The Breeze and the Banter

Starring:

The Malrog as Linden, a Breelander:

No longer young, yet not quite counted \'old,\' Linden\'s passingly pretty face is marred by an impassive expression, and the phlox-blue eyes seem guarded and distant. Her braided, glossy hair is sable dark, and a few strands of grey streak in stark contrast at her temples. She is not overly tall, and would likely be lost in a crowd in all her other mannerisms, which are furtive and controlled.

Havoc as Sard, a Breelander:

This one has led a hardscrabble life, from the look of him. Lean and sinewy, his body is all sticks and angles and his face is all crags and valleys. His skin is leathern and sun-scarred, but the many laugh-lines about his eyes (dark brown) tell he has kept his humor, at least. He seems clean, sandy hair well-enough kept and long, pulled back into a tail. His clothes are neat and seem well-made, but not too expensive if the viewer has any sense of such things. There is a no-nonsense air about him. His bodies weathered state makes his age difficult for most to discern although it\'s clear he is no youngster.

and Malrog and Havoc as Lavender Figwort, a Breelander:

Looking like any other typical elder Breemarm.

The Great East Road enters and leaves Bree here, through an opening in the high hedge that surrounds Bree. Where the road meets the hedge, a large stone wall has been erected, of well set stones. Under an arch of stones is a wooden door, with two small windows: one high, one low. On the west side of the road, near the door, is the gatekeeper\'s lodge. On the eastern side of the road stand a few houses. The Great East Road winds its way north, around the western flank of Bree-hill.

[Havoc] It\'s a muggy day, and that\'s a certainty. Bree seems fairly to wilt even though the sun is clouded over. June, always the same--humidity, humidity, humidity! Out and about in the damp heat is Sard, standing just inside the South Gate with hands behind his back. He\'s just standing in the road, looking through the gate. One could think him strange, or one could follow the gaze, where they might see a wagon dwindling on the road leading south. Or not. He must finally abandon his post when he hears the jangle of leads that heralds another wagon making its way down the wide road to the gate. He walks to the edge of the flagstones and then turns into town, walking slowly past the houses, seeming to ignore them.

[Malrog] Just at the base of Bree Hill, a figure makes its way in the afternoon humidity, though the woman\'s gaze is cast upwards to the clouds which seem to be gathering... promising a respite of rain? It is merely a gaze, and the expression which follows gives little indication of what the woman has thought of the potential weather. She seems, instead, intent upon her beeline to one of the stone houses on the east side of the road. A basket is cradled in the crook of her left arm, and with a cursory glance to make sure the covering cloth is still secure, she looks in the direction of the gates.

[Havoc] Sard has his hands in his pockets (fancy breeches! pockets!) and is ambling along the edge of the road, eyes on the ground in front of him. He doesn\'t seem to acknowledge passers-by much beyond a quick bob of the head and a bit of a shuffled misstep before kicking the stone gutter along the roadside and moseying on past the houses on the east side. Anyone close enough can hear him humming to himself.

[Malrog] The row of houses on the east almost reached at last, the woman carrying the basket looks to each weathered door in turn, slowing her steps almost to a stop. The press of her lips and a quick indrawn breath following seems to indicate an uncertainty. She lifts the corner of the embroidered cloth covering the basket and removes an oft-folded piece of parchment--which promptly is whisked from her fingers with a breeze--a coolish contrast to the humid day. What passes from her lips is merely a mutter to herself, but hurried footsteps pursue the paper. Half-dancing, half fluttering, it tumbles across the flagstones and into the path of the humming man near the edge of the road.

[Havoc] Humming man, humming breeze, parchment dancing in between. As the impromptu kite flutters and spins the breeze (a saucy thing) lifts it suddenly. The man seems not to notice it until it is plastered full across his face. His ambling stride falters and fades, until he is standing on the roadside. Parchment still spread across his face. The breeze dies. He looks this way, that. Up. Hands in his pockets. New parchment hood.

[Malrog] The woman\'s eyes widen as her whisked-away parchment is lifted clear to the level of the man\'s face. Is it amazement? Distress? Certainly embarrassment as she looks first one way and then another--but must at last own the escaped note.

\"Begging your pardon,\" she begins, stopping to clear her throat as a flush of color brightens her cheeks. \"I--I lost that...to the breeze.\" She points to the parchment adorning the man\'s face, then curls her fingers down as she realizes it may not be entirely polite to point. Abashed.

[Havoc] Sard orients to the voice. You hear a sniff from behind the parchment, her pointing and such unseen. His voice is only very slightly muffled, the incredibly stubborn document only puffing a bit as he speaks.

\"Perhaps it thought I needed a hat. Good to have a hat. I don\'t have a hat. Well, what do you think? Is it quite dapper?\"

[Malrog] \"Dapper?\" the woman replies, as if the word might be unknown to her.

It is, of course, quite known to her, but the unexpected \'flutter\' --now added to unanticipated conversation--has caught her completely off guard. And seems to have flummoxed her. \"If you say so?\" she manages in a rush of quiet words, the blue eyes still fixed on the errant parchment. The blush in her cheeks creeps slowly towards her neck.

\"I--I was looking for someone...\" She swallows, not quite certain what to do with the man\'s face still covered in parchment, her closed hand still upraised near her chin. \"...someone in one of these houses.\"

[Havoc] Sard says, \"I didn\'t say so. I can\'t say so--how would I know how dapper a hat your parchment makes me, when I--\" but here he stops for a moment. When he continues, the note of banter in his voice has flattened. He pulls the thing off of his face and says, \"My apologies, miss. I\'ve put you at a disadvantage with my attempt at humor, when you are clearly concerned. Here you are,\" and he extends the fluttering thing to Linden (not *quite* straight toward her). \"Where ya headed, then? Mayhap I can help.\" He smiles, and it\'s not a bad smile at all, really. \"I promise to make no more jests.\"

[Malrog] The fluttering parchment almost eludes Linden\'s grasp once more as she reaches for it, yet the grip retaining it once it is safely in hand is not one to easily allow such an \'escape\' to happen again.

\"There\'s surely nothing wrong with your humor,\" the woman says, the gaze cast down as she speaks--perhaps as she seeks to hide that initial flush of embarrassment. \"Jest as you will?\" She clears her throat. Quietly. \"I\'m just not very familiar with these homes.\" She glances quickly to the amiable man, then back to the row of houses, where the gaze seems to settle more comfortably. \"Do you know a woman by the name of Lavender Figwort?\"

[Havoc] Sard looks up the road, and down it. He doesn\'t really look at the houses themselves.

\"Nope!\" is all he says, staring toward the woman with a deadpan expression for a long moment. Then perhaps he takes pity, for his tone shifts again, and he looks away. At the sky. \"But perhaps we can find her, eh?\" He looks back toward her. \"See any bairns about?\"

[Malrog] \"Bairns?\" she repeats, and draws her gaze away from the houses back along the street, her expression turning puzzled. \"I--I\'m sure it said it was the third house in,\" the woman says, tilting her head to look at the half-crumpled parchment in what is held to a \'death-grip\' in her hand. \"But it doesn\'t say which side of the row...in.\" She hefts the basket from the crook of her arm into her left hand, and it seems a small effort to once more meet Sard\'s gaze and hold it. \"Maybe if we each tried a door? The third one in?\" she adds.

[Havoc] Sard blinks. \"Bairns. Wee things. Ankle-biters. Barn-rats. Grasshoppers. A mother\'s grief.\" He sniffs again, and finishes on a firmer note, \"Children.\" Blinks again. \"Kids, they always know who lives where! Why, they--\" he stops as she lays out her cunning plan for each to take one of the possible houses. \"A cunning plan!\" he quips.

[Malrog] \"Oh. Children?\" Linden almost smiles. Almost--as Sard accepts her plan. But as nearly as the smile is revealed, it is tucked beneath an affirming nod and a glance away. \"You that way, then?\" And she nods once more to her left. \"And I\'ll try this door.\" It is almost before her, so the steps she takes are but few before she finds herself at the squat steps leading up.

[Havoc] Sard\'s voice is more quiet behind Linden as she makes for her chosen door.

\"Oh...yes. I--yes.\" and then a long silence as he looks, not to her left, but to her right. He scratches his neck, thinks, then finally turns left and makes his way down the row of houses--walking right past the third one in from the end, only stopping when he runs out of houses. He slowly turns around and makes his way back, looking at the houses quite intently.

[Malrog] At first the rapping upon the door Linden stands before is faint, and after a moment, she knocks again--with more commitment to the effort. A glance away towards Sard coaxes a curious flicker to the blue-eyed gaze, but as the door creaks open, the woman inquires softly for \"Lavender Figwort?\"

\"Nay. None here by that name, ma\'am,\" says a cheery voice, though the door closes directly.

\"It must be the other?\" Linden says, clutching the basket tightly--the parchment all but crunched to a ball in her other hand--as she descends the steps back to the street level.

[Havoc] One can see that as Linden returns to the road, Sard has barely made it to the other house. He seems to be fumbling at the latch of the ornate gate that blocks its stoop-stairs. He gets through, at last, but the speed at which he works at all this effort would allow anyone with the least spring in their step to catch up with him. But he knocks on the door, which opens after but a moment.

\"Lavender Figwort?\" he asks.

\"Who is asking?\" they ask.

\"Sard Whitethorne, of the Andrath Whitethornes--pleased ta meet cha!\" he says.

\"Can\'t say I know you, sir, but I am Lavender--what might I do for you?\" she reveals!

\"Haven\'t a clue!\" he concedes!

She wrinkles her nose at him. He doesn\'t seem to notice.

[Malrog] The opening door gains Linden\'s attention, and a look of relief might wash over the woman\'s face as Lavender, herself, answers. There is no recognition, however, as Linden hurries her steps to intercept the conversation.

\"I\'m the one--\" she says, her voice pinched at first. \"I\'m the one who needed to speak with you.\" Though her steps down the street have been few, she seems to catch her breath, and raises the basket up as if proof of...something. \"I\"m settling my grandmother\'s debts,\" Linden states. For the first time, perhaps, with some confidence. \"Rue Foxglove owed you two dozen eggs....a-according to her notes. And I\'m here to pay the debt.\" She glances at Sard, then at the limited space upon the step where he stands. Clearing her throat, she takes a tentative step up the stoop-stairs.

[Havoc] Sard doesn\'t seem to see Linden\'s pointed glance, only stands upon the stoop before the door.

\"As the fair maiden\'s appointed champion,\" he says conversationally to Lavender, \"I\'d like to point out that I have nothing to do with debt-collection--only to brave strange and potentially dangerous stoops. Happily, yours seems quite safe, and may I add you seem quite a wonderful person who could use a few eggs.\"

\"Or twenty-four, as the case may be,\" he adds.

[Malrog] Is it dismay which seeks to cloud Linden\'s confident expression? For as Sard speaks of \'champions\' and \'debt collection\' she looks almost mortified.

\"I....I---\" She squeaks, then her mouth clamps shut as she steps up beside the good-natured gentleman and holds the basket of eggs forward to Lavender. \"He was kind enough to help me,\" she says, once more the words much faster-delivered than need be. And though Sard looks for all the world the most unimposing figure...kindness personified? Linden looks, for her part, ready to bolt as soon as the basket is accepted.

[Havoc] The matron looks from Sard to the basket to Linden, and grumbles, \"Helped a lady, did he? Well, that ought to forgive his queerness, I suppose--little enough kindness to go around most days. Never met a queerer Whitethorne...\" she gives Sard another glance. But she takes the basket. \"Rue, is it? Now there\'s queerness on queerness, to remember such a thing! Only she would. But,\" she softens, \"there\'s kindness at the bottom of it, too, so I\'ll allow. Why don\'t you—\" she looks to Linden and only slowly back to Sard, \"and you, come in for a cup of tea and give an old woman the news, eh? I\'ll boil us some eggs!\"

[Havoc] Sard brightens at the mention of tea (and boiled eggs, perhaps).

\"Why, Mrs. Figwort, the rumors of your magnanimity fall far short of the truth! I, for one, gladly accept. Might you be in the market for a champion?\"

[Malrog] It\'s perhaps clear by the look on Linden\'s face she hasn\'t any news to give anyone, and may, in fact, be a little behind the news, herself. So, as Lavender invites them in, the woman is already edging one foot down one of the steps.

\"I\'m sure I couldn\'t--\" is little more than a hushed whisper as Sard speaks his acceptance to the invitation. She looks between the man and Lavender. Blush turns to near-pallor as she swallows. \"I...\" And if ever the woman needed a champion, it seems, it is now. \"I need to get home....to my chickens.\" So tapered in volume are the last three words uttered, it\'s possible they might be completely missed. Or misconstrued.

[Havoc] Sard chuckles, \"Well there you have it, Mrs. Figwort! She says she can\'t wait to taste it! Why, it\'s a regular tea-party you\'ve made, madam,\" he ends with a smile. Then he steps aside, and with what he may believe is a champion-like flourish, bows while motioning Linden to enter ahead of him. The matron has already turned back into the house, chattering of raising the fire and other kitcheny things.