Hard Winters RPG

[Thinlómien]

His pillow was back and so was his blanket. There had been a kind voice, then another. Surely he must have been imagining? He was still in Scarburg. Or had they moved him? Maybe they had sent him home because he'd been so useless. The voices had been familiar, now that Wilheard thought of it, even though he had trouble putting faces to them. I was never good with people. It was Wulfric who was good with them, I was always better with horses, yes, and hawks and hounds...

Wilheard wondered if Eorl Eodwine would let him have a puppy. His father had never let him - he'd always said Wilheard could have one when he was a respectable young man. He guessed he'd never been one. Too wild, too reckless, too disinterested.

"Tea?"

Oh, the woman was still there. Wilheard opened his eyes, then touched his face. It felt damp. His eyes focused on the form of the woman by his bedside. Saeryn. Lady Saeryn. That was her. No friend of mine, Wilheard reminded himself. Usurper, and mother of another. Adopted by Lord Athanar, to succeed him in place of his own son. After all these years, after Wulfric was gone, it was still a bitter thought, but not entirely without amusement value.

"Tea? Yes, please. Sister."

[Folwren]

Sister! Where was this coming from, Saeryn wondered. Did he mistake her for his younger sister? She glanced at his face, then narrowed her eyes. He was not so delirious as all that, she decided; there was too much recognizable dislike in his eyes. She pressed her lips together as she leaned over and helped him to sit up.

"The tea's still hot, so be careful," she instructed, carefully handing the mug to him with one hand while she guided his other hand to wrap around the mug. She stood by, watching as he tentatively sipped the hot brew. She regretted that she had not brought a cloth with cool water.

The tea lowered from his lips and drooped dangerously towards the covers. Saeryn gripped the rim and carefully removed it from Wilheard's hands.

"Try eating some bread. I will be back." She placed the plate with the bread on his lap and left him to get a bowl of cool water and a cloth.

She reflected on what may be the cause of his fever, an she began to fear that whatever it was might spread. As she passed through the hall to the kitchen, she looked anxiously towards her children. So soon after a period of near starvation, she was not sure they nor anyone else would be able to stay well in the face of sickness. She suppressed her thoughts and went into the kitchen to fetch the water.

Wilheard was still sitting up, but he had apparently not been able to eat much. Saeryn placed the bowl of water by the tea and wrung out the cloth. She began to sponge the sweat from his face.

"Do you have any pain?" she asked.

[Folwren]

Javan opened his mouth to ask who Poppy was, but Thornden cut him short. "We'll sit here all day chatting like women at this rate," he said. "There's work to be done. Javan, you can help Elfthain finish grooming his horse." A smile tugged at his lips. He had considered calling her a sow, but thought that perhaps Elfthain, who sometimes seemed quite serious, would see it as a liberty and may not appreciate such humor. He went on. "Léof, do you want to look and find if we have what you need for your leather soap? I will go and find Eodwine and put our question to him."

He stood up, and the others followed his example. Even Eoghan scrambled to his feet. "I need to find Papa, too," he announced.

"What about me?" Ruari cried, not one to be willingly left out.

"You've hardly begun eating," Thornden told her, pointing to the porridge Kara had just a moment given her. "Finish up."

[Mithalwen]

Having emptied bowl and cup of their last contents, Elfthain rose and left the Hall with Javan who, no longer stymied by his brother's presence, asked who Poppy was.


"Poppy? She is a little girl my mother is fostering. We don't really know anything about her, not even her right name. A traveller was found dying in the snow near where I live. The child was with her, we don't even know if she was the mother.. they didn't look anything alike and the girl was too young to tell us and the woman never spoke before she died. So she is a bit of a mystery but she is a sweet little thing really and my mother adores her."

They reached the stables again and Elfthain apologised to Javan "Sorry you have got lumbered helping with this. She is a disgrace; aren't you Saffy, my dear?" He pulled the little mare's ears affectionately and she whickered drawing attention to her depleted supply of hay. "She is usually fine about being groomed but she can be a bit ticklish when her tummy is brushed so you might want to leave that to me. Though if we give her more hay she probably won't care what we do with her". He sighed as he took in the amount of work left and looked around for his brushes.

[littlemanpoet]

Rowenna strode through the growing puddles to the smoke house. The rain came down steadily and she was soaked through. The smoke house would be dry and warm. And overpowering with the smell of smoked meat. She wondered if Nydfara liked that smell. Surely he did, as it was meat and men liked their meat. She shook her head. What matter? Silly thoughts. She did not matter to Nydfara, nor he to her. It angered her that these thoughts came upon her unawares, as if something deep inside betrayed her.

She opened the door to the smoke house and went inside. She liked it in here. It was warm and dry. She wished she could stay here much longer than need required. She took a cut of wood from the dry-store and placed it carefully in the oven.

That little Ruari was not really the same as she had been at that age. She had been happy and carefree and full of dance and play. She had been so until the brigands had come and destroyed her life. She had learned to be tough and skilled in surviving, learned how to make others want what she wanted; or at least, what she said she wanted.

Ruari was different. She could see it in her eyes. That little girl's thought was already the way she had had to learn to be. "You're a silly fool," she whispered. The knot in her stomach refused to go away, and only seemed to tighten the more she thought about her past, the little girl, and that troublesome Nydfara.

How would she have handled him among the brigands? She would have listened to him until she had learned what he most desired, what he craved, and then would use that knowledge to bait him into giving her what she wanted, or doing what she wanted, or, in Nydfara's case, telling her what she wanted to know.

So she had better go find the cur and find out what drove him. She grabbed a side of deermeat and walked back into the rain.

[Firefoot]

Scyld set off down from the Scar quickly, hoping to make it back to the Hall before the worst of the rain came. It was not to be: the drops soon started hitting harder and faster, and more than once he nearly lost his footing on the muddy, rocky ground. It had been foolish of him to come up here before a rainstorm, he realized. He slowed his pace; better to return wet and whole than to turn an ankle in the muck and be unable to return at all.

By the time he reached the fields separating the Scar from the Hall, the drizzle had turned into a downpour. Between the snowmelt and the constant rain, the soggy ground could hold no more water and the puddles in many places were up to his ankles. No point in running then: the water would only splash higher. As he came up to the Hall, even his thick wool cloak was soaking through, which felt thoroughly unpleasant, not to mention heavy. Squinting through the rain, he saw another figure approaching the Hall from the opposite direction, seemingly bearing a large burden.

It was Rowenna, he realized, as she drew closer. Her clothing was drenched, and he could not help but notice that the way the wet fabric clung to her was not unflattering. He shook his head of the thought. He had to keep his mind sharp if he was to have any hope of understanding how he had managed to irritate her so. At least now if she had something to say to him, it would be out of Eodwine’s hearing.

He reached the door just before she did. “May I hold the door for you, or would you prefer to have another reason to glower at me?” he asked as he held out the door with his free hand.