Looking for Keldean

[Muirgheal(#32535)] The cloudy November afternoon is a mild one, nice enough even without a glimpse of the sun. On a broad stretch of withering green-yellow grass that runs through the village, a woman with startling black eyes and long gold hair is sitting, playing with her two oldest children, precarious three year olds who are exploring around the base of a tree. Muirgheal lounges with her back to it, taking inventory today: four daggers are in her hands, and she\'s looking each one over with a critical eye. Of course, this means that no villagers approach her or offer a friendly wave from a distance, despite her adorable children.

It\'s no villager that approaches now, but a woman in her early 20s with dark hair, not the color of Bree\'s brown. A long brown cloak warms her form, though her hood is thrown back and those distinctive, slightly eastern eyes mark Cordelia\'s features. Her cloak is slightly dusty and she leads a horse on reins behind her.

\"It has been too long, Muirgheal.\"

[Muirgheal(#32535)] Muirgheal\'s sharp eyes look up. \"Cordelia?\" the darker-skinned woman breathes in disbelief. She stares harder, and yet...it is. \"What are you doing here?\" In an instant, Muirgheal has gotten to her feet, and though she leaves her children to play, they both end up following their mother toward the dark haired woman. The twins walk quite well on their own now, after all. \"You- you\'ve left Bree?\"

\"Well, this doesn\'t look like Bree, does it?\" Cordelia grins. \"What are you doing out here, anyhow? Where\'s Rhifaroth? Are you living here now?\" She avoids a direct answer to Muirgheal\'s question, at least for the moment, though there\'s a dark expression behind her eyes.

[Muirgheal(#32535)] Muirgheal returns that grin. For someone whom she once stabbed with a dagger, the blonde is awfully friendly to Cordelia now. \"Rhifaroth is here too- here, but hunting today, out in the woods. I cannot say it doesn\'t worry me, but he can do as he pleases, here. We both know there are worse dangers, sometimes, than orcs and trolls.\" She shrugs, but smiles. \"We do live here. Our house is just over there..\" It\'s a modest looking thing she points to, with some obvious repairs to it. Muirgheal places her hand on the head of a tawny haired little girl with hazel eyes. \"You remember Caoimhe? She is being shy, but she remembers you.\" The other child, Elfaroth, is out of sight entirely, hiding his face behind his mother\'s legs. She shakes her head, \"They are like extra limbs, always hanging on..\" her good humor fades. \"Why the long journey from Bree? This place must be far below your standards?\"

[Ollie(#15066)] Possibly noticed, possibly not, there is a slight young man partly obscured by both a tree and the corner of a house who is watching the group on the grass.

Cordelia\'s focus is on the children, smiling, and she does not notice the young man at first. \"Strange. I would have thought that Rhifaroth would have preferred Bree--more people, safer and all that.As for me, I\'m not living out here. I\'m here to see if I can find word of Keldean. He\'s gone missing and folks assume he ran away, but I don\'t believe that. He would have told me.\"

Her eyes sweep in teh direction that Muirgheal points, and it is then Cordelia notices the young man. She takes a step that direction, as if she recognizes the man, then falters. \"Who\'s that?\"

[Muirgheal(#32535)] \"He did prefer Bree, but you know- very bad memories flashing by every time I looked out the window- or at my own hearth...it was not a way to keep living and stay sane,\" Muirgheal explains with a flash of her teeth in a sort of smile. Sane as she has ever been, at least. \"Keldean is..gone? Really? Oooh, I never liked that boy...\" Muir\'s black eyes glitter as they narrow. \"I would certainly know if he\'d come sniffing around here. But why would that lad\'s disappearence make you leave the safety of Bree?\" Muirgheal tilts her head, curious. \"What, who?\" She looks in the direction that Cordelia is. \"I\'ve never seen him before. He\'s looking like he knows us though, isn\'t he? My mother always told me not to stare.\" Muir giggles, and it\'s a rather creepy effect.

Caoimhe is still enchanted with Cordelia, and it\'s taken her a while, but finally she says, \"Cordy. Bread,\" as the child has always associated this dark haired woman with the lunches she used to have at the Pony. Elfaroth, meanwhile, peers out from behind his mother\'s legs to spot the young man and call out, \"HI!\"

\"I don\'t have any bread, honey,\" Cordelia smiles to the girl, \"but I do have some oatcakes in my saddlebag.\" She squints toward the elusive young man, and, apparently satisfied that it\'s not Keldean, she shrugs and moves to get the oatcake out of the saddlebag. The horse she then tethers to a nearby shrub.

\"Here..\" A small piece of oatcake offered to Caoimhe. \"Well, I made it here all right, didn\'t I?\" she shrugs to Muirgheal. \"I can use a sword and a knife and I have been on these paths before, so I\'m not as helpless as I look, even alone. Keldean..well, he spent some time near or with the elves, and suddenly he thinks he can go anywhere and do anything. I\'m worried about him.\"

[Muirgheal(#32535)] Muirgheal didn\'t miss the figure of the man slipping behind a building. \"Hey!\" she calls, her voice a rough sort of bark that startles her children. \"You back there! If you\'d like to keep your eyes in your head, I suggest you come right back out here..\" Muirgheal draws one of her daggers back out and crosses her arms, impatient. Oh, the villagers must surely just -love- her here. Meanwhile, as she waits and taps a foot impatiently, her eyes slide back to Cordelia and she grins. \"I know you aren\'t helpless, Cordelia. That is the last thing I would ever accuse you of being. But...say, you must really like Keldean to worry about him so...\" her wolfish grin remains, amused.

Caoimhe has encouraged Elfaroth, meanwhile, so that both children approach Cordelia to get a treat. They look so perfect, with their big hazel eyes and their hands cupped and held out toward the dark haired woman. Caoimhe considers the oatcake she is given, then grins and declares loudly, \"Good!\"

[Ollie(#15066)] There is neither sound more movement from the corner of the building. Perhaps the man has already fled at being discovered and is beyond the reach of Muirgheal\'s voice? He\'d be a fast runner, no doubt.

\"Oh...leave him be,\" Cordelia shrugs in the direction of the elusive man. \"Probably just curious about who would have the guts to come and talk to you.\" She grins at that and at the two children before her--she splits the oatcake between them.

\"Now stop that, Muirgheal. You know very well I was never in love with Keldean, though it was clear the boy--I always think of him that way--was head over heels about me, at least for a while. It ended up that we are friends, but I still kind of think he has some lingering feelings about me, and I worry that he has gone and done something stupid. Wouldn\'t be the first time, either, what with his running off with the elves that one time and nearly dying. I owe it to him to find out if he\'s all right. Noone else in Bree will.\"

[Muirgheal(#32535)] \"I suppose that\'s fair enough..but..I\'m not helping find that scrawny little..\" Muirgheal mutters something dark in Dunael, likely, remembering Keldean\'s desperate attempts to get neat Rhifaroth. Muir twirls the dagger she\'s got in her hand, a trick she\'s perfected, as she watches the building. \"Oh come out now, I\'m not gonna skin ya...\" Muirgheal almost laughs. Her children, meanwhile, peacefully eat their snack. \"I can tell you he definitely hasn\'t been around here,\" she says more solemnly to Cordelia.

\"Though I\'ve been a bit absent, myself...took an orc blade to the gut. It kept me from walking around for a few months.\" Muir grins once more.

[Ollie(#15066)] There is a flicker of a shadow from another building\'s corner, at an angle from the first one - a little farther away. Then stillness. In the distance, the villagers go about their business, now and then casting dark glances towards the two women and the children.

\"You scared him off, Muirgheal,\" Coredlia grins. She brushes the last of the oatcake crumbs from her hands and smiles at the twins. \"All gone!\" Then she laughs.

\"Well, I\'ll ask the villagers--maybe they\'ve heard something, after all. I can\'t go further from here, anyhow on my own--it\'s too dangerous. Though if some dwarves come along, maybe I can join them. I\'m thinking about heading back east to be with my mother\'s family again.\"

[Ollie(#15066)] But now, if anyone is looking, there is a half-oval of a face staring at them from the other side of the grass-way. The same man, no doubt (for would there be two such?), has slipped around, mingling with the other villagers, and crept back to lurk behind a tree again.

This time Cordelia does notice the man, and she stares long in his direction. \"Would you like some oatcakes?\" she finally calls to him, then grumbles to herself, \"not that I have any to spare...\"

[Ollie(#15066)] There is a hesitation. Then, slowly, with much halting and going back a few steps, and making a very wide berth of Muirgheal indeed, the man fetches up somewhat near to Cordelia. He isn\'t unattractive, with a thin face and longish light brown hair falling over his eyes. But it is his movements one notices most, more than his appearance: he is never still. This is surely why he was so easily seen from hiding - if he is not shuffling his feet back and forth (almost in a little dance), his hands are darting here and there on his person or describing small figures in the air.

\"Here...\" Cordelia moves cautiously, as if she doesn\'t want to frighten the jittery man, though she does give him a slow look up and down. Walking to her saddlebag, she opens it and pulls out another oatcake, which is offered toward the man. \"You live here? I\'m looking for a friend of mine.\"

[Muirgheal(#32535)] \"Heading east so soon? But Cordelia, you just got here! Won\'t you stay a while?\" Muirgheal grins. Yet, as the man finally approaches, Muirgheal sheaths her dagger and sighs. \"Oh. Well, Cordelia, you may give him some oatcakes but be warned: he isn\'t all there, if you know what I mean.\" Muir grins, and it isn\'t particularly pleasant. Of course, the same could be said about her own husband, some days.

[Ollie(#15066)] \"Pretty lady,\" the man says, and smiles a sweet and astonishingly child-like smile. He takes the oatcake, holding it delicately in his long fingers, and watches Muirgheal speak. His motions are strangely bird-like, and he resembles nothing so much as a stork as he turns his head back to look at Cordelia. \"Friend?\" he queries, if he is not just repeating the word she has spoken.

\"Friend...yes...\" Cordelia smiles as she hands over the oatcake, but she looks frustrated at Muirgheal\'s advice. \"A boy...well, a young man. Keldean...Have you heard of Keldean? He\'s my friend.\"

[Muirgheal(#32535)] Though this man is obviously gentle-seeming and harmless, Muirgheal keeps her children from approaching as she studies him. \"A very annoying boy, sort of tall and thin,\" Muir tries to help Cordelia describe Keldean to this simple man. She widens her eyes and speaks very loudly and slowly, so that it\'s almost comical.

[Ollie(#15066)] Ignoring Muirgheal entirely, the man peacefully eats his oatcake, his bright bird-like eyes watching Cordelia all the while - except when they flit and dart hither and yon, landing on the children, the tree across the way, a cloud over head, a tuft of grass at his feet. But mostly, he watches Cordelia, examining various bits of her features individually. Her nose. An eyebrown. Her hair.

When he is done eating, he cocks his head, and then says, \"No. No friend.\"

\"Ah...well...\" Coredelia sighs. \"Didn\'t think you would have heard of him. Any elves come this way recently? Have you seen the elves?\" she tries, smiling a little at the man.

[Ollie(#15066)] He is watching Muirgheal, curiously, as if she is an exhibit at a fair, and doesn\'t at first give any indication that he has heard Cordelia at all. But when she has perhaps given up on an answer, his head swivels back to her again. \"No,\" he says again. \"No elves.\" He considers her and then the smile flashes across his face again and he crouches down, swaying back and forth, and patting his chin. \"No elves,\" he says, looking up and waiting eagerly.

[Ollie(#15066)] He breaks into a huge delighted grin, and pats his chin a little more frantically. Then he pats his head, before reaching up as far as he can and shaking his head vigorously. A bit of a duck-waddle around with more chin patting. \"No elf,\" he says, encouragingly.

Muirgheal\'s strange words bring him around to stare at her again, but his expression is entirely blank. Either the words mean nothing, or he is quite a good actor.

\"Muir..he doesn\'t understand the elves\' language,\" COrdelia shakes her head. \"Dwarves?\" she frowns at the man, taking a wild guess.

[Ollie(#15066)] She has guessed right, and he stands up, abruptly shedding the strange behavior. Well, /this/ strange behavior anyways. Nodding and grinning, he looks at Cordelia swivels to watch the children. Their delight brings a bubbling laugh from him, and he claps his hands - somewhat awkwardly - in imitation of them.

\"Dwarves,\" Cordelia confirms, nodding to the man, then adds, \"thank you,\" though it\'s said as if she is addressing a child. \"That won\'t help me any...well..I am going to head into the village and see if I can get anyone who can actually answer questions. I\'ll find you later?\"

[Muirgheal(#32535)] \"You are welcome to stay with us, Cordelia, however quaint the accomodations may be,\" Muirgheal offers before she gathers up both kids- a thing only accomplished because she\'s so strong- and heads in the direction of her home.