Brumir looks at Guillame quizzically, then relaxes his features and grins. "Out of the ordinary gets us either one of two things, I figure. Either we get drawn right to the front of any and all things happening out here, whatever they are- hopefully just bandits- or we get killed for sticking our heads out."
"I don't prefer either one." His grin turns to a grimace and he looks forward. "I'm going ahead." And without waiting for a respond he leads his horse towards where the woods grow denser.
Muadhnait presses her lips together, a huff of frustration pushed out through her nostrils. "It doesn't work that way. I have to go into a sort of trance to portend, and my visions are often vague - almost like a feeling. Good, or bad." She pauses a moment, then adds a muttered, "The branch was a fluke."
Chastised, Colin furrows his brow and digests this enlightening information. Joyous Storm's steps crunch the turf beneath the forest eaves as he leans far forward against her neck to avoid low branches.
After a moment, he asks, cautiously, "Miss? Can you tell us if we're making a big mistake taking on these bandits?"
Muadhnait wets her lips as she considers this for a drawn out moment, then finally says, "I can't look too far ahead, either. Are we very close?" Her focus redirects to Brumir, then, in seeking her answer.
The group finds Brumir crouched by a game trail. "I've never seen the camp, so I can't be sure. They said it was along the Thorn River, which by my estimation is still a ways in this direction. If we keep on, we'll get there sometime after midnight. Unless we beat a harder pace."
"After midnight?!" exclaims Colin. "But Happs said it was a little less than a day's ride from the Trading Post. I thought by leaving just before dawn, we'd get there well before sunset."
He looks to Crytalis for confirmation in his consternation. "If it's going to take that long, we'd do better to camp and come upon them tomorrow morning."
Brumir shrugs. "I'm thinking Happs wants to give the others time to discover we're coming, or catch us before we get there. The Thorn river winds through the forest, so we might get lucky and come on it sooner, but then there's the matter of finding the camp."
Colin looks incredulously at the half-orc guide, his mouth reflexively dropping to gape. "But..." he stammers, "if Happs was lying about the distance, what if he was lying about everything? What if their camp isn't anywhere near here at all?"
His voice rises with his evident anxiety, "Oleg and Svetlana are all alone now!" He looks at Guillame and Muadhnait as his face reddens in embarrassment at this possibly-tragic misstep.
"Cry?" he asks, reaching out to her as if hoping to somehow physically grasp a clear solution, "What should we do? Go faster? Go back?"
Crytalis' honey eyes cool, turning crystalline in quick malice and anger. "I knew I should have skinned him. I will have to see to that when we return," she bites out in a chill voice.
She softens her look, as always, upon Colin. "There are many paths through and from this tangled woods, I would imagine. I am hesitant to camp and wait for their ambush, by now they will be missing Happs and might leave. Oleg is without defense. I would locate the camp this day, at the least."
Brumir shrugs again. "I'll find their camp. They had told me it was out here, too, on the river. I think Happs was just trying to scrape together what small victories he could."
He turns and sweeps his eyes across trees, dense and reaching in all directions. Then he rolls his shoulders, one at a time. "I can continue on if and when you need to stop to rest- I've got the endurance for it. If I see them, I'll lay low and come back. I can gauge their numbers. But if I get caught, I'll say I'm alone. The only ones that have seen me are back at Oleg's waiting for the Lady of Graves."
'Should have skinned him?' thinks Guillame to himself, pulling on his moustache in consternation. Oho! This Crytalis hunts the beasts that walk on two legs, I think. Do not make her angry, Guillame, lest you wake up one morning as someone's cloak and boots!
Guillame clear his throat. "If I may offer my two copper pieces," he says. "It was a bold plan before, and a bold plan it remains, and the bold plans are the ones worth having, non? Let us press on and catch the bandits unawares! They will not expect the attack at night I think. And if they are not there, then we ask for guidance." Here Guillame gives a respectful, slightly wary half-bow to Muadhnait. "Fate smiles, perhaps *we* lay the trap for them, e'? Fate frowns, and we ride like the wind to aid the trading post!"
Guillame waits for consensus before joining Brumir again at the lead, arrow notched as before.
Colin collects himself at the words of wisdom from his companions. "All right," he says, determinedly, "Let's push on, quicker if we can. I don't know about trying to attack their camp when it's dark, but I supposed we'll just have to see when we get there."
He returns his helmet to his head and wraps his gauntleted right hand within Joyous Storm's reins.
"If you get caught, Brumir, we will rescue you. Count on that," he adds.
The oaks now reach out gnarled arms from between the now dense population of tall beech trees. Rush leaf grows thick in the places between roots and patches of moss and undergrowth. There is no defined path, but the group weaves through the trunks and, at times, climbs and descends small hills.
Nothing more than rabbits, squirrels and small birds can be seen spying on, and fleeing the presence of these newcomers to the forest.
Traveling through the forest is slower going than on the plains, but because of the trees, their roots, and the sudden, but small dips of the ground, it is easier to judge distance and before they know it, they've covered six miles through the forest.
Brumir appears, leading his horse back from scouting ahead. "Somewhere out here should be that patch of radishes that Svetlana mentioned. It'd take quite a while to look for it, though. I'd say almost two whole days to search a large enough area to be sure. But we might get lucky and find it sooner."
Suddenly, Brumir's head jerks to the side and he glares up at the branches. A bird flutters and lets out a song. Brumir shakes his head and looks back to the group. "But that is on the way back, you said? I'll keep forward. You might as well lead this horse along. I'll move easier on my own." He hands the reigns to Colin and, without another word, jogs ahead, his rounded shoulders hunched low and his massive arms swinging to keep his momentum and balance.
Brumir continues on his way, keeping his eyes pointed forward, glancing back only to make sure there is some sign of the group following along.
Out through the trees, barely visible through the chaotic lines of bark, tangled weeds and leaves, Guillame sees the silhouette of a woman. She is strangely clear and detailed for being at such a far distance- seeming closer than her proportions would suggest. Her eyes meet with Guillame's and her long grey dress mingles between the trees. As suddenly as she appeared, she vanishes.
"Desna's Bosom!" exclaims Guillame in surprise, somewhere between a prayer and a curse. He rubs at his eyes and stares into the tangled forest. "Over there, fellows! Did you see?! A woman, dressed up in the dull fashion, now she is gone! She looked me right in the eye! It is a damsel, skilled in hiding ... or perhaps the cultistes come to get us, or a bandit or ... or else this forest is haunted by the dark spirits!"
For a moment, Guillame looks genuinely alarmed at this last possibility: he gapes, and stares round at the overhanging twisted branches, wide-eyed and fretful. Then he is bumped from behind by a tree branch, and gives a quiet yelp. He remembers his companions looking on, and immediately collects himself.
"Of course..." he says to one and all, faking a yawn, and waving in the direction of the woman (or thing?) he saw with exaggerated calm. "There is one way to find out, e'? Grognon, allons-y!"
Guillame vaults into the saddle...
... in one fluid motion, rides to where he saw the woman and scans the ground looking for footprints or other signs of her passage.
Guillame finds the woman to be nowhere in sight. Where it seemed she was standing has no humanoid tracks whatsoever between the fallen twigs, moss and mostly rotten foliage. He notices the passing feet of an insect, which lead to a nearby tree and end. The tree holds only branches just beginning to green again with life. A light breeze blows through, letting out the creaking and clattering noise of the trees.
A bird sounds a tapping chirp that might be mistaken for laughter.
Crytalis stares after Guillame with a look usually reserved for the insane. Her eyes seek out Colin, for either reassurance or confirmation on the state of their poor companion's mind. She is, strangely, put at ease by his erratic actions. The twinge of tension that she had been wearing relaxing away. Turning her trust steed, Bandit, she follows after as he rushes to examine the spot, disappointment marring her features when no signs of cultist or spirit is found.
"Did you recognize her? Maybe she is some demon from your past alone, here to hound the rest of your days. A spurned lover perhaps? Or the lover of one who did not spurn you?" Although she seems quite taken with the idea she does at least have the grace to appear concerned for him.
"I am fairly certain I can eventually banish her if so...and if not I can maybe craft her a new body some day, far away." The smile she bestows on him is full of reassurance and warmth, an offer of friendship.
The tittering of the bird makes her smile and she tunes her ears up to it. She sings out a greeting.
"Old loveurs now?!" replies Guillame, puzzled and confused, as he reins Grognon from turn to turn, poking at the rotten foliage with his bow, and searching in vain for signs of the woman. "As if the cultistes and the stag people and the bandit were not enough!"
Guillame's brow is drawn into a furious frown of concentration as he continues his search to and fro, and he seems not to have taken in all Crytalis said to him. But as the urgency of his search diminishes, he casts glances back at Crytalis, and each time he does, thinking about her strange offer and birdsong greeting, his frown diminishes a little. Eventually he is left with an amused grin. He gives up the search with a deep quick sigh, and rests his hands on his saddle horn.
"You know mademoiselle, and forgive me if I am misunderstanding..." he says to Crytalis, leaning in a little, as if he were a trusted advisor. "But if you offer to banish the old girlfriend, why this is not something you should offer for free. It is a rare talent sought through all Brevoy, the River Kingdoms and beyond! People would pay much for this boon, non? Hehe."
Guillame leans back again, and gives a crinkled smile, eyes twinkling a little. He strokes his moustache out and shakes his head as he scans the forest, apparently impressed with his own wisdom. Then a new thought strikes him and he turns back to Crytalis and continues.
"And if you offer to resurrect the old girlfriend, why then ... there are some fates that are worse than the death for all concerned, e'? Haha!"
Guillame guffaws loudly and slaps his thigh, as if this is funniest thing he's heard all day. He dismounts, ready to continue the journey, apparently giving up his chase for the strange woman almost as soon as he started it.
Colin watches Guillame leave the path and tenses up visibly when Crytalis follows him. Holding the reins of both Brumir's unladen mount and the dozing Muadhnait's, he stays where he is.
"Cry?" he calls out, breaking the tranquility of the forest. "Everything ok over there?"
The song breaks off with Colin's question and she turns in the saddle to give him a little excited wave. Her other hand points towards the laughing Guillame surreptitiously, hopefully drawing Colin's attention to her amazing social skills. Quickly turning back to Guillame she gives her most thoughtful nod. "Well perhaps, should forming my own kingdom fail, I can start a business in dealing with dead lost loves,"her face brightens further,"Oh! Perhaps I could even have an assortment of bodies available, I wonder if you have to use one's own body to resurrect a person...or if you can simply stick the soul in any old shell you want?"
Her brief consideration of that matter is fleeting, and quickly she turns back to the problem at hand. "Well, if it wasn't the spirit of some lost lover, who do you think it was?"
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Lady of Graves! thinks Guillame to himself, troubled by curiosity mixed with deep unease. I was joking, but for her, is no joke I think! She is quite serious about the bodies, e'?!
Guillame reaches for his pipe automatically, for reassurance, before he remembers the tobacco situation, which now seems more dire than before. He frowns again, and he ponders Crytalis's question for a while, giving her wary sideways glances.
"I think..." he says eventually. "...my eyes did not deceive me. I am keen of eye. And as for lost loveurs, well of course there are some of those..." Here he smirks, and bobs his head from side to side a little, in a smug fashion. "But I do not think they have gone to the Boneyard, e'? So then, it is someone who can disappear in a moment, and reappear when they want to, non? Is their choice to appear to me, and then disappear again - poof! So I think, is someone who likes the tricks!"
Satisfied with his judgment, Guillame cups his hands around his mouth so as to call out far and wide.
"Is very funny!" he cries out to the forest. "Is a good trick, e'? But is a little cowardly I think to hide in the bushes! Show yourself! Is the bad manners not to introduce oneself to fellow travellers, non? Very rude, non?"
Guillame waits only a moment for a response, then spits into the rotting foliage, as if to say "Just what I thought...". "Is probably a gnome." he mutters. "The gnome is notorious for playing the tricks long after they are not funny anymore. Is well-known."
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The girls just hums to herself and picks flowers, every so often glancing around for any sight of Pim. As Guillame speaks she nods along, obviously believing and absorbing all the sage knowledge of the older man. Occasionally, she will glance through the trees to Colin's form, waving when she notices his gaze.
Colin's cry toward Cry draws Muadhnait back toward wakefulness after having dozed again. Oops. She blinks in her surroundings, then queries, "What is it?" before squinting into the distance toward Guillame and Crytalis.
Colin keeps his eyes on the form of Crytalis among the dappled shadows of the glade, answering Muadhnait in a low and reverential voice.
"Guillame saw a woman there, staring at him, but then she disappeared. They're over to look. I didn't want to leave you here and I'd... probably just get in their way. I don't know anything about magic or faeries, if that's what that is."
He curls a rueful lip and mutters, "Keep watching over us, Old Deadeye."
She straightens a degree in her seat, posture stiffening. "Do you suspect that's what it is? I can speak Sylvan."
"I don't know, miss," Colin replies. "Strange women haunting forests were always ghosts, faeries, or witches in the tales I've always heard."
He thinks a minute. "Or werewolves, I guess? But they usually never disappeared in front of your eyes."
Brumir appears before Guillame and Crytalis, climbing up from a ditch. "Whatever it was, best we can do is keep an eye out for it. Speculating is just that. If you want to find that camp as soon as possible, we should keep moving. If you're gunna eat, best you do it while we ride, too."
He looks to the others for agreement, and assuming he hears nothing to stop him, moves back out to a scouting position.
The afternoon passes as they travel. The sky out above the branches is still mostly clear, the sun trying to warm the surface, but still held at bay by the many shadows in the wood.
After another four hours or so of traveling south-west, Brumir comes back to the group, as he has been doing periodically to check in, but this time he has something to say. "Few more hours and we'll be coming on that river. It'll be dark by then. Then a few more hours to find the camp, depending on where it lay."
Colin eases back in the saddle, feeling oppressed by the constant branches. "I don't think we should keep riding through the trees after dark. That's how horses break legs."
He glances around at his companions to judge their fatigue. "I think we should stop maybe an hour before dark. Is an hour enough time to set up a camp?" he asks those more experienced than himself.
"Colin, my friend!" calls out Guillame, aproaching from across the clearing. "Darkness is the *best* time to find these bandits. You wish them to surrender, non? So we creep up at night. You cry out challenge and give them the fright, e'? 'Bandits your time has come! Surrender or die!' Then Mademoiselle Muadhnait, she is also hiding, non?" Here Guillame gestures to Muadhnait "If she is willing, perhaps she, er, rattles the trees!"
Guillame mimes shaking and quaking of trees with crude sound effects, then acts out gaping in dismay, as if he were a surprised bandit. The more he speaks, the more Guillame seems enthused by his own story.
"They are not knowing what to do, non? Then Mademoiselle Crytalis," Here Guillame gestures to Crytalis. "Is she is willing, perhaps she, er.. er, she calls out from the dark about the Dream of Death! About the skinning alive! Is scary, non?"
Guillame pulls his hat down around his ears, and knocks his knees together, as if a bandit terrified.
"Now they are needing the new pantaloons! They will surely surrender. And if not, then Brumir and Guillame, from the shadows... vvvp! vvvp!"
Guillame mimes pulling the bow taut and releasing deadly arrows.
"Victory is assured, one way or the other, I think. I do not see what can go wrong with this plan, e'? What do you say, fellows?"
Muadhnait's eyes narrow as she listens to Guillame's 'plan'. She seems skeptical at first, but gradually she eases. Her chin lifts marginally, and she appears rather embarrassed as she offers, "I can summon, um... figment sounds." A brief pause before she adds, more quietly, "I can also see in the dark."
Crytalis studies Brumir, listening to the inflections in his voice and the expressions on his face, a slight thoughtful frown puckers her face. She breaks her appraisal of him to follow after Guillame as he makes his way back to the others. She listens silently to his plan thinking it over before speaking. "You mean locate the camp, all of us, after darkness has fallen? It would be nice if we knew where we were going. Would it be better if those who can see in the dark..." she pauses, staring at Muadhnait before continuing. "...scout ahead? So we are not simply wandering around blind?"
She whistles out into the forest softly, calling Pim back.
Brumir speaks to Crytalis with a hint of comradeship that he spares the others. "You're right. I'll keep ahead, and will be finding the camp anyway. I'll come back and alert you well before those of you who can't see in the dark come upon it."
Pim returns and chirps out a song.
Wood and tangle wide
All directions I see
But a river miles west
Does wind its scent to me
Colin listens to the suggestions laid forth, chewing on his bottom lip. "I guess that all sounds like a good plan... I don't mind if they can see me. I can draw their fire while you all get closer. I'll give them a chance to surrender first. I doubt they will."
He looks at Crytalis, "I wouldn't want you to reveal your position before necessary, though, Cry. You can make them unlucky with their shots if you are close enough, right? And make Brumir and maybe the rest of us lucky if we're close enough to you?"
"We'll also have to picket the horses some ways off, I think..." he adds.
Muadhnait feels a light tugging at her hip, but thinks it just a nudge of the saddle at first. Then, with another tug and the lightening of her belt, she turns to see her sickle float up and away from her, rocking back and fourth as if dancing.
Colin gapes at the floating sickle and adjusts his shield into a more readied position.
"Um... Miss Medvyed?" he says, quietly. "You're doing that, right?"
When her attention is drawn to the dancing sickle, Muadhnait widens her eyes. Of course, she's quite used to things moving on their own accord - but something in this is different. Perhaps it's the visible taunt; and after she has finished gaping, she extends a hand expectantly and narrows her eyes upon it. "Return it to me," she says in Sylvan. Her focus is so intent upon her weapon that Colin's query is completely missed.
The sickle bobbles playfully in the air, swinging towards Muadhnait before shrinking back and flying out between the trees. It can be seen appearing and disappearing between branches just a few feet from the ground.
He has never heard for fey doing such a thing, exactly, although gnomes are known for their tricks. It may really be due to Muadhnait's strangeness, whatever the source.
If not the faerie, then ... Guillame sneaks a superstitious peek at Muadhnait. Perhaps this woman makes these strange things happen? Perhaps she is... possessed by the dark spirits?
Guillame pauses to think about all he knows about possession. It doesn't take him long to reach a conclusion.
Is not likely, e' Guillame? This Muadhnait is strange, true. Very sleepy. And she make the trees jump! But she is also quite attractive, and the possessed in stories, they are always with the head turning round and round, the vomit, the fits, shouting the obscénités, e'? Very unattractive. Must be gnomes.
Guillame sidles up to Muadhnait, pretending to be nonchalant and uninterested in the strange goings on.
"Mademoiselle," he whispers to Muadhnait, out of the corner of his mouth. "I suspect we are victim of a gnome, non? Is perhaps funny before, the tricks, but now he is thieving and takes something of yours, is not funny anymore, e'?"
Guillame yawns loudly and stretches to cover over his discourse.
"We should take him unawares! he suggests to Muadhnait, in an even lower whisper, mouth barely moving. "If you are willing, hold his attention from this direction, and I will sneak around the side!”
Casual as he came, Guillame sidles off to be near Grognon.
”Is cold in this Narlmarch, e’?” he says loudly to one and all. He pulls his winter blanket from Grognon's saddlebags, as if to cover his cold shoulders. So armed, he waits, feigning boredom, until he is shielded from view of the dancing sickle. Then he falls into a stealthy crouch.
Guillame successfully flanks the sickle, as it seems to still be waving and taunting in Muadhnait's direction right up until the blanket falls on it. The sickle and blanket fall limply to the ground, leaving only the bumps of folds and the vague outline of the sickle, laying still now, to be seen.
"Ahaieee!" yells Guillame excitedly, grabbing here and there at the folds of the fallen blanket. "Now we have you, thieving ... thieving ... oh."
Guillame is crestfallen. His visage becomes grim. He finds the sickle, and walks back to the rest, presenting the sickle to Muadhnait with a short, solemn bow.
"Whoever it is, mademoiselle, they begin to tread on our dignité, e'?" he says to Muadhnait, shaking his head, as if this is a most serious offense.
Colin stays in the saddle, nonplussed. "I don't understand, Mister DeMille. Is someone there that we can't see?"
He asks Muadhnait, "Should we get away from here, ma'am? Are we in danger? How can you fight something invisible? With magic?"
He looks to Crytalis for some guidance or reassurance.
The camaraderie in Brumir's look is returned in Crytalis' "You seem a man of great stamina, do you think you can find them and then find us again before exhaustion takes you?"[/i] she forces her spine to straighten from an otherwise weary slouch. [b]"I see the wisdom in a night attack, or even one come dawn...but fear I will not last much longer without rest and would hate to..." Her words are broken by both Pim's return and then the floating sickle. Colin's query of Muadhnait brings a sharp suspicion to Cry's face, although whether that is from the oddness of the woman or the fact that Colin is speaking to her, is anyone's guess.
Her look morphs to one of delight at Guillame's 'antics' and she giggles as he tackles the blanketed nothing, mindless of the man's trodden dignity. When he comes up with the sickle though her giggles give way to an appreciative clap. "Oh but that was clever. How strange that there was not shape to the thing." Again her eyes narrow, studying the area around them all as a sudden thought takes her. Beneath her breath she chants words of searching, her tiny tongue darting out occasionally as if to taste for magic in the darkening forest.
The camaraderie in Brumir's look is returned in Crytalis' "You seem a man of great stamina, do you think you can find them and then find us again before exhaustion takes you?" she forces her spine to straighten from an otherwise weary slouch. "I see the wisdom in a night attack, or even one come dawn...but fear I will not last much longer without rest and would hate to..." Her words are broken by both Pim's return and then the floating sickle. Colin's query of Muadhnait brings a sharp suspicion to Cry's face, although whether that is from the oddness of the woman or the fact that Colin is speaking to her, is anyone's guess.
Her look morphs to one of delight at Guillame's 'antics' and she giggles as he tackles the blanketed nothing, mindless of the man's trodden dignity. When he comes up with the sickle though her giggles give way to an appreciative clap. "Oh but that was clever. How strange that there was not shape to the thing." Again her eyes narrow, studying the area around them all as a sudden thought takes her. Beneath her breath she chants words of searching, her tiny tongue darting out occasionally as if to taste for magic in the darkening forest.
Without seeing the caster, it's difficult to determine exactly what spell was cast, but based on what was seen, and what knowledge of possible spells Crytalis has, she can conclude a few things:
If a spell was indeed cast by a sentient thing, it must be close by. At most a few hundred feet away, but considering the lack of visibility through the dense woods, it would have to be within a few dozen feet, perhaps with invisible magic. Either it escaped right before Guillame threw the blanket on it by moving quickly or teleporting, or it was moving the sickle from a distance. In any situation, illusion magic is likely for making invisible. Moving objects remotely is possible with transmutation magic.
The sun has begun to set, turning the sky orange and purple. The shadows between the trees grow and the ground becomes more treacherous. The horses begin to breathe more heavily and move more slowly.
Brumir slinks out between the trees ahead of the group. He stretches and rolls his shoulders. "You'll probably want to stop and rest. I think Happs misled us to how close it was, to give the others a chance to find us, or learn what happened. Anyway, if we push on we risk fatiguing ourselves before the fight."
He looks about at the trees before them. "I can go on ahead and try and find the camp."
Colin reins in Joyous Storm and takes off his helmet. "Brumir," he says with a tired smile. "I've been thinking about that. There are all sorts of things that could go wrong with splitting up like that. Since we don't know how far it is, who knows how long it will take you to go and come back. Then, you'll need to rest, too, and that will delay all of us getting started up again."
He glances at Crytalis as if to strengthen his confidence in speaking up. "Even worse, what if you get caught, or spotted and followed back to us? We won't even be coming behind you to help."
Colin dismounts and begins tugging the saddle and barding from Joyous Storm. "Besides, I don't know anything about setting up a camp. I can care for the horses, though. We'll probably need your help here. I don't know that knowing where the camp is while we're resting will help us that much more than finding it tomorrow. If we go to sleep right away, maybe we can still catch them snoozing. I imagine bandits stay up late. If they were able to work an honest day, they wouldn't be bandits."
Brumir shrugs. "Alright. There's a small clearing right up there. I can keep watch and stay hidden. I'll warn you if I see anything." He thinks for a moment with his hand on his jaw then nods to himself.
Crytalis' eyes narrow on Colin as he undoes her planned manipulations, she says not a word though, instead she swings off Bandit with far more skill that she had previously let on. "Is this the best place to camp seeing as an unseen friend seems to occupy it as well?" She asks, sweetly. Very. Sweetly.
"Camps?" says Guillame to Colin. "Is easy, e'? Here, I show you. First, a small fire. For the warmth."
Guillame pushes on to the clearing, looking for a good fireplace. As he passes Crytalis, he gives a short answer to her question.
"Mademoiselle, is perhaps not the best place to camp *if* we do not want the company of this unseen friend..." he mutters to her. "But if we want to catch him? Then is best to be right here."
Guillame busies himself with a fire, instructing anyone who helps with gestures and few words. Without comment, he offers his winter blanket to ladies present, as is proper, and prepares to use his cloak to keep himself warm. Then he sits munching 'bird-food' trail rations a little grumpily. He has his bow and some rope within reach. He speaks very little. It seems his mood has swung since his dignity was compromised.
Muadhnait carefully closes her fingers around the grip of the sickle as it is offered to her. She's perhaps a bit too quiet as she returns it to her belt, brows drawn in a frown upon her face. There was something different in the way that sickle danced about, something unlike her usual hauntings. Still, she chalks it up to that - and as she dismounts her horse, she finally opts to tell her campmates so. "I'd not worry yourselves on the company of our 'unseen friend.' I'm haunted." The last words are spoken rather matter-of-factly, but she still avoids the gazes of those she's with.
Colin's strategy is to have Joyous Storm guard the untrained horses, keeping her free to move, while he pickets them where they might graze. As he takes the mount from Muadhnait he hears her and pauses.
He turns back toward her, his brow wrinkling in concern, a soft sigh escaping his lips. His hand reflexively reaches out towards her turned shoulder before he seemingly thinks better of it, fingers curling from an open hand to guarded loose fist.
"Ma'am?" he ventures timorously, "What does that mean? Can I, I mean, we help you?"
He watches the delicate woman and thinks she reminds him of a newborn foal shivering in a winter morning's air.