouds: dense
IC Moon is: Not visible
IC time is: Morning
IC date is: Trewsday, Day 13 of March in the year 3047.
===============================================================================
The journey from Bree has been uneventful, for the most part. A couple of days spent waiting out a snowstorm in the meagre shelter of a wooded valley another to explore the ruins at Weathertop, though what the Dunlendings hoped to find there none has cared to explain. An uneasy detour when a huge footprint was discovered in a patch of half-frozen mud. Months old it might be, but none cared to chance a camp too close.
Now, the little group that set out from Bree has reached the Last Bridge - or at least two of them have. Brev, sent to scout out the land ahead, has taken Gidon with him. Now the pair are crouched behind a screen of bushes, staring at the pillared stone arches and the whitened water below. Brev twists his head round briefly to regard the youngster, and murmurs, "Well?"
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon shrugs. He has proved to be no less silent a lad during the journey than he ever was before. "Da din't tell me nothing farther," he admits, staring at the land beyond the river. "Only, there's trolls off there. An' other things."
Brev mirrors Gidon's shrug with one of his own. Each day that takes them farther away from Bree has seen him becoming less withdrawn, and lone forays into the woodland or marshes have seen him return with nothing more sinister than a handful of leaves or roots and, once, a hare for the pot. "There's trolls /here/ too," he points out. "And in your Chetwood." He pauses, regarding the bridge warily, though it does seem to be untenanted at present. "The elf said there was a village, couple of days journey east of a bridge. Know anything about that?"
[Nob(#16122)] The boy shakes his head but his face, which has been rather downcast, brightens. "No," he says slowly. "You going there?"
Brev blinks at that. "Where else are we going to go? Expect us to take to the air like birds?" Then he relents, and clarifies, "Makes sense to go their. I want to trace Uannve, my folk want .. uh, friends." This last is said with a wary eye on the youth.
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon only looks bewildered. "Haven't you got friends at home?" he asks. "Seems kind of odd t'go so far..." He hesitates, looking at the bridge, then over his shoulder back towards where they have come. "Could.. could I come with you?" he asks finally.
Gidon's simple query seems to throw Brev, for there is a long pause before he responds to it with more than a measuring look and quickly stifled smirk. "Not enough good land back home," he answers eventually. "And the wilder lands need more men to hold them." That explanation given, he turns the questions on Gidon. "Where? The village - or the onward road?" There is no hostility in his tone.
[Nob(#16122)] The boy shrugs again and looks away, the breeze blowing his straight dark hair across his thin face. "Where-ever," he says. "A village... there's folks there. Might've seen 'im." He has given up pretending, to Brev at least, that he knows where his father is but he still seems unwilling to say much about it.
A lengthy pause. "You're lookin' t'move? Out here?"
That brings on a snort. "Kiern knows." Suddenly Brev grins. "I'm happy enough to head wherever the road takes me. Not as though I'd left anyone behind me." The grin fades, and his features are hard and tense. "Not any more."
After a long silence he adds, his tone mild again, "Carac, though ... he'd not turn his back on Dunland. He cares for its folk too much." Faint admiration echoes in the words. "If you want to join our folk, it's him you'd have to ask. The village though - I'd as soon you did come with us. Wasn't intending to dump you out here in the wilderness."
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon looks sideways at Brev at the change in his voice, catching the hard face. "Don' want t'leave Bree," he says. "Just want t'find m'da. I.." he hesitates, flushing a little at the man's last words. "Thought y'wouldn't need me no more," he says.
At the flush, Brev frowns. "So you thought we'd cast you aside like offal. Kiern, don't you folk care about each other at all?" After a while, the frown lifts and he asks more gently, "If you thought that, then why did you come? Even if there is your Da?"
[Nob(#16122)] Another shrug. Then, fairly, Gidon says, "Them, th'townsfolk, they ain't bad. They just ... don' like me, p'ticularly. We live out yon, an' they din' like m'ma. Da brought her home from somewheres out this way." He is watching all the time he speaks, looking from the clumpy waving grass to the dark treed land across the river. Nothing moves. "Figured I'd just go on home. I.. ain't much use t'you now I don' know nothing more about it out here." Another sidelong glance and the flush deepens. The boy looks down at the ground, his long nimble fingers playing with a bit of winter-dry grass. "Dunno," he mumbles finally.
Brev watches the boy, when he should be watching the river. "Know how to hunt, don't you?" he points out. "That's useful." He falls silent, and for a while the only sound is the wind and the rustling of Gidon's grass-stalk. "Your ma's dead?" he asks quietly then. "How long ago?"
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon doesn't look up. "Four year," he says. "Me an' Da, we done good t'gether. I can't ..." He stops and corrects himself. "I don' want t'be alone always." His face is still and his voice has nothing in it but resignation. Longing and pain and loneliness are well-hidden beneath the surface.
Brev looks hastily away. Those gnarled trees clustering on the far bank suddenly seem very interesting ... and there is a muscle jumping in his cheek. From the way his lips part and close again, he seems to be debating whether to say anything.
"It's how life is," he says finally. "I learned that at age five. Anyone that matters to you, they go away and they never come back. Best not to care." His voice is roughened.
He rubs irritably at his cheek, and brings his gaze back to the lad beside him. "Not alone now are you, though?" he remarks with forced lightness. "Who knows, might be some pretty girl waiting in the next village. Might even find your Da."
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon doesn't look up, doesn't look away from the grass that is being very carefully torn into long narrow strips and let loose to fly on the wind. "I can't help it," he says simply. "If... if I can' find him, I can', but I got t'try. What - what if he needs me?" His voice wavers on the words he hasn't before admitted that his father might be lost forever. The whole handful of grass bits are dropped. And now he does look up. "Ain't you lookin' for that lady?" Girls don't really interest him yet, not quite, but hope sparks easily in his face. Maybe. The next village.
Something flickers across Brev's features at those first words, some emotion gone too quickly to decipher. "If he's there, we'll find him," he reassures the youngster. "If not - nothing to lose by trying, eh?" And he gives Gidon a wan smile.
The other question brings out a "Huh?", and automatically his gaze shifts back westward, toward distant Bree. He gives a shake of his head as though to clear it. Then light dawns. "Oh, you mean Uannve? Only because she left Dunland in my Da's company, I want to know where he is. If she's murdered him too, I'll slice the b-" He stops suddenly, belatedly aware of the youngster beside him. "Ah, I'll want to resolve the issue," he amends.
[Nob(#16122)] The boy smiles in return, eager and hopeful. It fades slowly as thought takes its place, listening to Brev's story. "You're looking for your Da too," he says finally, and his smile returns, blinding almost in its sudden, sweet beauty. Then it is gone. "I hope you find him," he tells Brev, a gift offered this man who has been kind to him.
Brev blinks as the smile is turned on him. "I do too - mostly," he adds in a sudden burst of honesty. "Then sometimes I wonder if it might be worse, knowing. While I don't, there's still hope." Silence. "We didn't part on the best of terms," he admits eventually. "Figure I can try to right that."
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon listens intently, then nods. "Aye," he says slowly. "It's like... I c'n think: he's out there somewheres. Maybe just hit on th'head an' forgot, but living good, like? Only... I got t'know," he bursts out. "I got t'know." A silence and then another nod but no more words.
The shared silence stretches out into minutes. The wind pushes at the grasses and bends the branches of the gnarled trees. A heron flies down from one of them and perches in the river, its beak dipping as it spears a fish.
Eventually Brev speaks, returning the focus to matters nearer at hand. "The bridge is clear - the bird would hardly be there otherwise. Lets get back, tell the others. Carac will want to be well on before the light fails. In a couple of days we should reach this village, and .. we'll see what we'll see, eh?" With a weary half-smile in Gidon's direction, he starts to move back.
The Mitheithel runs between the three great stone arches of this ancient bridge. To the west the road climbs a steep grade into the barren plains that lie to the south and west. Only the weather hills break the horizon in that direction. Forest girds the eastern banks of this river as it runs from the north. The road continues eastward between these tree covered hills. It is clear that the river is the only reason these forests have not spread westward, for they grow quite thickly.
Contents:
IMPORTENT-Signpost
Obvious exits:
West and East
===============================================================================
Dunland Time and Weather Forecast
===============================================================================
Real Time is: Tue Jun 16 15:34:07 2009
IC weather is: Wind: fresh - Clouds: dense
IC Moon is: Not visible
IC time is: Morning
IC date is: Trewsday, Day 13 of March in the year 3047.
===============================================================================
The journey from Bree has been uneventful, for the most part. A couple of days spent waiting out a snowstorm in the meagre shelter of a wooded valley another to explore the ruins at Weathertop, though what the Dunlendings hoped to find there none has cared to explain. An uneasy detour when a huge footprint was discovered in a patch of half-frozen mud. Months old it might be, but none cared to chance a camp too close.
Now, the little group that set out from Bree has reached the Last Bridge - or at least two of them have. Brev, sent to scout out the land ahead, has taken Gidon with him. Now the pair are crouched behind a screen of bushes, staring at the pillared stone arches and the whitened water below. Brev twists his head round briefly to regard the youngster, and murmurs, "Well?"
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon shrugs. He has proved to be no less silent a lad during the journey than he ever was before. "Da din't tell me nothing farther," he admits, staring at the land beyond the river. "Only, there's trolls off there. An' other things."
Brev mirrors Gidon's shrug with one of his own. Each day that takes them farther away from Bree has seen him becoming less withdrawn, and lone forays into the woodland or marshes have seen him return with nothing more sinister than a handful of leaves or roots and, once, a hare for the pot. "There's trolls /here/ too," he points out. "And in your Chetwood." He pauses, regarding the bridge warily, though it does seem to be untenanted at present. "The elf said there was a village, couple of days journey east of a bridge. Know anything about that?"
[Nob(#16122)] The boy shakes his head but his face, which has been rather downcast, brightens. "No," he says slowly. "You going there?"
Brev blinks at that. "Where else are we going to go? Expect us to take to the air like birds?" Then he relents, and clarifies, "Makes sense to go their. I want to trace Uannve, my folk want .. uh, friends." This last is said with a wary eye on the youth.
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon only looks bewildered. "Haven't you got friends at home?" he asks. "Seems kind of odd t'go so far..." He hesitates, looking at the bridge, then over his shoulder back towards where they have come. "Could.. could I come with you?" he asks finally.
Gidon's simple query seems to throw Brev, for there is a long pause before he responds to it with more than a measuring look and quickly stifled smirk. "Not enough good land back home," he answers eventually. "And the wilder lands need more men to hold them." That explanation given, he turns the questions on Gidon. "Where? The village - or the onward road?" There is no hostility in his tone.
[Nob(#16122)] The boy shrugs again and looks away, the breeze blowing his straight dark hair across his thin face. "Where-ever," he says. "A village... there's folks there. Might've seen 'im." He has given up pretending, to Brev at least, that he knows where his father is but he still seems unwilling to say much about it.
A lengthy pause. "You're lookin' t'move? Out here?"
That brings on a snort. "Kiern knows." Suddenly Brev grins. "I'm happy enough to head wherever the road takes me. Not as though I'd left anyone behind me." The grin fades, and his features are hard and tense. "Not any more."
After a long silence he adds, his tone mild again, "Carac, though ... he'd not turn his back on Dunland. He cares for its folk too much." Faint admiration echoes in the words. "If you want to join our folk, it's him you'd have to ask. The village though - I'd as soon you did come with us. Wasn't intending to dump you out here in the wilderness."
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon looks sideways at Brev at the change in his voice, catching the hard face. "Don' want t'leave Bree," he says. "Just want t'find m'da. I.." he hesitates, flushing a little at the man's last words. "Thought y'wouldn't need me no more," he says.
At the flush, Brev frowns. "So you thought we'd cast you aside like offal. Kiern, don't you folk care about each other at all?" After a while, the frown lifts and he asks more gently, "If you thought that, then why did you come? Even if there is your Da?"
[Nob(#16122)] Another shrug. Then, fairly, Gidon says, "Them, th'townsfolk, they ain't bad. They just ... don' like me, p'ticularly. We live out yon, an' they din' like m'ma. Da brought her home from somewheres out this way." He is watching all the time he speaks, looking from the clumpy waving grass to the dark treed land across the river. Nothing moves. "Figured I'd just go on home. I.. ain't much use t'you now I don' know nothing more about it out here." Another sidelong glance and the flush deepens. The boy looks down at the ground, his long nimble fingers playing with a bit of winter-dry grass. "Dunno," he mumbles finally.
Brev watches the boy, when he should be watching the river. "Know how to hunt, don't you?" he points out. "That's useful." He falls silent, and for a while the only sound is the wind and the rustling of Gidon's grass-stalk. "Your ma's dead?" he asks quietly then. "How long ago?"
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon doesn't look up. "Four year," he says. "Me an' Da, we done good t'gether. I can't ..." He stops and corrects himself. "I don' want t'be alone always." His face is still and his voice has nothing in it but resignation. Longing and pain and loneliness are well-hidden beneath the surface.
Brev looks hastily away. Those gnarled trees clustering on the far bank suddenly seem very interesting ... and there is a muscle jumping in his cheek. From the way his lips part and close again, he seems to be debating whether to say anything.
"It's how life is," he says finally. "I learned that at age five. Anyone that matters to you, they go away and they never come back. Best not to care." His voice is roughened.
He rubs irritably at his cheek, and brings his gaze back to the lad beside him. "Not alone now are you, though?" he remarks with forced lightness. "Who knows, might be some pretty girl waiting in the next village. Might even find your Da."
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon doesn't look up, doesn't look away from the grass that is being very carefully torn into long narrow strips and let loose to fly on the wind. "I can't help it," he says simply. "If... if I can' find him, I can', but I got t'try. What - what if he needs me?" His voice wavers on the words he hasn't before admitted that his father might be lost forever. The whole handful of grass bits are dropped. And now he does look up. "Ain't you lookin' for that lady?" Girls don't really interest him yet, not quite, but hope sparks easily in his face. Maybe. The next village.
Something flickers across Brev's features at those first words, some emotion gone too quickly to decipher. "If he's there, we'll find him," he reassures the youngster. "If not - nothing to lose by trying, eh?" And he gives Gidon a wan smile.
The other question brings out a "Huh?", and automatically his gaze shifts back westward, toward distant Bree. He gives a shake of his head as though to clear it. Then light dawns. "Oh, you mean Uannve? Only because she left Dunland in my Da's company, I want to know where he is. If she's murdered him too, I'll slice the b-" He stops suddenly, belatedly aware of the youngster beside him. "Ah, I'll want to resolve the issue," he amends.
[Nob(#16122)] The boy smiles in return, eager and hopeful. It fades slowly as thought takes its place, listening to Brev's story. "You're looking for your Da too," he says finally, and his smile returns, blinding almost in its sudden, sweet beauty. Then it is gone. "I hope you find him," he tells Brev, a gift offered this man who has been kind to him.
Brev blinks as the smile is turned on him. "I do too - mostly," he adds in a sudden burst of honesty. "Then sometimes I wonder if it might be worse, knowing. While I don't, there's still hope." Silence. "We didn't part on the best of terms," he admits eventually. "Figure I can try to right that."
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon listens intently, then nods. "Aye," he says slowly. "It's like... I c'n think: he's out there somewheres. Maybe just hit on th'head an' forgot, but living good, like? Only... I got t'know," he bursts out. "I got t'know." A silence and then another nod but no more words.
The shared silence stretches out into minutes. The wind pushes at the grasses and bends the branches of the gnarled trees. A heron flies down from one of them and perches in the river, its beak dipping as it spears a fish.
Eventually Brev speaks, returning the focus to matters nearer at hand. "The bridge is clear - the bird would hardly be there otherwise. Lets get back, tell the others. Carac will want to be well on before the light fails. In a couple of days we should reach this village, and .. we'll see what we'll see, eh?" With a weary half-smile in Gidon's direction, he starts to move back.
Players: Brev, Gidon
Located in: Dunlending | Breefolk
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