"Yes, I realize," Teleri says unreprentantly. "But I saw an opportunity and took it. I'll consider the managerial position for a while, if I may."
As she speaks, Teleri artfully conceals the fact that she's got a gaping three-inch slash in her blouse.
Teleri colors ever so faintly.
Teleri is clearly embarrassed at the implication that there might be some sort of understanding between her and Ives.
"Mr. Tunn has recently learned of a person living here in the city whom he wishes to find and speak with. The description given was rather vague. A young man from the city who works 'under and over turning metal all day' and 'understands the turning metal better than any other'. Since he was so helpful to me in Pentrefan, and he is unfamiliar with the City, I have agreed to assist him in locating this person."
Tie goes to higher modifier.
Mr. Owens just barely doesn't notice the tear in Teleri's dress. He frowns at Teleri's description and thinks to himself for a moment. Then he slowly states "I'm not sure I've heard of such a thing..."
He's not being entirely truthful. Owens seems to think he knows something about such a mechanism.
Teleri looks at him sharply. "You're not sure you've heard of such a thing ... but you might have?" she says. "Speaking theoretically, of course."
Mr. Owens rubs his chin thoughtfully. "Well... I heard some rumors... A new mechanism may have been developed recently... It is supposedly composed of many interacting gears of varying sizes. I do not know what it does but it has beeb keot very quiet thus far."
Mr. Owens shakes his head soberly "No... no it's much more secretive than that. But I do know that the Agricultural Guild, Lumber Guild, and Merchant Union have all been spoken about in connection with this device."
"That's an interesting combination," Teleri remarks. "But if it's as secretive as all that, I doubt they'll tell us about it if we just show up on their doorsteps and ask. We'll have to devise some approach to figure out who's working on the project so we can find this mysterious fellow."
She rises. "I hope you don't mind if we cut this interview a little short, Mr. Owens," she says. "It's been a long day of travel. Would you mind if Mr. Tunn stayed in a guest room here? We would be most obliged. But if if this is insufficient notice, I'm sure lodging at an inn can be arranged."
Mr. Owens nods "Yes I do think given his recent service to the company that we can arrange a bed for Mr. Tunn." He smiles and nods. "I believe that some leftovers may be found in the kitchen as well. Good evening to you both."
"Probably," Teleri says as she leads him down to the kitchen. "The cook, Mrs. Twycross, is an excellent baker. She'll probably have something on hand for after the main course, though I couldn't tell you whether it'll be cookies or cake. Probably not pie -- most fruits aren't in season yet, and she deplores cooking pies with preserves."
In the kitchen they find Cynthia Twycross, a comfortably soft woman in late middle age. It might be too much to describe her as "doughy", but still there is a certain resemblance to some baked goods, the sort with soft middles and lots of frosting. "Teleri!" she cries when they enter and throws a pair of slightly pudgy arms about her before launching into a veritable torrent of scolding. "Oh, you naughty girl! Running off wivout a word like that, we've all been worried sick, especially your poor mother ...! And what's this? You've torn your blouse!" she adds, having discovered the slash due to her up-close-and-personal vantage point.
"Hello, Mrs. Twycross," Teleri says weakly, attempting to disengage herself. "Sorry to worry you. But I didn't leave without a word! I sent a letter. And the blouse, err, got caught on something. Unfortunate, but I'll have it mended soon enough."
"And what sort of thing is that to do to your poor mother?" Mrs. Twycross says. "Sending a letter instead of telling her wiv your own two lips. Lawks! The poor dove 'as been half beside herself this whole time, she has, and ..." She pauses as she catches sight of Ives. "And you've brought 'ome a man! My goodness, Teleri, are you well? What has come over you?" She ostentatiously holds a hand to Teleri's brow.
Teleri winces. "Uh, Mrs. Twycross, may I introduce Mr. Ives Tunn, a native of Pentrefan who proved most helpful in my work. Mr. Tunn, this is Mrs. Cynthia Twycross, our cook. I don't suppose you have any leftovers?" she asks piteously. "It has been a very long day."
"I've some leftover chicken wiv sorrel and potatoes," Mrs. Twycross says. "And you'll be having it cold, as I've just banked the fire for the night. 'Ave a seat, the both of you." She eyes Ives suspiciously for a moment before bustling about making up dishes of food for them.
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” That’s right, I’m a man alright.” says the tall 15 year old, who never thought of himself as such before this very moment. I am on a very important quest after all. A quest.... for dessert!
He laughs out loud at his internal joke as he sits down in anticipation.
As they wait, he takes off the magic carving and hands it to Teleri. ”Look at this. What do you think it does?”
Teleri glances over her shoulder. Mrs. Twycross has her back turned, humming as she works.
"Well, let me take a look," Teleri says. She keeps one hand under the table while making slow arcane gestures. Although she's prepared to speak the words as quietly as possible, to her surprise the naiad's bracelet tightens briefly on her wrist, and she finds them unnecessary. Mildly surprised, she studies the object, turning it over and looking at it from all sides.
"Well ... the carving isn't bad," she says.
Teleri determines that this is a runestone of power (level 1).
Mrs. Twycross soon bustles back on over with the promised food in hand. It seems that, despite her concerns, she couldn't help bringing some cookies as well.
After a filling meal, Teleri thanks Mrs. Twycross for the meal and departs the kitchen with Ives.
In the hallway, she grabs Ives by the elbow and says in a low voice, "Um, listen, Ives, I should probably have mentioned this earlier, but ... no one here knows about ..." she glances over her should and whispers, "... about my magic. And I'd like to keep it that way. So if you could refrain from mentioning it around them, I'd appreciate it."
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"Well that is very strange, Teleri. You should be proud! You are amazing and beautiful and should be happy to share who you are."
Ives face immediately turns red. He meant to say SOME of that stuff, but not ALL of it.
"Uhhh... well, ummm... good night, Miss Teleri. This is my room, right?" Ives steps into a closet and shuts the door.
In the hallway, Teleri puts her face in her palm for a moment. Dropping her hand, she opens the door. Ives stands in the dark, looking around at the cleaning supplies.
"No," she says. "That's the broom closet. The guest rooms are upstairs. This way."
She shows him to his guest room. A roomy mahogany bed with a down mattress dominates the room, made up with white duvet embroidered with geometric patterns around the edges. A dark blue carpet graces the floor.
"You can put your clothing in the wardrobe," she says, indicating a freestanding cupboard in one corner. "There's a chamber pot under the bed -- I'm afraid we don't have one of those fancy new loos yet, though I'm sure Mr. Owens will get one sooner or later. And there's a pitcher and basin on the dresser for washing up in the morning. Goodnight, Mr. Tunn." She turns the gas lamp by the door down to a low blue flame before she leaves.
In the hallway, Teleri heaves a sigh of mixed relief and dread. She turns and makes her way further up to the servants' quarters on the top floor, to the room she'd shared with her mother since she was a child: much smaller and notably less well appointed than the guest bedroom Ives currently occupied. She opens the door and lets herself in.
"Well, I'm back," she says.
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Ives stares at the room. Such opulence....
Undressing, he lays his clothes on the floor, lies down on the floor using his armor as a pillow, and pulls his clothes back over him as a blanket.
She is really beautiful, though, isn't she? Maybe I should tell her my real name so she stops saying it wrong...
Ives falls asleep quickly.
Rhosyn ver Owain stands in the room in a simple dress, dark circles under her eyes. A quiet gasp escapes her throat and she stands still, hesitating, torn between anger and relief. But relief wins out, for the moment, and Rhosyn rushes forward to embrace her daughter. "Oh Teleri. You had me so worried. And for what? A bounty job?! I thought I'd never find you again... Like..." her voice trails off. "But that doesn't matter now. You're back from the... Wilderness..." Rhosyn places a strained emphasis on this last word. After a moments relief, her face hardens. "And you are never going back there again. I won't have you leaving me lile that, young lady."
"I'm sorry I worried you, Mother," Teleri says, returning the embrace.
When they separate, she holds her mother's shoulders a moment, lifting her chin a little. "But I'm twenty four years old, and it's time I started living my own life. Going to Pentrefan taught me a lot. About what it's like outside the city. About myself." She pauses. "About my father, whoever he was."
Rhosyn's eyes snap to Teleri's at the mention of her father. She looks at her daughter with sorrow and love mixed together. Quietly, she asks "What do you mean?"
Ives is woken by the sounds of grunting and scuffing outside his room the next morning. It sounds like several people.
"I met a naiad woman -- a fey creature. She spoke to me in sylvan, the language of the fey, and I understood her and was able to answer in the same language. A language I'd never studied, or even heard of before that moment! But I can speak it as fluently as if I'd been raised speaking it from a babe."
"I always assumed my father was an elf -- once I learned what these meant," she says, running a finger along the point of one ear. "But he wasn't, was he? He was something else. Because it's not -- usual -- for people to spontaneously learn new languages. And I'm pretty sure I didn't get it from you."
Ives spots a couple of workmen struggling with a large wardrobe they're trying to move past his room down the hall. One of them calls out "Hey there laddie! Give us a hand?"
Rhosyn nods slowly to Teleri "Your father was... different... incredible... I... I don't know if I understand what he was..." slowly, haltingly, Rhosyn tells Teleri all she can remember, though the details are inexact, the entire memory like an object that has had all of its bumps and corners smoothed of by repeated handling for years and years.
"Thank you for telling me," Teleri says. "I can see it's painful to talk about it." And it's ... odd, she thinks silently. Pieces missing.
She tells Rhosyn a bit about what she did in Pentrefan -- the mine protest, the poisoned water, meeting the grippli, the assistance from Ives. But she glosses over the encounter with the naiads, framing it as a casual conversation on the way back to town, and omitting any mention of Gozreh or prophecies.
She doesn't mention her near-death in the alley at all.
After a while, she claims weariness -- not at all untrue! -- and they go to bed, still sharing the same bed as they had since Teleri was an infant. Rhosyn clings her daughter possessively as she drifts off.
Teleri lies awake a little longer. She stares at her mother's face in the dim light of the low gas lamp, noting the lines of age and worry etched there.
She lifts a hand and makes a slow gesture, studying the loved face.
Afterwards, she lets herself drift off to sleep, thinking about what she learned.
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"Hey, hey, let me give a hand there. Boy sure looks heavy... try to push from the bottom there..."
"Ow! Stubbed my finger really bad!"
(Fail 1!)
"Wait a sec, we are backing it into a corner, let me get under it and push from the other side..."
Ives tries to dive under the dresser and get up before the tired workers drop it on him...
"Ok, great, moving it along..."
(Success 1)
Rhosyn listens intently to her daughter's tale. When Teleri finishes, Rhosyn smiles "I'm proud of you Teleri. You're becoming so... Competent."
While they sleep, Teleri detects no magic.
The workmen chuckle a little when Ives fails to budge the heavy, solid, wooden object. But they must in surprise when he finds the exact right angle and manages to get to it.
The next morning Teleri comes downstairs to discover the hallway blocked with furniture and workmen. "My goodness," she says. "What's going on?"
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fail!
Ives is halfway up the hallway wall, trying to move a dangling light out of the way, when Teleri comes by. He looks up in surprise and falls.
"Whoops! Ow! Ah, nothing Miss Teleri... just trying to help these men... do stuff... Big, heavy, manly stuff... No big deal really..."
Acutely aware of his audience, Ives tries to be extra helpful to the movers. "Uhhh... let's see. It is a puzzle. We have to move the big dresser in a clockwise-direction to squeeze it by the chandelier and then lay it out horizontal to get by those sconces on wall."
"I see," Teleri says, amused. "Well, carry on."
She squeezes past and makes her way to the kitchen for breakfast.
"Good morning ... oh, hello Mrs. Owens!" she greets the mistress of the house, a somewhat thin woman with fading blond hair and high, delicately arched cheekbones.
"Teleri! How nice to have you back," says Mrs. Owens. "I gather you've gone off on an adventure."
"Yes ... it was," Teleri agrees, and gives her a brief overview.
"Fighting frog people in a swamp!" exclaims Mrs. Owens. "My goodness."
Teleri colors a bit at the implied disapproval, and hastens to add "In any case, I'm back now. The young man who assisted me in Pentrefan is here; he's trying to locate someone here in the city, and I agreed to help him since he's unfamiliar with the area. The gentleman in question is apparently involved with some large, complicated mechanical project. I wonder, have you heard any talk of such a thing amongst your acquaintances?"
Ives manages to help the workmen get the wardrobe out of the house and onto the sidewalk.
Ives hears a small "clink" underneath the wardrobe when it is turned back upright. He spots a small object on a thread underneath it but he can't make it out well in the shadow under the wardrobe.
It is a broken amulet of mighty fists +1.
Mr. Owens stands out on the sidewalk. "Very good! We're glad to get rid of this old thing. Wedding present from a former employer. Didn't want to offend him by getting rid of it but... Well now he's not going to be offended by anything anymore."
Mrs. Owens is quite surprised and taken aback by word of Teleri's exploits. She raises a stern eyebrow at mention of Ives returning with Teleri but is distracted by Teleri's question. "Ah... strange. No I've not heard of such a thing!" She considers a moment longer, smiling "But what a tale you have. I'm sure if you told the full story complete with details, it would be quite a piece of entertainment."
"Well ... I suppose it could," Teleri says slowly. "Perhaps you know of a gathering that might enjoy hearing about it?"
Mrs. Owens things to herself and nods "Well a good friend of mine, Dolores Tinkerage, is throwing a summer party tomorrow evening. I don't say she wouldn't mind if I brought you and your friend along."
Teleri is aware that Mrs. Owens attends social events of the upper class of Dina's Diwydiant, though not the elite of society.
"Wonderful!" Teleri says, and immediately begins consulting Mrs. Owens as to suitable attire and the latest gossip.
Half way through this a thought occurs to her. "I fear that Mr. Tunn had a, shall we say, somewhat rough upbringing," Teleri says. In more ways than one, she adds in the privacy of her own head. "And thus he is sadly unschooled in the niceties of behavior amongst polite company. For example, he is most particular about keeping his hat on, even when it might ordinarily be expected that he remove it; and I sincerely doubt he can distinguish a salad fork from the rest of the service. While I will of course do my best to prepare him, I do hope you might be so good as to alert Mrs. Tinkerage to the possibility that he may be ... colorful."
Mrs. Owens considers the question then smiles "Yes I do believe that will be fine. Dolores has always appreciated curiosities. As long as he does not destroy anything. He will most likely sit at his own table with the younger guests so any potential embarrassments will be less harmful."
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I mean, why wouldn't I roll a 1 right now?
Ives doesn't notice a thing. He does wipe his hands off and head toward Teleri's voice but then he hears the word..."party".
Nope no never uh uh, not going, not going to do it, I don't think so Teleri, I don't care how pretty you are....
He turns and goes back to his room. Surely he deserves a nap after that hard work.
Teleri seeks out Ives a few minutes later. "Ives?" she says, knocking at his door before peeking in to find him "napping" on the floor next to a bed that had clearly not been slept in the previous night.
"Uh ... why are you lying on the floor?" she asks, tilting a puzzled face to one side.
"Well, you're coming to the party too, you know," Teleri says.
She sighs, and leans against the door frame, looking down at him. "I came in here all ready to give you crash course in manners and etiquette. There are about a million tiny little rules about how to behave."
"But you know what? None of them really matter. When you get down to it, the important thing is to be kind to people. To think about how they might feel, and treat them as well as you would hope to be treated yourself. That's the heart of courtesy, right there."
"You ... haven't had enough of that in your life. Have you?"
You know there will be cookies, candy, and fudge served at the party as well.
"Oh, no," Teleri says. "I don't think so. It would be frightfully rude to laugh in a guest's face, or to insult them in public. That's the sort of thing that leads to people fighting duels with one another, even though they're illegal."
"As for what they think of you, well, show them who you are by your actions. Anyone who can't look past your appearance to notice the brave, caring person you are isn't worth associating with."
Seeing a stubborn set to Ives jaw, Teleri sighs, and turns to go. "Well! I can't make you go, it's true." She pauses as if she's just remembered something and adds "Such a pity that you'll be missing the cake, and the cookies. And Mrs. Tinkerage's cook makes particularly good fudge with walnuts in it. I'd offer to bring you some, but it invariably gets eaten to the last crumb by the guests."
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Ives ears twitch, and his salivary glands immediately kick in, and he sits up. "Oh? Fudge? I haven't had fudge... in years. Cake, you say? Hmmm... Well, uh, ok, maybe I can go at least for a little while."
He bounds to his feet and heads right out the door.
As they leave he says, "Do you think I might be challenged to a duel? That would be really fun."
"The party's not till tomorrow," Teleri says patiently as Ives bounds for the door. "And I certainly hope not. Duelling is illegal. Even if you come out of it uninjured, you'd very likely wind up being prosecuted for duelling. You don't have a network of powerful friends in the city to prevent the charges from being filed, and although 'honor demanded it' might be a sufficient defense for the scion of some ancient and noble family, I doubt it would work well for you. Try not to start any fights or destroy anything, won't you?"
Teleri does her best to help Ives learn how to behave over the course of the day and half before the party but he has trouble focusing when his mind keeps drifting back to the sweets that Teleri has promised. Finally, the time of the party has come. Ms. Owens enters the carriage with Ives and Teleri as Mr. Owens waves goodbye, stating that he really must complete some paperwork tonight.
After 15 minutes of bumping along the cobblestones, the carriage stops in front of a very respectable-looking, two-story home. A butler welcomes you and takes your coats. You enter a foyer where the guests stand and chat. Ives is introduced to three other teenagers while:
Amanda Tinkerage, the daughter of the host and hostess
Roland Demain who will next to him
Nickolas Allen, who will next to Amanda
Teleri is introduced to the adults present (but we'll take them more one at a time since there are a lot). When a servant announces that dinner is ready, the adults pass to the main dining room while the teenagers enter a side dining room. Mrs. Owens sits next to Teleri while Mr. and Mrs. Tinkerage sit at ends of the table.
At both tables, a savory duck soup is served as the first course.
The men converse upon the effects of the declining price of grain while the women converse on the latest fabrics imported from Planicies.
Amanda looks at Ives and asks "So, what kind of a name is Ives? I've never heard of it before? I've heard that you come from the woods. Is that true?"
Teleri eagerly joins the women's conversation, debating the merits of different uses for Planitian fabric. After a brief exchange with Mrs. Tinkerage about the colors in favor this season, Teleri asks "Mrs. Tinkerage, do you prefer hand-woven or machine-woven fabrics? The machine-woven varieties are becoming so much more common of late."