A sobering experience (log incomplete)
A tale freshly told of the Breefolk
A drunken Bill Ferny sees visions(?) in the woods near Archet.
The Chetwood
A small stream runs under the eaves of the Chetwood. The trees crowd close to the stream, their roots eager to drink from the clear water. The stream continues to the south. A faint path, perhaps an animal track leads away to the south.
Obvious exits:
West, South, and East
================================== Bree Time ==================================
Real time: Wed Jun 03 16:19:32 2009
Bree time: Dawn <07> on Sterday of Winter - February 5,1447
Moon Phase: Last Quarter Moon
Breelands Weather
The dawn winter air is cold and dry around you. The day sky is clear with only slight wisps of clouds overhead.
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[Caelwen(#24844)]
The morning is crisp and utterly clear, frosty in some parts. The stream is noisy and edged with ice, but a child is on the edge of it. The elf-child, dipping a skin into the water. He is smiling as he does this and calls upward toward the clouded trees in his own musical language. \"
And the tree rains laughter down upon him. There is Collwen, balanced on her toes on a slim, swaying branch-- not even using her hands to steady herself. \"
The man carefully making his way up the stream carries a spear - Brev always carries a spear, out here in the wilds - but perhaps that is not the full reason for his journeying this morning. He stoops with his free hand to feel along the ice-rimmed bank, rising again with a fragile-looking fern in his hand.
It is then that the faint sound of speech akin to music reaches his ears. He halts, twisting his head this way and that, but from where he stands he can see nothing past the river-bend. He hesitates, rubbing at his cheek (and leaving a smear of dirt), then, very deliberately, steps on a twig. And turns his spear-point away.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
\"
Caelwen is still smiling, dressed in white with her hair twisting about her like copper jewelry. She looks downstream and gradually, her smile fades. \"
Brev stands listening to the voices for a moment, and a wistful sigh escapes his lips. Yet they do not seem to have fled. He waits a moment longer, then tucks the fern away into a small bag slung at his belt and moves onward, round the bend in the stream-bank. Aye, he carries his spear still, but he has reversed it now, so that the butt is forward and the tip trails behind him - no threat save to back-stabbers. As he walks he peers amidst the trees, and hope is writ there stronger than fear.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Brev would round the tree in time to see the elf-child leap and grab one-handed at a branch of his mother\'s tree as agile as a squirrel. He climbs upon it and calls with excitement, \"
\"
Brev\'s mouth falls open slightly as he stares at the elf-child scaling the branch with a grace no child of Man could match. Then Caelwen speaks and it is to her his gaze flits. Her words in the Common tongue bring a hesitant curving of the lips - that is gone instantly as she steps off the branch. Swarthy features pale, and instinctively he moves forward, spear dropped, for all that he is too late. What injuries might such a fall produce?
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen grips one side of her dress as she falls, and when she lands, there is a small cracking sound. She straightens from a crouch in the same rolling motion, balanced on the balls of her feet. She spends a moment looking at Brev, then repeats herself. \"Good day?\"
\"Kiern!\" That single exclamation falls from Brev\'s lips without prompting as he stares at the elf-woman, too dazed to respond to the greeting properly. Amber eyes scan her from top to toe, and the man\'s brow creases at her easy, comfortable-seeming stance. \"You are unhurt? I thought ...\" The words in Common tumble out rapidly.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen takes a half-step back, closer to the trunk of the tree, and seems slightly suspicious as she looks at Brev, her head bowing. \"What is Kiern?\" she asks in her thick way.
\"
Caelwen takes a breath and tells Brev, \"I not.\"
\"I am not hurt,\" the boy supplies helpfully from above in the same common tongue.
The morning sun glints down on the frosty streambank, its slanted rays falling on the tree wherein an elf-child hides, the white-clad vision at its base, and the man simply ... staring.
Brev remains in place, accepting the suspicion as his due. He stares at Caelwen in doubtful silence for a moment, as though he did not believe the evidence of eyes and ears, then murmurs in subdued Common, \"Kiern is the protector of my folk. And .. if I had fallen like that, I\'d have broken an arm, or a leg, or a shoulder, and not enough limbs left to set it.\" His swarthy skin is still pale.
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon sips through the winter woods, as quietly as he can - which is not quiet so silent as elf or hobbit but nonetheless fairly decently unobtrusive. He manages mostly to make the small sounds he does make seem like they could be the wind rubbing branch against branch, or a plop of ice falling into a snowbank.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen\'s face clears a bit as Brev explains. She nods in simple understanding. \"You... are not...\" she hesitates and makes a gesture toward the trees. \"
\"
\"...old. You are not old.\"Caelwen finally tells Brev.
[Ferny(#14469)]
On the other hand, Bill Ferny very nearly crashes into most everything he nears, raises a general ruckus as he is known to do, and clomps his way toward the recently-abandoned tree unaware of the encounter taking place there.
Indeed, if anyone could know it, the town scoundrel of Bree is unaware of most everything, inebriated beyond belief at the moment despite the early time.
A hundred yards away from the small group, though, he halts, leans (stumbles?) against a tree, and seems to rest for a moment, approaching no closer for the time being.
Old? Brev stares at Caelwen incomprehendingly, not even looking up to the elf-child at the flow of musical syllables. \"No,\" he agrees. \"Twentyone summers ... or is it twentytwo. One day I hope to be old.\" He remains unaware of Gidon\'s presence, the faint sounds fooling his human ears at least. But the other ...
At the sound of crashing, he freezes like a deer, then scrambles hastily back toward that dropped spear, muttering under his breath a string of syllables in not-Common that sound suspiciously like a curse.
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon is not trying to sneak up on Brev he has simply learned the habit of being as quiet as he can. But when he hears Bill Ferny\'s reckless progress, he to freezes, staring wide-eyed towards the noise. And now he makes a circle to avoid him, coming to a stop near the stream where Caelwen and Brev are.
[Caelwen(#24844)]
Caelwen freezes just a moment before the other two, just a half-heartbeat before the crashing is heard. \"
Caelwen\'s head turns slightly toward Bill Ferny, her leaf-shaped ear tilted that way. And then a breath, and another string of musical syllables. \"
If one were to glance upward, the dark-haired child is following after her, but dashinging along the limbs of the trees as easily as if they were a road, leaping from one to the next. They are both soon gone.
[Ferny(#14469)]
Ferny not only doesn\'t know where Caelwen and Brev are... he doesn\'t know THAT Caelwen and Brev are. Struggling to stand back up straight, he shakes his head to try and clear his perception some. His loose cheeks flap back and forth as he does so, so that he gives the appearance of a dog shaking water off its head.
Whatever he\'s trying to shake off, though, sticks around, as he seems for-sure wobbly when he puts one foot in front of another, once again moving toward the few gathered here, even if it is at a snail\'s pace.
The steps are slower and therefore quieter this time, and anyone who\'se spied someone near passing out might recognize that this man does not currently possess his wits and could fall unconscious at any time.
Brev has reached his spear by now, and he curls his hand tightly round its familiar haft, peering in the direction of the crashing. At Caelwen\'s words, he glances round long enough to murmur a quiet, \"Go well.\" By now he has come to expect that the mysterious creatures will flee at the first opportunity.
He, alas, cannot flee. He squints through the trees, scowling at the wobbling Ferny, and scans the surroundings suspiciously. Where there\'s one, there might be more. At last he demands, in rough Common, \"Off hunting, eh?\"
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon comes up beside Brev, looking towards Bill. \"I think,\" he says hesitantly, \"That man is from Bree. I have seen him... once?\" He takes a step or two closer and his voice twists with disgust. \"He is drunk,\" he says.
[Ferny(#14469)]
\"I\'m no drunk, as you suppose!\" Ferny announced -- apparently he possesses outstanding hearing. He walks toward the pair again, not even away that the group is two shy of its population from a moment ago. \"Dizzy, yesh. Drunk no.\"
But his slur belies his words, and his posture and broken, slurvy steps even moreso.
Still, he approaches closer, now having closed to within twenty or so feet of them.
Brev turns his head as Gidon appears from the trees. The surprise on his face is fleeting - after all, he has been somewhat distracted. \"Aye,\" he agrees quietly to the youth, and then he looks the man up and down. As Ferny speaks he snorts, and says more loudly, \"Drunker than Rathos the night he found the village ale-vat. How many fingers am I holding up?\" He lifts his left hand, raising a couple of fingers. The fact he\'s holding a spear in his other hand, tip now pointed skyward, doesn\'t seem to bother him.
[Nob(#16122)] \"Aye, y\'are,\" Gidon contradicts, in his quiet voice. \"Seen lots like that, \'bout t\'fall over, y\'are.\"
[Ferny(#14469)]
\"One! And a long, pointy one at that!\" Ferny gestures toward the spear, of course, either confused or just being ridiculous. \"Where am I, anyhow? I\'m \'fraid I hit my head back there.\"
Hopefully this isn\'t another lame attempt to lie about his own sobriety, for his breath is a knock-out even from this distance. Even now, the distance closes somewhat as Ferny moves clumsily closer. As he gets close enough to chat he plops down on a log, sitting down heavily.
Brev considers that question. \"You\'re in the afterlife,\" he tells the drily. \"That there\'s the ale-bowl,\" he nods in the general direction of the place in the stream where a little pool sits, fingers of ice reaching forth at its edges, \"and you just missed the dancing-girls.\" Perhaps it\'s irritation at losing \'his\' elf that makes him so flippant - he glances over his shoulder briefly, and sighs.
To Gidon he grimaces, then murmurs sourly, \"I\'m heading back to town. Lets leave him to his beauty sleep in peace, eh? Sun\'s getting higher now, he shouldn\'t freeze.\"
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon nods, but there isn\'t much certainty in it. \"I c\'n get him t\'Archet,\" he says. Resigned, unenthusiastic, but determined.
[Ferny(#14469)]
\"Ale?\" Ferny peers toward the pool the southron has gestured toward. He hoists himself up and steps gingerly toward the frigid water. \"Haven\'t had a good ale in ages!\" Stopping halfway there, he grins, staring.
Brev frowns slightly at Gidon\'s words. \"You sure?\" he queries the boy quietly, then shrugs. \"Ach, he not like he\'ll be any trouble in that state.\"
Then Ferny\'s exclamation reaches his ears. A brief smirk twists his features, then, whilst the man is still staring at the water, he slips away into the trees, leaving Gidon with alone with his fellow Breeman and presumed friend. The Dunlending is not elf-quiet, perhaps not even Gidon-quiet, but it\'s unlikely that someone in Ferny\'s state will notice him depart.
[Nob(#16122)] Gidon shrugs. \"Done it before,\" he says.
[Ferny(#14469)]
Before Brev takes his first step, Bill Ferny\'s eyes have closed. His torso sways. His limbs slack. He leans forward. Getting a better view of the ale-bowl?
No, apparently not.
With timing which could not be more perfect (Brev has likely just escaped out of hearing-range), Ferny\'s whole upper body hits the water face-first, and he lies there, with his legs on land and his face under the icy water. Strangely, he does not thrash or appear aware of his fall -- he just lies there.