Elendor
In search of the past: A fraught farewell
Brev tries to bid Caelwen farewell, and misunderstanding rears its head once more. Giliath steps in to make things clear
Sort Date: no date set
Location: The Chetwood: Oak Grove
Game Date: February 3047
IC Time: Evening
Description: The Chetwood: Oak Grove
A large grove of oaks rises up like a wall, here, near the eastern edge of the Chetwood. The trees rise up, strong and proud, toward the ever-waiting sky above. There is little space between these oak trees, as many of their branches are intermingled together. A lone oak sits quiet and silent, away from the wall of trees.
Obvious exits:
West
================================== Bree Time ==================================
Real time: Wed Jun 10 14:50:14 2009
Bree time: Twilight on Highday of Winter - February 25,1447
Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous Moon
Breelands Weather
The winter air is cold and dry around you. Snow piles on the ground around your feet.
===============================================================================
[Caelwen(#24844)]
The winter wood is peaceful as evening approaches, especially here where the oaks have grown so close above that there is little brush on the ground. The snow seems bright in the twilight, pocked here and there by the prints of forest creatures.
Someone is singing. It is a fair sound, not in the common tongue, but still brings to mind a lofting sense of hope beyond thought of, and yet despair for that which will never be reached. It makes this place feel like there has never been a man here before.
There is the singer, near the lone oak tree, looking at the sky. Caelwen, clad in white without a cloak.
Perhaps there has never been a man before, but there is one here now. Brev has clearly been hunting, and not with the spear his right hand curls about it as always, but from his left dangles a limp long-eared form. Either he's had a lucky shot with the sling, or he has been setting snares. Hmm - who exactly do hunting rights for the Chetwood belong to?
To his credit, he is not /looking/ for forest spirits his steps are direct, his path steady. Yet at the sound of that sweet voice he stops to listen, entranced, his gaze fixing on the singer.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen continues singing for a moment. Her eyes close and a vision briefly appears, laid over the Chetwood-- a vast hall with a floor of gold, a roof of gold, the latter held up by massive pillars of pure silver. Abruptly this is gone, for the singing has stopped.
Caelwen whirls to place her back to the tree, looking right at Brev. And then she is looking behind him, searching for something with fear in her bright eyes.
Brev's gaze slips upward, toward the treetops, the rapt expression still on his features. And then the music is fled, and his eyes return to the singer. As Caelwen seems to look past him, the man automatically turns - and sees nothing. "What?" he asks, that single word hoarse and quiet.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen's breathing starts to calm and she looks back to Brev, her palms against the rough tree-trunk. "You, man with," She takes a deep breath and seems to think, then laboriously says, "You are alone?"
Brev nods. "Left young Gidon making his final preparations for the journey," he answers absently, his gaze shifting unbidden back to the vision in white. And then his brow furrows. "Who do you fear? Surely not some drunken Bree farmer?" He takes a couple of steps closer, then stops. "Collwen - don't fear me." His tone is hesitant, almost pleading.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen shrinks a little against the tree, then relaxes. She speaks very slowly, as if determined to speak well, "Giliath say, you do not hurt me, and Giliath say, you... your friend not safe. Giliath say, I do not be near your friend." Her brow furrows. "Why your choice to be near danger friend, Brev?"
Brev notes the shrinking, for there is concern in his smoky amber eyes. He approaches no further he makes as though to reach out a hand, then stops, his lips twitching slightly as he regards the limp rabbit it currently holds. Perhaps that gesture would not be so reassuring ...
"I will not hurt you," Brev repeats slowly. "You have my word," and then he snorts. "Not that it counts for much," he adds in a hasty murmur. His dark brows knot at the elf-woman's question. "Carac? You fear Carac?" A spark kindles in his amber eyes. "I've known him since I was five summers old. He's my oldest friend." Some might say only friend, though he does not voice that aloud. "I trust him with my life."
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen glances briefly down at the rabbit but the alarm doesn't return to her springtime eyes. There's a pause, her gaze wandering as she thinks. "Carac?" she repeats uncertainly. "You... trust him with my life? What is trust?"
Caelwen's question give Brev pause. "Trust is ..." He sighs. "I know that if I'm in trouble, Carac will help get me out again. He's done it before." His smile is wry. "Collwen," he gazes up at her, and loses his words for a moment before, swallowing, he manages to go on (and now he is looking at a point somewhere past her left shoulder, where the awareness of light and beauty is less painfully bright), "you have nothing to fear from us. And," his gaze drops groundward, and he scowls, "we are leaving."
[Caelwen(#24844)]
"I am trust Giliath," Caelwen says thoughtfully, studying Brev's cheek as he looks to the side. "Yes, you go east. I go and Giliath and Abanangel." She points south. "I do not know word. There we go."
Her brows lower again, her hair caught against the rough bark of the tree. "Giliath say, your Carac is not safe. Giliath is wise. Brev, do not go with Carac."
Brev looks up as Caelwen's speech pauses, and he follows the direction of Caelwen's pointing finger. "South," he supplies, but hard on the heels of that comes a note of alarm. "You and the child would go to Dunland? Collwen, no!" He actually goes so far as to set down his spear, reaching out his right hand as though he would grasp at the white gown and halt the woman's steps. "In my land there are tales of your kind. We fear ... and what men fear they destroy. I know you'd not hurt us, but others don't know." Almost unconsciously, he murmurs after, "And Carac ... I have to."
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Brev takes a handful of Caelwen's gown at her waist, near her side, and her hands fly up to cover her throat. Tears spring to her eyes, which roll a little like a skittish colt's. "Brev," she gasps, pulling to the side, away. "Brev. Giliath, Giliath," she squeezes her eyes shut, willing words to come to her tongue. "Trust my Giliath."
Perhaps Brev realizes what he has done, if too late. At the sight of those tears his grip looses, even as the elf-woman pulls away. "I'm sorry," he mumbles, and his head bows groundward. "Don't go to Dunland," he repeats, staring at his boots. "Stay away from my folk. Wherever you're going, there must be some other way." It is almost a plea.
He takes several deep breaths, and then at last manages to look up, though his gaze avoids Caelwen's tear-stained face. "I can't trust Giliath. I don't know him. Any more than you can trust Carac." His jaw sets. "Carac is ... the best hope for Dunland. But more than that - he's the only person that mattered to me who's still around. The rest - dead, missing. He's all that's left."
[Nob(#16122)] Giliath is silent as the sun when moving through the woods, and generally, he goes with ease and care. But now he is is running, fleet as wind-blown shadows, a blur that melts from tree to grass to shrub. A little ways from where Caelwen and Brev stand, however, the elf slows, and he is walking when he comes to his wife not the fay woodland sprite he may have been thought by Brev's companions, but larger somehow - anger for anyone who may have harmed her mantled about him like a hawk. Fierce hard eyes pin themselves to Brev's face.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen takes several steps away, her hair clinging to the oak for a moment before falling after her. She blinks, and while one tear lingers near ner nose, none fall. Her hands are still over her throat and she is looking mistrustfully at Brev sidelong.
Several moments pass in silence as she catches her breath and collects herself. The Chetwood seems to listen in. "I do not know Dunland. I do not speak at man like you, your folk. Giliath see me safe for older than trees. Time, for many time. I..." another thoughtful pause, "follow him. To elf home."
And then all of Caelwen's fear is gone. Her gaze turns to Giliath just as the elder elf walks near, and she speaks to him swiftly, easily in their liquid tongue, no struggling for words. " I am well! He gripped my bodice but I pulled away. He is worried about us going south, to Dunland, whatever that might be." Her brows furrow briefly, " Mainly he is worried about me and Banan and not you, which isn't particularly nice."
Brev's gaze, slipping past Caelwen, comes to rest instead on Giliath. Does the man fear? His breathing quickens, but his swarthy features do not blanch, and his jaw is set. "I was telling Collwen," he says deliberately, in an unwitting echo of Caelwen's own words, "that she should not go to Dunland. She says you would take her and the child south. Do not go that way." How can he, mere man, oppose an ancient elf if the latter is roused to wrath? Yet his gaze is steady.
As he hears Caelwen speak in her liquid tongue, he sighs softly. He does not try to hinder her retreat, and there is regret etched plain on his features, though he does not turn to look at the distraught elf-woman directly.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen is quite pleased and relaxed, however, despite Brev's firmness and Giliath's sharp eyes. She tries to reassure Brev. "Giliath go, has... has gone," a pause for the grammatical triumph, "many lands. Dunland?" a shrug. "We go not near men."
Brev snatches his gaze away from Giliath for an instant. "But you said ..." His brow is furrowed in puzzlement. When his amber eyes come to rest on Caelwen, he flushes slightly, and it is visible despite his swarthy skin. "Collwen. I am sorry I - uh, frightened you."
[Nob(#16122)] Giliath seems like a bird of prey, an eagle mantled over its prey but his wife's words and more, her calm, calm him also. "I know not where is 'Dunland'. We will not go where men are. But we must go south." His eyes are still hawklike in their intensity, resting on the man's face, noting the flush, the hesitations, the regret. An aside to Caelwen, " Has he done ought else to alarm you?"
[Caelwen(#24844)]
"What I say? Say... said?" Caelwen asks Brev, head tilting. "I do not know words. What is sorry? and frighted?" She switches to her own liquid tongue and speaks comfortably to her husband. " No, he has not. But why would he grab at my gown? He was trying to warn me of something. I think my girdle is completely askew."
She looks to Brev again, and the light that is in her eyes as she speaks to Giliath stills somewhat. "See you? My Giliath make me safe. And Abanangel. He is good, good husbenn and father."
Brev answers Giliath as best he may. "Dunland is ... there." He raises a hand to point southwards. "The road goes south, past the downs and through the empty lands, and then into our lands. Your kind should not go there." Of that he is very certain (and is it concern for Caelwen or fear of what Giliath and his ilk might do to Brev's own folk? Who can say.)
At Caelwen's answer, Brev groans. "I wish I could speak to you," he murmurs sadly, then turns back to Giliath. "Tell her," and there is a rough edge to his voice now, "tell her that I'm sorry I scared her. I didn't want her to come to harm, and Dunland is not safe. Not for her, not for you. Kiern, it's hardly safe for me." He summons up a smile that does not reach his eyes. "And - take care of her."
[Nob(#16122)] Giliath listens intently, sifting words, sifting meanings, sifting intents and emotions. He nods once when the man has finished speaking and says to Caelwen, " He says that he is sorry he frightened you that this place he names Dunland is unsafe and he wished you not to go there." Gravely, he replies to Brev, "I shall always care for her." The eagle is soothed, predator in abeyance. "Fear not. We go to lands where no humans come, none shall see us to harm us."
[Nob(#16122)] There is a pause, filled with evening. Then the elf adds quietly, "I shall give no harm to your people, who do not offer it first to me. Fear not."
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen reaches her hand out without looking and briefly touches Giliath's shoulder, which is almost taller than her head, tall woman that she is. " It is a nice thought of his. I don't like the tone he uses with you. There wouldn't be any understanding if he would have faith in you, Belegil."
"Ah," Caelwen takes a breath and becomes more serious while speaking to Brev. "No sorry, no frighted. You see, I am safe, Abanangel is safe, Giliath is safe. You are not safe with Carac." She sighs and shakes her head.
Brev accepts Giliath's first words at face value, but at the clarification he shakes his head, and looks to the male elf, his youthful features solemn. 'We fear your kind sometimes fear causes a man to lash out. I've seen it in beast and bird - men are no different. Best for us both if our kind don't meet.' The words are blunt in their honesty, and spoken with regret.
To Caelwen the man looks now, and again there is that shake of the head. 'Carac is my friend. Safe or not, my place is at his side.' For a moment he slips into his own tongue. " I wish I could have known you better." The guttural words may be unknown, but the sadness echoes clear in his tone. " I wish there could be trust between us. I wish ... ach." He trails off, shaking his head, but there is a faint, sad smile on his lips.
Returning to the Common, he clears his throat and looks to both the elven pair. 'Goodbye Collwen, Gillath. I wish you well. And the young one too.' With that he crouches to pick up his spear, and turns away.
[Nob(#16122)] Giliath also listens, and there is an echo of sadness in his own eyes. "Yes," he says slowly, and repeats himself again. "Fear not. There will be no harming. None for you, none for us. We go where no men are." Almost his words are gentle. "We - my people - we do not those things spoken by the man."
A large grove of oaks rises up like a wall, here, near the eastern edge of the Chetwood. The trees rise up, strong and proud, toward the ever-waiting sky above. There is little space between these oak trees, as many of their branches are intermingled together. A lone oak sits quiet and silent, away from the wall of trees.
Obvious exits:
West
================================== Bree Time ==================================
Real time: Wed Jun 10 14:50:14 2009
Bree time: Twilight on Highday of Winter - February 25,1447
Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous Moon
Breelands Weather
The winter air is cold and dry around you. Snow piles on the ground around your feet.
===============================================================================
[Caelwen(#24844)]
The winter wood is peaceful as evening approaches, especially here where the oaks have grown so close above that there is little brush on the ground. The snow seems bright in the twilight, pocked here and there by the prints of forest creatures.
Someone is singing. It is a fair sound, not in the common tongue, but still brings to mind a lofting sense of hope beyond thought of, and yet despair for that which will never be reached. It makes this place feel like there has never been a man here before.
There is the singer, near the lone oak tree, looking at the sky. Caelwen, clad in white without a cloak.
Perhaps there has never been a man before, but there is one here now. Brev has clearly been hunting, and not with the spear his right hand curls about it as always, but from his left dangles a limp long-eared form. Either he's had a lucky shot with the sling, or he has been setting snares. Hmm - who exactly do hunting rights for the Chetwood belong to?
To his credit, he is not /looking/ for forest spirits his steps are direct, his path steady. Yet at the sound of that sweet voice he stops to listen, entranced, his gaze fixing on the singer.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen continues singing for a moment. Her eyes close and a vision briefly appears, laid over the Chetwood-- a vast hall with a floor of gold, a roof of gold, the latter held up by massive pillars of pure silver. Abruptly this is gone, for the singing has stopped.
Caelwen whirls to place her back to the tree, looking right at Brev. And then she is looking behind him, searching for something with fear in her bright eyes.
Brev's gaze slips upward, toward the treetops, the rapt expression still on his features. And then the music is fled, and his eyes return to the singer. As Caelwen seems to look past him, the man automatically turns - and sees nothing. "What?" he asks, that single word hoarse and quiet.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen's breathing starts to calm and she looks back to Brev, her palms against the rough tree-trunk. "You, man with," She takes a deep breath and seems to think, then laboriously says, "You are alone?"
Brev nods. "Left young Gidon making his final preparations for the journey," he answers absently, his gaze shifting unbidden back to the vision in white. And then his brow furrows. "Who do you fear? Surely not some drunken Bree farmer?" He takes a couple of steps closer, then stops. "Collwen - don't fear me." His tone is hesitant, almost pleading.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen shrinks a little against the tree, then relaxes. She speaks very slowly, as if determined to speak well, "Giliath say, you do not hurt me, and Giliath say, you... your friend not safe. Giliath say, I do not be near your friend." Her brow furrows. "Why your choice to be near danger friend, Brev?"
Brev notes the shrinking, for there is concern in his smoky amber eyes. He approaches no further he makes as though to reach out a hand, then stops, his lips twitching slightly as he regards the limp rabbit it currently holds. Perhaps that gesture would not be so reassuring ...
"I will not hurt you," Brev repeats slowly. "You have my word," and then he snorts. "Not that it counts for much," he adds in a hasty murmur. His dark brows knot at the elf-woman's question. "Carac? You fear Carac?" A spark kindles in his amber eyes. "I've known him since I was five summers old. He's my oldest friend." Some might say only friend, though he does not voice that aloud. "I trust him with my life."
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen glances briefly down at the rabbit but the alarm doesn't return to her springtime eyes. There's a pause, her gaze wandering as she thinks. "Carac?" she repeats uncertainly. "You... trust him with my life? What is trust?"
Caelwen's question give Brev pause. "Trust is ..." He sighs. "I know that if I'm in trouble, Carac will help get me out again. He's done it before." His smile is wry. "Collwen," he gazes up at her, and loses his words for a moment before, swallowing, he manages to go on (and now he is looking at a point somewhere past her left shoulder, where the awareness of light and beauty is less painfully bright), "you have nothing to fear from us. And," his gaze drops groundward, and he scowls, "we are leaving."
[Caelwen(#24844)]
"I am trust Giliath," Caelwen says thoughtfully, studying Brev's cheek as he looks to the side. "Yes, you go east. I go and Giliath and Abanangel." She points south. "I do not know word. There we go."
Her brows lower again, her hair caught against the rough bark of the tree. "Giliath say, your Carac is not safe. Giliath is wise. Brev, do not go with Carac."
Brev looks up as Caelwen's speech pauses, and he follows the direction of Caelwen's pointing finger. "South," he supplies, but hard on the heels of that comes a note of alarm. "You and the child would go to Dunland? Collwen, no!" He actually goes so far as to set down his spear, reaching out his right hand as though he would grasp at the white gown and halt the woman's steps. "In my land there are tales of your kind. We fear ... and what men fear they destroy. I know you'd not hurt us, but others don't know." Almost unconsciously, he murmurs after, "And Carac ... I have to."
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Brev takes a handful of Caelwen's gown at her waist, near her side, and her hands fly up to cover her throat. Tears spring to her eyes, which roll a little like a skittish colt's. "Brev," she gasps, pulling to the side, away. "Brev. Giliath, Giliath," she squeezes her eyes shut, willing words to come to her tongue. "Trust my Giliath."
Perhaps Brev realizes what he has done, if too late. At the sight of those tears his grip looses, even as the elf-woman pulls away. "I'm sorry," he mumbles, and his head bows groundward. "Don't go to Dunland," he repeats, staring at his boots. "Stay away from my folk. Wherever you're going, there must be some other way." It is almost a plea.
He takes several deep breaths, and then at last manages to look up, though his gaze avoids Caelwen's tear-stained face. "I can't trust Giliath. I don't know him. Any more than you can trust Carac." His jaw sets. "Carac is ... the best hope for Dunland. But more than that - he's the only person that mattered to me who's still around. The rest - dead, missing. He's all that's left."
[Nob(#16122)] Giliath is silent as the sun when moving through the woods, and generally, he goes with ease and care. But now he is is running, fleet as wind-blown shadows, a blur that melts from tree to grass to shrub. A little ways from where Caelwen and Brev stand, however, the elf slows, and he is walking when he comes to his wife not the fay woodland sprite he may have been thought by Brev's companions, but larger somehow - anger for anyone who may have harmed her mantled about him like a hawk. Fierce hard eyes pin themselves to Brev's face.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen takes several steps away, her hair clinging to the oak for a moment before falling after her. She blinks, and while one tear lingers near ner nose, none fall. Her hands are still over her throat and she is looking mistrustfully at Brev sidelong.
Several moments pass in silence as she catches her breath and collects herself. The Chetwood seems to listen in. "I do not know Dunland. I do not speak at man like you, your folk. Giliath see me safe for older than trees. Time, for many time. I..." another thoughtful pause, "follow him. To elf home."
And then all of Caelwen's fear is gone. Her gaze turns to Giliath just as the elder elf walks near, and she speaks to him swiftly, easily in their liquid tongue, no struggling for words. "
Brev's gaze, slipping past Caelwen, comes to rest instead on Giliath. Does the man fear? His breathing quickens, but his swarthy features do not blanch, and his jaw is set. "I was telling Collwen," he says deliberately, in an unwitting echo of Caelwen's own words, "that she should not go to Dunland. She says you would take her and the child south. Do not go that way." How can he, mere man, oppose an ancient elf if the latter is roused to wrath? Yet his gaze is steady.
As he hears Caelwen speak in her liquid tongue, he sighs softly. He does not try to hinder her retreat, and there is regret etched plain on his features, though he does not turn to look at the distraught elf-woman directly.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen is quite pleased and relaxed, however, despite Brev's firmness and Giliath's sharp eyes. She tries to reassure Brev. "Giliath go, has... has gone," a pause for the grammatical triumph, "many lands. Dunland?" a shrug. "We go not near men."
Brev snatches his gaze away from Giliath for an instant. "But you said ..." His brow is furrowed in puzzlement. When his amber eyes come to rest on Caelwen, he flushes slightly, and it is visible despite his swarthy skin. "Collwen. I am sorry I - uh, frightened you."
[Nob(#16122)] Giliath seems like a bird of prey, an eagle mantled over its prey but his wife's words and more, her calm, calm him also. "I know not where is 'Dunland'. We will not go where men are. But we must go south." His eyes are still hawklike in their intensity, resting on the man's face, noting the flush, the hesitations, the regret. An aside to Caelwen, "
[Caelwen(#24844)]
"What I say? Say... said?" Caelwen asks Brev, head tilting. "I do not know words. What is sorry? and frighted?" She switches to her own liquid tongue and speaks comfortably to her husband. "
She looks to Brev again, and the light that is in her eyes as she speaks to Giliath stills somewhat. "See you? My Giliath make me safe. And Abanangel. He is good, good husbenn and father."
Brev answers Giliath as best he may. "Dunland is ... there." He raises a hand to point southwards. "The road goes south, past the downs and through the empty lands, and then into our lands. Your kind should not go there." Of that he is very certain (and is it concern for Caelwen or fear of what Giliath and his ilk might do to Brev's own folk? Who can say.)
At Caelwen's answer, Brev groans. "I wish I could speak to you," he murmurs sadly, then turns back to Giliath. "Tell her," and there is a rough edge to his voice now, "tell her that I'm sorry I scared her. I didn't want her to come to harm, and Dunland is not safe. Not for her, not for you. Kiern, it's hardly safe for me." He summons up a smile that does not reach his eyes. "And - take care of her."
[Nob(#16122)] Giliath listens intently, sifting words, sifting meanings, sifting intents and emotions. He nods once when the man has finished speaking and says to Caelwen, "
[Nob(#16122)] There is a pause, filled with evening. Then the elf adds quietly, "I shall give no harm to your people, who do not offer it first to me. Fear not."
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen reaches her hand out without looking and briefly touches Giliath's shoulder, which is almost taller than her head, tall woman that she is. "
"Ah," Caelwen takes a breath and becomes more serious while speaking to Brev. "No sorry, no frighted. You see, I am safe, Abanangel is safe, Giliath is safe. You are not safe with Carac." She sighs and shakes her head.
Brev accepts Giliath's first words at face value, but at the clarification he shakes his head, and looks to the male elf, his youthful features solemn. 'We fear your kind sometimes fear causes a man to lash out. I've seen it in beast and bird - men are no different. Best for us both if our kind don't meet.' The words are blunt in their honesty, and spoken with regret.
To Caelwen the man looks now, and again there is that shake of the head. 'Carac is my friend. Safe or not, my place is at his side.' For a moment he slips into his own tongue. "
Returning to the Common, he clears his throat and looks to both the elven pair. 'Goodbye Collwen, Gillath. I wish you well. And the young one too.' With that he crouches to pick up his spear, and turns away.
[Nob(#16122)] Giliath also listens, and there is an echo of sadness in his own eyes. "Yes," he says slowly, and repeats himself again. "Fear not. There will be no harming. None for you, none for us. We go where no men are." Almost his words are gentle. "We - my people - we do not those things spoken by the man."
Players: Caelwen, Brev, Giliath
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