Klo, it doesn't seem... natural. In fact it seems kinda the opposite of natural. The wyrm's head lies white-scaled, blending in with the snow that already begins to cover it.
Halla... your theories are formed more by your own previous experience with Mav than with any tales you've heard, but you certainly do remember how she plucked a memory from your soul, with a touch. And supposedly she trades in memories, after all...
The other elves take no particular note of any of this, nor do they evince anything other than mild distaste for the bodies of the dead lizardmen, starting to develop think blankets of snow. Lydd crouches and uses a snowdrift to scrub her hands clean, leaving the snow pink behind her. Then, she starts to lead the way up the winding road of the cliff, her bow at hand again.
Mav leads her white palfrey carefully up the stairs of the first rise, humming softly. The other mounts, both your own and those of the elves, have no problem, though you make your way up slow and carefully in case of ice on the steps. (Glorn makes short work of the vertical leaps-- Knute probably doesn't wish to be on him for those.) Tellignos complains about the steps but scales them without trouble.
Hunts-in-Shadows in particular comes near to Klo, sniffing at him and his wounds, then gives a headbutt to his shoulder that causes him to stagger back a step. "Let us... speak no more of it."
It takes no more than ten minutes to navigate the switchback up to the top, and that only so long due to the care for the steps and the hooved mounts. From a hundred feet up, you look back down at your trail; the bodies of the lizard-folk are already nearly invisible on the snowy ground below. On the horizon you can still make out a smudge of distant color that might be the market, and afternoon light glinting on the thin silver thread of the river that you had followed to reach the market.
Ahead of you... you are in trees again, though the evergreen trees that you stood and fought among, below, have given way to dead and bare deciduous trees. The ground here seems mostly flat, and the path is still plainly visible-- it arches, a space of cleared snow, between spidery dead trees, and a hedge of some sort of shrub that is still blossoming despite the snow, with startling red flowers. Occasionally a broken fence-post appears, just regular and inorganic enough to show that they are indeed posts and not random stumps; the path disappears ahead into the white haze of falling snow and weak afternoon sunlight.
Mav seems pleased at the sight of the red flowers, reaching out to touch a blossom in a caressing fashion, then drawing her hand back. "A good omen, I think. The Mother is pleased with us."
Lydd seems somewhat less sanguine, scanning the trees ahead with her bow drawn, then relaxing somewhat. "Still. We should travel as long as the light permits."
"Yes, yes," murmurs Mav, leaning close to breathe in the scent of the scarlet flowers. "Lead on, brave Lydd."
Lydd grunts to herself, turning to count heads and make sure everyone made it up the cliff intact, and then she starts a brisk walking at the front. The battle below seems to have raised her opinion of Klo and Knute both, as men of the wild or warriors or both-- for she gestures to them. "Will you walk with me, and scout a place to rest ourselves?"
Despite her presumed shared blood with Tassidar as a fellow elf, she does not extend this offer to him.
Rikka resettles herself gingerly on her mule, riding close to Halla. Mav rides her white palfrey like a woman half-asleep, her eyes nearly shut. The other elves bring up the rear behind them.
Tassidar is content to ride near Mav. He has been mostly quiet as his mind works out some of what he has observed. He ponders that the inhabitants of this place were engaged in a never ending battle for their immensely powerful patrons. What had Mav been doing to the skull exactly? Feeding on its essence? Transferring power to the Mother herself?
He had fancied himself a woodsman of sorts, and he was to a point, but he knew he wasn't Klo or Knute's equal. The young prince had learned quite a bit about himself since his decision the travel to the north. Camping and sporting in the woods of Kyonin was not like surviving in the wilds of the North.
He reflected on his magical talents, he could feel himself growing in power as a wizard. Dreams of leading from the front would have to be let go, for now at least, until his power grew.
Fables of not eating foods offered by fey troubled him. He hadn't seen anything wrong with the food offered them in the market, but the hearts of sentient beings? Was this how his people found themselves transformed and trapped here?
Tassidar had been relieved when his fellows had not agreed to share in the meal of the freshly plucked heart. He had refrained from speaking out. He remembered his faux pas with the Satyr and didn't wish to repeat it.
Despite his trepidations he still found this experience exhilarating. He felt like he was a part of something and at least a few of the humans were accepting him.
As he watched Knute move off he resolved something within himself once more.
"Let us... speak no more of it."
Kló nods and moves on, readying for the assent of the cliff. Before they move out, though, he finds a moments with the Hofnites and their elven companion.
"I do not know what she did with that skull, but it was not natural. I will ask her about it."
On their assent, he does just that. He rides up next to Mav and get right to the point.
"As we skinned that drake, you did something to its skull." His demeanor is as blunt as ever, though obviously more out of curiosity than indolence. "What was it?"
And when it comes time to scout, Kló gives a reserved grin, looking over to Knute. "Come, great northern hunter. Let's see what an elven hunter can teach us."
Knute shrugs off any offers of more healing, "I'm fine, really; there are only a few scratches left, and they'll be forgotten by the morning."
Upon hearing what the linnorm statue does, the ranger smiles broadly. Wow, this could be so useful in this strange land or tracking creatures outside Hofn! He looks at the rest in the party, to see if any others wish to lay claim to the statue.
Knute mirrors Klo's grin as Lydd calls them both forward to help scout. She might not be warm to me, but at least she's not so awkward now. "Aye, as well as what we might teach her." Knute motions for Glorn to follow Lydd's lead and begins looking for good places to hunker down.
When he has a chance Tassidar gives his thoughts on the gear, making sure to include Baletooth.
"Well the clubs and javelins are ordinary, but the greataxe is a masterful creation as is the cold iron dagger. The bone scale mail armor has magical enhancement for defensive qualities, but it also has an enchantment making it an unholy reliquary for Ragadahn. It won't harm you if you choose to don it Fisher, but it is effectively a large unholy symbol for a power hostile to us."
"The wands are useful. The first as we know is a lesser wand of healing with 24 charges when we found it. The second is a wand of endure elements with 37 charges, which I believe could come in very handy. You see it is the spell I used to remain warm in deep snow even in a blizzard. We could use it to help protect the children from the elements when we return to Hofn."
"I can't use the scrolls ass they are divine in nature, perhaps one of the women can, or you Fisher?"
"The elixir allows one to breathe fire like a dragon."
"Now this tooth is most interesting. As you can see it depicts a tiny linnorm. When the command word is uttered, the Linnorm comes to life as a 1" creature and moves as its owner instructs it as per a sensor eye from a prying eye spell. The linnorm remains animated for up to 9 hours or until it returns to the bearer and replays what it saw, at which point will revert back to this tooth form for 1 day."
"This pile of coins, gems and jewelry is worth about 400 gold pieces in my estimation."
Tassidar-- she certainly seems to be draining something from the dead drake. Vital energy of some sort, perhaps? Maybe a variation on a necromantic spell? Whether that is fueling the Mother, you couldn't say.
Klo is less circumspect about his curiosity: he simply asks Mav, blunt and graceless. The elf lady merely laughs at his straightforwardness, a small noise like delicate chiming bells.
"I forget how mortals can be," she says with an amused smile. "So-- honest. I took secrets from it, manling: secrets, and memories. Now I know what it is to ride the air here in the First World, to feel my wings filled with air like a ship's sails, to hunt and to slay and to dwell in deep cold waters. It is a delightful experience."
She tosses her head a moment, her indigo-dark hair drifting in the chill air. "And I have learned something of who sent them, but I think it is best we do not speak of that on the open road. Once we make camp."
As regards the flowers Knute saw: they are not like anything he has ever seen in the waking world. A surreptitious glance at them reveals they have quite thorny stems, but are surely not roses. They smell fragrant despite the cold air-- a scent that brings to mind warm summer days, the juice of freshly-trodden grass, the sweetness of mead on the tongue. (Faintly, beneath that sweetness, there is a scent as of rot.)
After about an hour of traipsing through the trees, Knute sees a spot ahead that he thinks would make a pleasant campsite-- a wide clearing just off the road, a jumble of rocks twice the height of a man rising on one side of it that would serve as something of a wind-break, a tangle of dead fallen trees not too far that would provide handy firewood. It lacks fresh water, but is still a reasonable camping place... he thinks...
Lydd weighs it over sharply when he points it out, then shakes her head. Wordlessly, she points at what he had first taken to be a pile of branches at the base of the rocks; another dozen paces and Klo and Knute can both see those are bones, piled ramshackle at the base of the rocks-- and in some cases, seeming to stick out of the solid stone like the stone had swallowed up their original owner.
"Stay on the path as we go by," Lydd says quietly, and signals to those riding behind the scouts to do the same.
Another half-hour elapses, and Klo hears the trickle of running water ahead. He keeps an eye out-- and the shadows are certainly starting to lengthen, lending some urgency to the task-- but he sees a stream running near to the path, closer, and then converging with it, running to the other side underneath a small wooden footbridge, the planks of it frosted white with ice. But there's a little clearing here, and a small hollow which might serve to shield a fire, and several old, flat stumps with snowcaps on them-- perhaps the original source of wood for the bridge. It seems like as good a place as any, and better than some, given the little light remaining.
Lydd looks it over and gives a nod, turning back and loping back to tell Mav.
"Knute?! Knute, is that you? Oh, thank the gods! Knute, please, please, Halvar's fallen! His leg is broken! Come help!"
Kló is midstride in a circuit of the potential campsite, looking for subtle tracks or trails when his head suddenly snaps up, dark eyes searching intensely into the woods off the path. On his face, emotions play ... confusion, fear, anger.
”DA!” the big man roars furiously as he lumbers off the safety of the path and into the woods, his face twisted in wrath, ”I’M COMING!”
Can I reroll with my Karl trait? If so
No matter how convincing the sound of the voice, you know it cannot possibly be your mother-- and you remember the warnings you have heard, to stay on the path no matter what might try to lure you off it.
Klo seems taken in by the trickery-- the big man bursts into motion, clearly ready to race into the woods. Want to try and stop him?
Knute briefly believes the calls from the forest, but shakes his head as he realizes it cannot be. Seeing Klo tense to run off into the forest, the ranger reaches out to grab him, trying to restrain the bigger man. "No, Klo! Whatever you heard, it's some enchantment! Can what you heard possibly be here?" Knute shouts, hoping to startle Klo and alert the others that something is wrong.
Knute reaches out and grabs the big man, managing to get both arms around Klo's middle before Klo can react. Lydd, a few steps back down the trail, looks back in alarm at the kerfluffle. "MAV!"
Lydd closes the gap immediately again and joins Knute in physically grabbing Klo. "Hold him!" she says urgently to Knute. "Do not let him get into the trees!"
Knute, of course, was doing his best to do that already.
Knute holds back the struggling Klo, panting, "What you heard isn't real, Klo!" As Lydd joins him, Knute attempts to restrain the man further, and says, "You mustn't run into the forest!"
Knute, with Lydd's help, pushes Klo to the ground and attempts to pin him while saying, "It's not real; we're in Alfheimr; we can't leave the path...", and otherwise trying to calm the ensorceled Hofnite.
Klo looks momentarily furious that Knute dares to hold him down, and grits his teeth in a feral snarl up at the other man... but then he blinks, his vision clearing of the anger... well, maybe leaving the anger to redirect, on whatever spirit tried to trick him.
"I'll teach them to use my father's voice," Klo growls.
Lydd shakes her head. "How? Run off the path to the voices... you will not find them. And you will probably not find the path again, either. Let it go: you will be happier for it."
Mav comes up, drawn by Lydd's urgent cry, but she slows when she sees that the crisis moment has passed.
"Yes, there are many things in this land that will seek to lure you. Do not listen. There may be times it is necessary to leave the path, but when doing so, there are precautions to take, first. Know that it is the nature of most things in the First World to be false."
Mav considers her own words a moment, then waves a hand in a sorta-kinda gesture. "A strong word, perhaps. Rather that... so little is constant, here, that 'truth' is a concept of some irrelevance. The path, the road, is the domain of... order, or perhaps reality..."
Lydd brushes some slush and dirt from her knees. "May we set up camp before the philosophy, Mav?"
The dusky elf-woman chuckles. "Lydd is also a bastion of reality. Isn't she charming? Let us unsaddle the mounts."
Halla drops clumsily off of Bim, dispirited. Another night on the road, another day of the children getting farther away from them with every step. How far is it to the elves' home? And even if they can provide help, how long will it take them to trek all the way back to pick up an even colder trail? Were they foolish to trust the elves in the first place? Perhaps their only intention is to delay the rescue party until it is too late; the ork-head said they were taking orders from an elf, after all.
Tassidar had been deep in thought, his mind was trying to calculate all possible outcomes of their current predicament. When the commotion broke out he followed Mav, but by the time they arrived the matter had been resolved.
he listens closely to Mav's words.
Then he adds his own while unloading the mounts.
"Begiling is the word that I think describes what I have experienced in the First World thus far. It is charming and enchanting, sometimes in a deceptive way. This land woos, captivates, bewitches, spellbinds, dazzles, hypnotizes, mesmerizes, enthrals and seduces simultaneously. It is beautifully dangerous in its delights and promise."
"I can see the weakness of trying to be ridged and concrete in a place such as this. Like a stout lighthouse perched on a rock in stormy seas, the chaotic and ever changing sea will eventually hammer and erode it away. There must be advantages in remaining adaptible, and learning to join the flow or at least float with it at times."
Tassidar gets no sense that Mav is lying or deceiving them about the nature of the dangers of the First World. She smiles indulgently at his words of needing to adapt. Mav settles herself crosslegged on a blanket, watching with her whiteless eyes as the other elves, and the Hofn-ites, work to set up camp for the night.
The elves do the normal tasks one would expect for making a camp-- laying out their bedrolls, rubbing down their mounts-- but in among the mundane tasks you see others: Lydd pulls out two nails from a belt pouch, and drives one into the trunk of a tree at the start of your camp, and another into a post of the bridge at the other end of your camp. Cai-- a green-eyed, black-haired elf man-- takes care to hang a string of delicate-looking, tiny silver bells, from each nail, and the fourth elf in the company drops coins into the burbling stream.
A fire is lit against the encroaching dusk. Though the snow continues to fall, for those of Hofn this would still qualify as mild winter weather-- the snowflakes are fat and fluffy, drifting slow to earth in still air rather than being driven by bitter, icy winds. The temperature is brisk, but the good furs worn by those of Hofn are more than sufficient, especially when combined with a cheerfully blazing flame. Mav and the others seem unbothered by the cold-- only Lydd is dressed in furs, and hers seem to be decoration as much as for warmth.
When the fire is blazing well, Mav tells the elf Cai to fetch something from her palfrey's saddlebags; it looks to be a small iron cup with a little trellis and stand. But Mav says a word of seidr, and the cup expands to the size of a goodly pot, with chains to hold it in the flame.
"The heart, Lydd," Mav says. The elf-woman uses a sharp white knife to start cutting slivers from the drake heart into the pot, filled with melted snow-water. The elves add fresh garden vegetables-- chopped carrots, onions, potatoes-- from their packs (perhaps you weren't the only ones to visit Sula's booth). Throughout, Mav keeps slowly shaving pieces of the wyrm's heart into the stew, her eyes focused on her task and a look of concentration on her face. When the last chunk of the heart-muscle is tossed in, the elf-woman looks briefly weary, weaving a little on her feet. She touches at her forehead with hands still dark from clotted drake's blood, leaves a smear unknowingly on her skin.
"Well," she says brightly. "That should do. Eat, if you have a mind to-- you should share in the reward of your work, earlier."
The other elves waste no time-- they break out mess gear, mugs of carved wood or worked metal, and scooping out cupfuls of the stew for themselves. Mav sinks back onto her blanket, her chin sunk to her chest as if in deep thought, or weariness.
Lydd guzzles down her mug's worth of stew with gusto. "Strength of our enemies!" she says when she has finished the bowl, and wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand. "It is good."
The elves politely gesture for you to partake of the stew, if you wish it.
Rikka hesitates, looking from the stew to the others. In a low voice, she murmurs to the others, "Drakes are vicious creatures... but stories say they have minds just as men do. Are the rest of you going to partake?"
Lydd paces restlessly after her bowlful of stew, seemingly eager to go take on another drake on her own should one appear, never mind her pregnant belly or the long day so far. "I will take the midnight watch," she announces, at which Mav nods indulgently.
"If you feel a watch is necessary."
"I do," Lydd counters. "I do not count us safe until we are within sight of the Tree."
"Yes, yes," Mav says, and waves a hand as if to say Lydd should do whatsoever she thinks best. Mav pulls out a tattered-looking book from her saddlebags, gaze wandering the group until she finds Tassidar.
"Cousin, would you care to compare our understandings of the high arts?"
Switching back to Sylvan, Mav adds on, her gaze sweeping the group: "I have a gift for each of you. You are far from home, and this world is dangerous.... more so to the uninformed. Knowledge is a weapon as sure as Lydd's bow or a... fish kleaver." She smiles a little. "Shall we give gifts, one to another?"
Hunts-in-Shadows growls faintly at this, her tail twitching side to side from the spot she's appropriated next to Klo's place-to-sleep, but says nothing.
The stew smells warm and delicious.
I heard a story around the campfire about a girl taken inside the mountain, Maeve warns. When her mother came for her, she had eaten only the seeds of a pomegranate, but eating their food meant she could never return to the outside world.
Then we are all already imprisoned, Halla reasons. We ate berries and at the market. There is no call to starve with the harm already done. What is a pomegranate?
A red fruit, Maeve answers testily. A dragon's flesh is different. They are magical creatures. It may ... change you.
I am already changed.
Halla accepts the mug of stew with an apologetic shrug to Rikka. "Do you eat ham?"
Halla reacts warily to Mav's suggestion. She is tired and overwhelmed and has already lost track of who might owe a favor to whom. Does the very fact that the elves are taking them to their home count as a favor? If so, does the Hofnites' assistance in fighting the lizardmen count as repayment, or do the elves merely consider that they would not have been on the road to be attacked if not for the humans?
"You have already given us gifts enough, surely," she replies politely but guardedly, "merely by helping us find our children."
Kló had been quietly brooding since the incident on the path. Responding to anyone who approached with nods and gestures when possible, and as few words as he can manage when not. Only Knute receives more, by way of a sincerely-if-reluctantly-given thanks for intervening. And later, the stakes he helped drive into the frozen ground surely paid a great price for Kló’s dark mood.
At dinner, he watches Mav’s ritual with a mix of fascination and suspicion. ”This thing you do,” he rumbles, nodding to the soup, ”eating a being you’ve killed. Why do you do it? Is it symbolic? Or does it have power of some sort?” He makes a gesture that includes the Hofnites, ”Where we come from, there are few that eat other thinking creatures.”
At mention of gift-swapping, Kló looks uneasy. So far, everything gin this place came at an unexpected price. He indicates Halla as he responds to Mav, ”She is right. You are helping already. Plus, what would I give in return?” He nudges his bulging pack, stuffed with winter travel gear, ”You don’t much look to need an extra pair of snowshoes.”
Knute watches the elves' camp preparations with interest. We wouldn't have known to do nail bells to trees and such - are these superstitions or cautious preparations?
The ranger watches the drake-stew being made, and is slightly queasy when Rikka says the creature has a mind like humans do. "Killing it is one thing. Eating it...?" Knute mumbles and trails off. The ranger could imagine doing such a thing in desperation, on a long hunt, but these are not such dire circumstances. He shakes his head as he is offered the stew, opting to eat his dry rations and fondly recall the hot meal he had at the market.
When Mav mentions gifts, Knute is wary. "I agree with my companions - we have little to offer, and you've given us much already." He smiles to ease the tension. "And watching each others' backs on the road is surely a great gift we give each other, right?"
Rikka smiles crookedly at Halla's question regarding the ham. "I do," she says, and takes a cupful of the stew after Halla.
Mav smiles at Halla in an idly delighted fashion. "You are courteous like Rys is courteous," she chuckles. "The mouth moves; the eyes watch."
In response to Klo's question, Mav's seeming low-key amusement boils into a full laugh, like silver bells. "You ask me if it is symbol, or power: that is a false line, here. The symbol is the power, in the First World. All around you is symbol. This bridge, here: it is just a little footbridge, over a stream? If you like. It is also every bridge, from great dwarf-spans over chasms to the living wooden branches that exist in far-off Kyonin," (she indicates Tassidar with a wave of one hand when saying this) "to the great bridge they call the Irespan, built by giants, in a land called Varisia...
"If you were powerful enough in the ways of this world-- if I were-- then I could make that bridge lead to anywhere I desired, for that is the nature of a bridge. The symbol of a bridge. But I am not so skilled.
"But in the way you mean it: yes, there is power. Is there not power when you eat a dumb beast also? The power to strengthen your limbs, to fill your belly and to continue surviving yourself? That is power. And I know of the ways of the waking world, but they do not constrain me."
Mav smiles full and white at Klo's question of what he might trade. "Snowshoes, no. But something that is not in your pack. A memory. You are a warrior, or so you were today.... I could take the memory of your first kill, if you thought you could spare it."
When Klo raises the question of hunting, Lydd shakes her head in a warning fashion. "It would not be wise. You would see a fine game-elk, and loose an arrow at it... and find you had offended a thinking creature, like this elk here." She points at Tellignos, nosing at the snow for some green twigs.
(Tellignos noses at some green twigs poking through the snow, as if to unknowingly prove her point.)
"And off the path all manner of things might find you. You might fish from the bridge, if you wish, though you should leave a gift to the river if you do. And know what you're going to do if a fish speaks to once you've caught it." Lydd grins, seeming to find this thought very funny.
Lydd seems to be ignoring Knute-- sitting on the far side of the fire from him, making no answer to his talk. But Cai, who occupies himself spinning little balls of colored light over his fingers, smiles faintly at the hunter's words.
"Not quite as good as the gifts traded on Jol, no? But certainly. We watch, you watch, all is well."
"You ask me if it is symbol, or power: that is a false line, here. The symbol is the power, in the First World. All around you is symbol. This bridge, here: it is just a little footbridge, over a stream? If you like. It is also every bridge, from great dwarf-spans over chasms to the living wooden branches that exist in far-off Kyonin," (she indicates Tassidar with a wave of one hand when saying this) "to the great bridge they call the Irespan, built by giants, in a land called Varisia...
The name catches Maeve's attention. "Varisia? Tá tú ann?" she asks Mav.
Kló listens to Mav’s answers, a constant scowl on his face the only insight to his thoughts. Though admittedly it’s the same scowl he’s worn since the path incident earlier in the day. As he listens, he begins getting out some of his own gear. Over one of the camp fires, he rests the greataxe taken from the lizard-men. While he listens to Mav, its blade grows hotter and hotter, eventually reaching an untouchable heat, at which point he takes it from the fire and scrubs it with snow from outside a few times. Then he returns to the fire, sets the axe-blade back across it, draws out some of Sula’s vegetables, and begins cutting and cooking them on the now-cleaned-and-heated axe blade.
Finally, as the vegetables heat up, he looks across at Mav. ”What seems a long time ago, I left my village to find game for a festival. I misjudged an incoming winter storm and was forced to find shelter. With nothing but my own frustration to keep me company, I explored my shelter. What I found was the warmest, most green spring day I’d ever imagined.” He taps the floor with the end of his knife. ”This place. You know what else I found? Entrapment. A goat-man ambushed me and stole my will from me, for no reason other than I was on his land. There was no warning. There was no trade or mention of deals. I didn’t know where I was, and had no way of knowing what that meant.” His voice has become more and more heated as he speak, growing to a quiet fury like the heat of the greataxe. ”And now I am to understand I have lost YEARS of my life.”
He struggles futilely to control his building fury, his dark eyes holding Mav’s. ”Everything we see seems to have hidden dangers. Every creature we meet seems to have layers of designs on us, with few exceptions. I have lost years of memories of my home … my father. No offense to you, Mav, as you have been helpful so far, but I am … overly cautious of trading what memories I do have for unknown gifts from this place.”
Lapsing into silence, he tests the heating food with his knife. Finding it still unfinished, he looks to Hunts-in-Shadows as he switches to Skald.
”I have no meat for you, he shrugs, ”though you are welcome to my vegetables … meager as they are.”
Kló looks around the quiet camp, making sure they are not overheard before he continues in Skald.
"If bridges in this place are as much symbol as object. Then with enough power maybe we can make a bridge take us to cut off the path of the orks, no? All we'd need to know is where they go and how to gain the right amount of power."
He looks at his fellow child-followers, "It's worth considering, at least."
Tassidar feels the hair raising on the back of his neck
The elven wizard didn't know what to call this, blood magic perhaps? Dark magic? Did the creatures here consume each other's essence the way demons and devils sought the souls of mortals? The drake was undoubtably edible, the creature alien enough Tassidar didn't think of it as cannibalism, but the thought of eating it for pleasure didn't sit well with him. What troubled him the most was what the act of consuming it might mean for his companions. . . If it wasn't too late already.
Hells, even the vegetables here could " be" someone, this place is madness incarnate.
Tassidar politely declines the offer of the stew.
Mav looks amused, but not offended, at his declining of the stew. "Suit yourself", she says lightly. "The ways of your world are hard to lose, I suppose...."
Tassidar drew upon his time a court to keep his response equally light "I suppose they are."
Later Tassidar quietly offers Klo and Knute some of the fresh food he bought at the market pointedly reserving the meat for the fighting men.
Seeing the tattered book in Mav's hand piqued the young wizards interest. He responds in kind.
"My instructors advised me that an open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded. What sort of exchange do you propose? I am reluctant to lay my mind open to that which I do not yet understand. How does one choose what memories to share, how does one control what they reveal? What sort of bond comes of it afterward?"
As he spoke his thoughts Tassidar felt the danger of a fly speaking with a spider in its web. Mav was connected to this world, he was not. Mav had said "your world" making It clear she had left Tassidar's behind. If she was ever a part of it. He wondered if he would ever reach home again as thrilling as this adventure was. He was mindful he would need to navigate without causing offense.
Kló looks around the quiet camp, making sure they are not overheard before he continues in Skald.
"If bridges in this place are as much symbol as object. Then with enough power maybe we can make a bridge take us to cut off the path of the orks, no? All we'd need to know is where they go and how to gain the right amount of power."
He looks at his fellow child-followers, "It's worth considering, at least."
Tassidar reguards Klo with respect.
"I believe you are correct in your assumption. If we were powerful enough here we could do such things. I believe Mav may be working towards that goal. I am trying to make observations in hopes of reaching a better understanding, but In any case, I don't believe we can hope to grow in power fast enough to save the children and return them home to their parents while they still lived in our world. Time flows and passes differently here. You have no need of such a reminder Klo."
He touches his chin, his eyes distantly calculating.
"We must tread carefully down any path we choose. I feel there is great danger in our ignorance of this place. Can you remind me again of what your elders warn about the first world?"
Mav looks at Halla with a blink and then a shrug. "I'm sorry, that is a human tongue unknown to me, child. Varisian, I take it?"
***
Mav listens politely to Klo's resentful words of his losses and frustrations since arriving here. When he finishes, she shrugs, and waves one dusk-skinned hand, not exactly a dismissal but in a manner that suggests he has said nothing that surprises her.
"Your story could be echoed by many in the First World, I think. There are dozens... perhaps hundreds... of gateways through which people fall... your little rat there, for instance," she gestures at Baletooth, curled up on the top of Klo's packs and snoring under his fine hat, "I doubt he was born in this land. Probably, like you, he wound up here by accident, and probably it changed him. That is what this land... the world of spirits... does, to those who are only mortal. If you have lost years of your life, and yet found yourself among allies once more, then you are doing better than many, who might find themselves turned into trees, or statues, or changed so that they have no memory at all of who they were before this place. One adapts, or one does not survive."
Mav settles back against her palfrey's saddlebags, seeming willing to leave the topic there unless Klo would press further on it.
As for Hunts-in-Shadows... the cat gives Klo a look at his offering of vegetables, and a human-sounding sniff. "There is... stew yet. I would... eat that, unless you... forbid."
Not everything in Alfheimr is necessarily a spirit-- Baletooth, for instance, seems to be a reassuringly flesh-and-blood creature, just unnaturally intelligent for a rat-- but judging by what you saw in the market, everything that lives here long enough takes on some part of the spirit world, even if it was not their original nature.
***
Mav smiles brightly at Tassidar's elven words and responds in the same tongue.
Switching back to Skald, Mav laughs merrily at Tassidar's reluctance over the idea of memories traded away. "It does not hurt," she says with a teasing smile. "It is in fact an excellent way to get rid of that which may pain you. You may pick the memory you wanted to give, but I do not care for boring ones. A memory with-- how shall we say-- zest to it? Your first kiss, perhaps," her eyes briefly dance in Halla's direction, "or the memory of the first time you ever cast a spell? As for how you control it: you would have to trust me, that I would only take what was offered. There is no long-term bond created."
***
Rikka cautiously helps herself to some soup after Halla drinks. "...good soup," she mutters as she sips at her cupful. A few minutes later she blinks, twisting to peer into the darkness that is settling thick and heavy outside the ring of the fire. "...hm."
In a low voice to the other Hofnites she murmurs, "My vision got sharper... I guess as a result of the stew. I'll take the first watch if nobody else wants it-- I don't know if my eyes will stay like this, so better to get some use out of it. And I think we should certainly post a watch."
Briefly, Rikka touches Halla's shoulder. "Thank you for the prayers of healing, earlier-- I can still remember the feel of the acid, but you eased it."
The elf Cai is idly conjuring up tricks of light: illusory roses of fire that he plucks out of the bonfire, which become birds of fire to flutter around his shoulders before taking off to the night sky above. Lydd paces around the perimeter of the campfire, seemingly restless and unwilling to sit and chat. Mav and the other elf, Tel, are languidly watching Cai's illusions with mild applause for especially fancy ones. With the early sunset and late sunrise of winter, it will probably be well more than eight hours before there is light enough to travel again... assuming the season stays as winter.
Mav looks at Halla with a blink and then a shrug. "I'm sorry, that is a human tongue unknown to me, child. Varisian, I take it?"
Maeve's excitement dims a little as Halla rephrases the question in Skald. "You have seen this giants' bridge?"
"If bridges in this place are as much symbol as object. Then with enough power maybe we can make a bridge take us to cut off the path of the orks, no? All we'd need to know is where they go and how to gain the right amount of power."
"If she cannot do it, what chance have we?" Halla shrugs fatalistically. "But the elves come every Jól. Perhaps Rys has the power to build these bridges. When they left Hofn, we did not follow the elves' tracks to that cave, only the orks'. They must know another way."
Kló sits transfixed, staring at their mysterious hostess as if her response gave far more insight than simply the words themselves. Finally, he responds, cautiously but ernest.
”Maybe I am over-cautious,” he mutters, trying to find more meaning in her words. ”Maybe we have more to offer one another than simple gifts. Time will tell.”
He continues watching her, but is interrupted by the big cat, at whom he scowls, then sakes his head. ”Your are here by your choice, Hunts-in-Shadows. What you eat here is also your choice.”
He grins, ”… so long as it isn’t one of us.”
***
Kló can’t help but listen in on the exchange about taking memories. ”Tell me, Mav. What are we, if not the product of our memories? Even the bad ones. This is how we grow, no? Remove one fish from a school—even the small, sickly fish—and it’s never the same school again.”
He shrugs, his leathers creaking, ”Maybe it’s a bad metaphor.”
***
Kló nods to Rikka, ”I will take second.” He points to where the rat already snoozes, and grins,”He will accompany me.”
”Can you remind me again of what your elders warn about the first world?”
Kló relays all he’s heard about this strange place.
Not everything in Alfheimr is necessarily a spirit-- Baletooth, for instance, seems to be a reassuringly flesh-and-blood creature, just unnaturally intelligent for a rat-- but judging by what you saw in the market, everything that lives here long enough takes on some part of the spirit world, even if it was not their original nature.
At the doubt expressed by both Tassidar and Halla that they can gain enough power to shape bridges to suit their needs, Kló shrugs, ”Maybe. Maybe not. But with few options, every idea has merit. Plus, I refuse to believe her limits are ours. We are not her.”
Mav looks pensive and says nothing for a few seconds. "A long time ago," she says at last. "When I was... younger. It is an impressive sight."
Hunts-in-Shadows rewards the leave-to-eat with a rough lick of Klo's hand; her tongue is very scratchy. Then, she laps up a bowl of soup; Mav and the elves seem to take it quite in stride that the cat should have access to the stew. After supping of the soup, Hunts says in tones of some amusement to Klo, "Yes, I will watch... with you... when you name me... correctly. I am no he-cat."
At the topic of memories, Mav smiles, her teeth very white in the flickering fire's light, her hair black as pitch. "What is so great about staying the same? Why should your school of fish want to be the same school? Especially if it could be something else-- something happier. I am sure we all have things we might wish to forget... here? You can. You can forget anything. The waking world offers no such freedom."
She yawns delicately. "But do as you will. I force no bargains: I only offer them."
Cai crafts an image of a rose-made-of-fire, that rises out of the bonfire and blooms as tall as a man, with leaves of light curling, uncurling... he snaps his fingers, and it becomes smoke, hanging frozen a second before the breeze dissipates it.
The snow has stopped falling; the temperature hovers a few degrees below freezing, but for the Ulfen-born, with furs and a fire to warm them, it is not so bad.
Kló smiles around a mouthful of hot (but tasteless) vegetables at Hunts, then he points a boot over at Baletooth. "I meant him." His small grin returns, "But I will be sure to remember that."
Mav's response gets a neutral shrug, "We are always changing ... every moment. That's not the same thing as removing parts that make you what you are." He makes a 'at least that's what I think' face, but doesn't feel inclined to discuss it further.
It's been a long day, and his watch will come soon.
Halla settles into her bedroll, thinking of the giants' bridge in Varisia she has never seen.
If we could walk over that and come out in Varisia! Maeve remarks with enthusiasm.
Better than Hofn, Halla returns. What if we can only get out of here by wanting to be someplace else badly enough ... and we are stranded here forever because I don't really want to go back to Hofn?
This place is no worse than many others, Maeve replies with a shrug.
It gives me a headache, Halla complains. Everything changing the way it does, time rushing and stretching the way it does. Nothing here is solid.
She goes to sleep thinking that one needn't cross a bridge if one can swim....
Tassidar pulls out his own spellbook, a fine travelling tome crafted with distinct Kyonin style binding.
"It would not be wise. You would see a fine game-elk, and loose an arrow at it... and find you had offended a thinking creature, like this elk here."
Knute looks disturbed at the notion that he may inadvertently kill an intelligent creature when he just meant to hunt game. "Is there a way we can tell whether a creature is more than just an animal? Short of speaking to it, that is." He doesn't look like he expects a positive answer, and seems to brood on the response, whatever it is.
"Not quite as good as the gifts traded on Jol, no? But certainly. We watch, you watch, all is well."
Knute nods at Cai's words while setting up his bedroll and stowing some of his gear. At the mention of Jol he glances at Lydd, but opts not to bother her.
Seeing Klo offer Hunts some of his rations, Knute does the same for Glorn. "I'm sorry I was unable to hunt much today - I also didn't know I should be so careful in what game I stalk. Hopefully I'll have a better chance tomorrow. Until then, you may, of course, have some of my dried meats and vegetables." Knute looks thoughtful for a moment, then turns to regard Glorn and Hunts. "If you have advice on distinguishing prey from fellow creatures, or what the usual...rules... of hunting are here, I'd love to hear it."
Knute stays out of the discussion of memories. Mav seems to be asking for only important or unique memories; what if those turn out to be important later? When the discussion is over, he nudges Klo. "Wake me when you're going off your watch; I'll take third."
Tassidar
Mav smiles graciously and takes Tassidar's book with careful hands, turning the pages with interest and almost hunger, perhaps.
Knute
Lydd makes a 'so-so' gesture with one hand, crouched on a rock and looking out over the stream. "There are ways. But they are not quick to learn. Live here long enough, and you--" she seems to hesitate, then gives a small shrug. "--may come to learn them." It seems like that might not have been the initial way she intended to finish that sentence.
Glorn listens to the translation of Knute's words of the food, and blinks his big whiteless eyes slowly. He makes a glorping noise in his throat and sticks his frog-tongue out to test the dried meat. The giant amphibian makes a noise that sounds somewhat disappointed, and ribbits out a request which, when translated, is that the meat be moistened in water first, which is easily enough accomplished. (Tellignos and the mules are content with vegetables.)
Hunts answers Knute's words, though-- with a low, throaty laugh. "You think... we care here," she chuckles. "Hunt... what I can. I do not... care if it has words... or not."
And on that cheerful note, much of the heavy conversation for the night ceases, as people bundle down into their furs. Cai continues to make illusions for a time, but eventually ceases. Overhead, the now-unseen snow-clouds must be dispersing, for stars can be visible in slices in the sky-- bright, blazing stars with strange constellations that move through their heavenly dance faster than they do back home.
Cai and Tel lay down, quite close to each other. Mav busies herself with Tassidar's spellbook for some time before returning it to him, and sits cross-legged by the fire, staring distantly into its depths. Lydd stalks around the perimeter of the camp for the first half of the night, silent as an owl, glimpsed only in the occasional glint of firelight off her hair, or when she comes back in to add another piece of wood to the fire.
Rikka's watch passes without event, other than that she can hear a faint, sweet piping far off in the trees which fades in and out. When she gets tired, she wakes Klo, who takes over-- Lydd is still awake, and Mav is sitting upright but doesn't exactly seem awake. Rikka tells him of the music and then goes to sleep.
Klo's Watch
During Klo's watch, he hears the music a time or two, early on; it evokes a sad, desolate yearning, as if it encapsulated everything Klo can recall losing, from things as trivial to a favorite knife to as bone-shaking as the realization he is still coping with of having lost two decades of time. He feels no compulsion to race out to the sound of the piping, but instead a deep melancholy grief, such that he finds himself on the verge of tears several times, though neither Lydd nor Mav nor Baletooth appear to notice his threatening emotion. Baletooth does not seem as effected-- he can hear the music, but says it just sounds 'sad' and leaves it at that.
Eventually the music falls quiet-- and a deep, unnatural silence takes its place in the forest, as even the distant sounds of cracking twigs and hooting night-birds go quiet. Only the burbling brook continues its noise, but even that seems muted. The silence seems to Klo like the tense silence of the woods when a predator moves through them; Klo remains on edge for long minutes but nothing happens. Ultimately the normal night-time sounds resume; Klo finds his eyelids drooping, and shakes Knute's shoulder.
Knute's Watch
Lydd reluctantly takes a flat spot by the fire as Knute takes watch, seeming unable to hold off sleep anymore and yawning hugely as she settles down. Mav remains seated upright, gazing unblinking into the flames, which are eerily reflected in her whiteless eyes. Perhaps an hour into Knute's watch, he hears the sounds of hooves upon the road, slowly growing louder; just when he is beginning to think he should wake the others Mav stirs. Her dark head snaps towards the sound, and she rises swiftly, moving towards one of the trees where Lydd drove in nails earlier. She touches at the nail and motions Knute to silence and stillness, hissing: "Do not move. Do not speak. Pretend you are a rock. Do not move."
Mav herself stands rigidly frozen by the tree, unmoving. The sound gets louder, a hard tattoo of hooves on frozen earth. Knute feels the temperature dropping sharply around them. The fire seems to flicker and dim, and Knute can barely feel its warmth. From the creek, the sound of moving water falls away...
The hooves slow, becoming a walking pace rather than a gallop. At the corner of his vision, Knute can see a figure appear.... a horse and rider, the horse white as fresh snow, the rider clad in armor that glitters like thin ice. The rider's face cannot be seen beneath a blank-faced helm, but branching antlers jut from under the helm, and in the depths of the helmet are two blue-white stars that shine with malice.
The rider pulls back his horse a few feet from the tree-and-nail and Mav, and sits there gazing at the campfire's feeble flame and the sleeping figures. In his peripheral vision, Knute can make out Mav's breath steaming in rapid bursts into the frozen air around her. After an interminable time period, the rider pulls on the reins of his horse, and both rider-and-beast plunge off the path into the trees with a crunch of bracken and ice crystals. His passage around the camp can be heard, as he tramples low brush without care or concern. The horse wades the little stream, cracking newly-formed ice under its hooves, and then the galloping noise resumes, on the far side of the camp, moving away once more.
Mav stays where she is until the hooves can no longer be heard; then she exhales with a sag of her shoulders. "That could have gone worse," she says to Knute with forced lightness. She makes her way back to the fire and sits down again.
While he might have questions to ask, the rest of Knute's watch passes without incident. He finds himself yawning, and dawn shows no signs of breaking yet.
Meanwhile, the sleepers dream...
The world is large-- or he is small(er), again, as he has not been for years and years, since hitting the years of his growth when, while still a stripling, he began to tower over grown men. It's a long time since he looked up at the world rather than down on it, but all the same the trees loom large and the elves, seen at the Jol festivals of his childhood, are impossibly tall, graceful creatures around him, smiling at the bear's son. A heavy hand settles on his shoulder, reassuring and comforting. He twists, expecting to see his father, but it is a woman instead: also tall, broad-shouldered, copper-haired. She is no great beauty-- the right half of her face sags with no expression, that eye seeming dead to the world, and her hands are coarse and calloused, her waist thick. Klo has never seen her before... but in the logic of dreams, he knows who she is: his mother, died from the strain of bringing him into the world.
"You have grown," she says, with mild surprise. "I suppose time has passed. It is difficult to keep track... you look well, though. Have you a place for yourself? Have you a wife? Children? Did Björnin remarry? Ah-- you wouldn't know, would you..."
She looks sorrowful for a moment-- or at least, the left half of her face does-- and then she lifts her head, as if hearing her name being called. "Ah. I must be back to my work. Well, perhaps I can make something for you, my boy..."
She walks away, disappearing swiftly into the sea-mists that have risen from nowhere, that surround the small fishing boat where Klo suddenly sits (surely he was in a forest just a few seconds before?). Cold gray waves lap against the side of the boat, and the mist extends in all direction. Klo listens for the sound of the surf on the hard Ulfen coast, to tell him in which direction lies the shore, but the mist distorts and muffles sound, and try as he might, he cannot grasp his bearings. Even the sun is no help-- the day is gray, and above the mists the clouds hide the sun. The little boat rocks side to side, oars hanging uselessly in the locks, drifting, drifting... whether out to sea, or in to the dangers of the shore, Klo cannot tell.
Ahead-- a flash of white! He sees his prey: a white deer, which springs instantly away, bounding from rock to rock. Knute gives chase, his feet racing along the carpet of earth and pine needles. The stag bounds ahead, always just too fast to get a clear shot with his bow, but somehow Knute is able to keep pace with the majestic beast. Finally the chase leads to a sheer cliff, where the stag hesitates, torn between the drop and the pursuing hunter. Knute bursts out of the trees to the precipe's edge and realizes that somewhere in the chase, the stag became a doe, her belly heavy with offspring. A doe who is soon to birth is not prey that most hunters would take unless desperate, but Knute finds himself in a fever-grip of adrenaline and the hunt, where it matters not what he chases, only that he catches it.
He advances on the doe, who nervously turns and paces on the cliff's edge, her blue (?) eyes rolling towards him. "You must let me go!" she screams, in a human tongue, and before he can react she leaps from the edge, and plummets hundreds of feet to the ground below, landing with a sickening crunch of broken limbs.
there is power here, if you would take it says a voice with neither gender nor pitch, a voice he hears in his bones rather than with his ears. it costs, of course. of course it costs. but nothing that is free is truly worth having
He sees himself performing magics far beyond his studies so far: hurling lightning bolts, great orbs of fire, causing the heavens to rain down ice.... travelling vast distances with just a blink, reshaping the world around him with a gesture of his hands. He sees himself returning to Kyonin as a master of the arts, and his elders, his family, awed at his gifts.
would this not be worth much?
Abruptly the giantess notices her, frowning. A hand bigger than Njall the blacksmith's comes down towards her and picks her up as easily as if she were a child, and storm-gray eyes peer into Halla's intently.
the woman says in a deep basso voice.
The giantess seems lost in thought for a moment, but her hands effortlessly keep hold of Halla.
The big hand sets Halla back down carefully on the ground-- a great mountain, wreathed in ice and snow.
The dream fades into incoherency fom there-- images and colors, sounds and smells, too jumbled to be remembered on waking.
Knute shakes himself slightly, looking frightened and bewildered at the forest. "What was that?" He asks Mav. "And why did it stop near the nails?"
Though Knute wasn't sure he would be able to sleep after the horseman's visit, his eyes eventually droop. The ranger finds his way to Tassidar, and nudges the elf to rouse him. "Could you take the watch, please?" he whispers.
Mav gives Knute a little nod; in the fire's light she looks strained and weary.
"I know no other name for them but the cold riders. There are spirits both small and fell in this world, manling; some creatures that could be no more than the nuisance of a fly to you, and some which could slay us all with little trouble. That one was stronger than I am.
"The nails are protection. Made of what you call cold iron. One can mark a hearth with them, a place of safety... we are fortunate the rider had not enough interest in us to test the protection in earnest."
Mav takes a stick and pokes the fire higher, feeding more wood to it; she seems to crave the warmth despite the cold not having bothered her earlier. "I doubt he was connected to the Wyrm. I have not heard of the riders serving him; they are found sworn to the Count, more often. Probably simple bad luck he traveled the same road as us."
She offers a thin smile to Knute. "Rest as best you can. The rider will not return. Probably."
Knute goes ahead and wakes Tassidar, before settling down to troubled dreams...
Tassidar's watch is less eventful than his dreams. Distant blue-white lights move slowly, far off, in the trees... or he thinks they do... but when he rubs his eyes to peer harder in the cold night air, they are not there. Nothing approaches the camp during his watch (or if it does, he is not aware of it), and he hears no unusual sounds beyond that common for a wood in mid-winter.
Yet he is finding his alertness fading and the sky is still black.
Mav sits upright by the fire with her eyes closed, and her breathing shallow.
He dreamt of spells that wrote themselves in a strange amalgam of flowing Elven script and angular Skald runes, not on his spellbook's pages alone but on his own skin. He could feel the tiny cuts as an invisible quill's tip gouged furrows in his skin, he could see the blood welling in thin lines in the wake of the writing. He had felt his magic growing, but was it also the magic of this place infusing itself in him? Changing him like the elves he sat amongst now? He feared so.
A voice with neither gender nor pitch, he had heard in his bones rather than his ears had spoken to him.
" . . . There is power here, if you would take it. It costs, of course. Of course it costs. but nothing that is free is truly worth having . . ."
Was this Mav visiting his thoughts he wondered.
"Yes, but at what cost?" He tried to respond.
He then experiences himself performing magics far beyond his studies so far: hurling lightning bolts, great orbs of fire, causing the heavens to rain down ice.... travelling vast distances with just a blink, reshaping the world around him with a gesture of his hands. He sees himself returning to Kyonin as a master of the arts, and his elders, his family, awed at his gifts.
"Would this not be worth much?"
The young elf wizard relished the rush of magical energies at his fingertips, powers that usually required centuries of dedicated practice at his disposal was indeed intoxicating to him, but it was the return to Kyonin and the reaction of his family that moved him the most.
"If I walk that path in this land will I not also be trapped here? To gain such power here is to lose my place in my birth world isn't it?""
Tassidar focused his mind on the letter that had lead him to this place. It had been sent to his grandfather asking for magical assistance. How presumptuous he had been, Cai toyed with the same type of magic he was capable of and Mav claimed magic power, but not like his own. Were they sorcerers? Or was magic now innate for them as it was many if not most of the fey.
He wondered if the leader of Elven House who had penned the letter did so at a time like he was now. Stuck between worlds.
He was anxious about the children he was hopefully still following. They needed his help, their parents needed his help to return them to their world---His world.
Tassidar reflected on how rebellious he had thought himself, how ready he felt he was to leave his home and delve into an unpredictable outside world beyond the warded borders of the Emerald Realm. He realized now he would find it difficult if not impossible to shed the regimen of law, order and logic drilled into him by breeding and instruction of his upbringing. His feelings of loyalty, morality, honesty were out of sink with this place. His family may never know what had happened to him. He might return to court to find only grand nieces and nephews whom he had never know left to greet him his parents long dead, like Fisher's. What if he was already trapped here!?
Still part of him felt exhilarated, liberated---he was in the First World! What an amazing journey. What an adventure! If only his tutors could see him now.
He started to laugh out loud, but caught himself. He had set out to a small berg named Hofn. He had never laid eyes on it, but he had slept in a tree with a tree family, fought pirate rats with vegetable allies and seen a hag with a stolen child. How ironic.
The thought of the hag sent a chill up his spine. It was a reminder Fisher and his fellow prisoner had remained enslaved for decades of his lifetime. Their hallow exhausted eyes bored into his mind's eye. The strange rune caster had cut some sort of deal with the crone---at what cost . . .
They had lost their healer who submitted to servitude rather than fight the Satyr. Tassidar had almost cost the group their lives. His altruistic loyalty had spurred him to fight for his companions freedom even at risk of his own life, but this was not a game. No, he had learned valuable lessons here. Life was all shades of grey possibly never black or white. He was gaining a better understanding of his elders and queen through his own experiences.
During his watch there were other thoughts. Guilt for one. He spent his materials to add spells to his spell book, he had held those platinum pieces in his hand intending to see if he could buy Knute's freedom from his master. He had traded his Elvenstar for Tellignos's service, his coin for copying spells which left him little in monetary wealth. At least he had not told the ranger of his intentions. He supposed it wouldn't matter anyway unless they made it back.
His watch passed uneventfully for the First World. Tassidar worked in his journal depending on his ears and Veth's eyes when he let his own drop to the paper. His lids grew heavy, it was time to wake the next keeper of the watch.
He chose to wake Tellignos. The noble elk had not taken any injury and had been allowed to sleep undisturbed til now.
He whispered. "I find my alertness slipping sitting here. Could you take a turn? I think it is just you and I awake now I could sit up a bit with you. Maybe we could chat a little to pass the time. Perhaps you could share a little about yourself like how you came to be here if you remember?"
Kló awakes briefly in the night, a low inhalation of breath and a slow shift in position giving him away. But he says nothing, looking suspiciously at all those around him before leaning uncomfortably back down on the cold ground. Sleep comes again with difficulty, but he eventually drifts back off.
When he wakes in the morning, the big northman is quiet. Not the sullen, angry quiet of the night before, but a distant, cold quiet. A mournful quiet that covers him like his thick furs and hides.