Hard Winters RPG

[Mithalwen]

Elfthain hesitated between replying first to mother or daughter but remembered his manners and rose back to his feet, though retaining the little girl's hand in his own and giving it a gentle squeeze.

"I am honoured by your welcome, Lady Saeryn, but I assure you no thanks are necessary, at least not to me, I am merely the courier. My mother though will be glad to know they are well bestowed." He bowed again and dropping back on his haunches added, "and I am honoured to meet you too, Miss Ruairi. My mamma says I am always hungry and if I don't stop growing soon she will have to start feeding me hay like the horses! But I don't think I am as hungry as you are just now." He could see the little tooth marks in the potato and it broke his heart. Ruairi was surely no older than his little sister had been when she died, and he wondered .if the convoy hadn't got through when it did, might this little one also have failed to see her sixth birthday?

"I think your potato will give you a horrid tummy ache if you eat it as is. I like them best cooked in the embers of a fire so that the outside is nice and crispy and the inside all soft and fluffy but that takes a long time. So if the porridge is ready you could have that now and it will be nice and warm and gentler on your insides. And if your mama thinks a spoon of honey will do you good then it might make it even nicer." He couldn't really see how the child could be denied a taste now the jar had been waved under her nose but thought the idea that it was almost medicinal, like the foul tonic his grandmother had been wont to dose them all on through the winters, she would understand it could not always be expected. He looked up at Saeryn hoping he hadn't said the wrong thing, "but now if you kind ladies all would excuse me I feel I really must see to my poor horse, she is a patient beast but she has been waiting a while for attention now."

[Firefoot]

Scyld made an amused noise in his throat as he fell into step beside Rowenna. “What is not strange?” he returned. “I spent so many years wishing to leave and having nowhere to go, but once I left I found I could not stay away. And now that I am back, I do not know which strikes me stranger: those things that have changed or those that have not. Some things are just the same, as if no time at all has passed. The changes are unsettling, though, and I am sure that I will find I have missed a lot.” He quirked an eyebrow at her curiously, wondering if she might say more of herself.

They came to the door to the kitchen, and Scyld stepped ahead to hold open the door, gesturing for her to enter ahead of him.

[littlemanpoet]

Rowenna wondered if she was in Nydfara's thought one of those things that had changed, or stayed the same. She was not sure how she felt in either case. And why could he not stay away? What was there at Scarburg that drew him? Surely, not herself? There must be more. He had been here before it had become Scarburg; could that be it? He had been a slave to the hated Sorn, and when she thought of that she felt herself pulled toward him because of their shared past.

He opened the door for her and gestured gallantly for her to go first; it was a courteous deed, one that seemed new for him; he had changed. Was it family? Where else had he been?

"Thank you."

She passed into the kitchen and he followed. The warmth was pleasant in the kitchen. Though it was not bitterly cold outside anymore, it was not warm.

After his cascade of words he fell silent. Was he studying her, or waiting for her to say something? She set down the potatoes on a table and turned to him.

"Shall we go see what else is in the wagon that needs taking in?"

He nodded. She led him back outside again, and slowed so that they walked side by side. She paused before she spoke, then looked at him levelly.

"You were missed." His eyes opened wider and a momentary look of surprise flashed across his face before he mastered himself; but curiosity remained. She needed to say something more to take the edge off her words. She allowed a sardonic half smile. "I have been bored."

[Folwren]

“But now if you kind ladies all would excuse me, I feel I really must see to my poor horse,” Elfthain said. “She is a patient beast, but she has been waiting a while for attention now.”

Saeryn nodded her head. “Of course. When you go, please tell the stablemaster - Léof - and any others in the stable that we have something ready to eat.” He departed, and Saeryn turned to the other ladies. Modtryth had already begun filling bowls with the porridge and Kara was arranging the bowls on trays to carry out into the main hall.

“Ruari,” Saeryn instructed, “go wake your father and tell him there is something to eat.”

--

Javan

“Don’t be a fool, Javan. It suits you ill, a man almost grown. We both know Lord Athanar was a much stricter eorl that your Eodwine.”

Javan scoffed. “If by strict you mean he does not take offense at the slightest provocation, then yes, Eodwine may be less strict, but at least he doesn’t overlook the misdeeds of people close to him, or treat men in his household differently than others outside of it.” He clearly implied Athanar had shown favoritism, but he did not feel the need to say it outright. Wilheard was not so dense that he needed it pointed out to him in flaming red lettering. Javan felt sure he’d feel the sting of the insult, and he smiled.

[Firefoot]

Rowenna's statements set Scyld's heart pounding. He was pleased by her words, and it frightened him how much. You are not a free man yet, he reminded himself. He did not know yet how the law would deal with his transgression (though he felt fairly certain that Linduial's letter would exonerate him, else he would not have returned), nor did he know how Rowenna would handle his secrets. He could not let himself be ruled by his feelings now.

Still, he could not escape the conclusion that she was glad of his return (however she might veil the depth of her attachment with light words), and that he was glad of her gladness. Being more comfortable with light words that heavy ones, he responded in kind and did not keep his amusement from his face.

"Such a harrowing time you must have undergone without me," he said, a smirk belying his solemn tone. Rowenna laughed, and Scyld realized suddenly how much he had missed these conversations with her - he could think of no one else who understood his sense of humor as she did. They came to a cart that was still half-laden with goods, and he climbed up, handing one sack down to Rowenna and taking a crate for himself. "But surely you cannot have spent all of four years bored," he said. "You must be able to tell me of at least one funny or interesting thing that has happened while I was away."

[Firefoot]

Going to Edoras! Cerwyn still could not believe her luck, though it had been a full two days since her father had given her permission. Clothes and supplies were strewn everywhere, none of them in her pack: she could not decide what to bring. Probably she did not need to bring so many things, but she had never been more than a few leagues from home before and did not know how to pack.

Perhaps Father really was changing, she mused. It had taken long enough – more than half her life, since mother had died. She did not remember well how it had been before then. Léof had and he used to talk to her about it. Even her memories of his stories had started to fade, though: it had been five years since he’d left. At first, she’d been terribly lonely without him. They had been each other’s greatest ally and friend. Now, she’d grown accustomed to his absence, and no longer felt such a great emptiness at home. She had friends, of a sort, in the village nearby, but Father discouraged her from spending much time there. He did not often grow violent any more – but she had also gotten better at not getting caught. She knew when he was likely to miss her.

So now, to let her go to Edoras! Not alone, of course. She would be traveling with Everild, a widow of three years, and her oldest son. Theirs was the cabin closest to Cerwyn’s, and the two families had been of great help to each other during the harsh winter. During that time, it seemed Cerwyn’s father had formed quite a connection with Everild, and they had announced their intention to wed just a few weeks ago. Cerwyn thought that she must be the only woman for leagues around who wasn’t put off by her father’s drinking.

Then again, maybe she was changing him. Already Cerwyn was seeing it.

Maybe Léof could come home.

She knew, or thought she knew, two things of Léof since he’d left. She’d received one letter from him, long ago, and in it he’d said he’d taken up a post with the new Eorl in Edoras. She did not know why he’d stopped writing, and it rankled with her, but mostly she missed him too much to be truly angry. Then, sometime later but still now a couple years ago, she had happened to be in town when a traveler passing through was discussing this same Eorl, and how he’d moved his Hall to a place called Scarburg, somewhere east of Edoras. She guessed that Léof would have gone with him, and hoped that he might still be there.

This might be the one chance she had to find him. He would not come home on his own, she felt sure of that by now: he was far too stubborn. And their father, in turn, would never seek him out to invite him back: even if he wanted to, he was also too stubborn. In this, at least, did Léof take after him.

Well, neither would she be deterred. Already she had a plan. She was sorry already for the worry that she would cause Everild, but unrepentant of her plan. Once they reached Edoras, she had no doubt that she would be able to learn the whereabouts of this Scarburg, and then she would sneak away and go. This brought to mind the first thing she had to pack.

She went over to Léof’s old trunk of clothes and possessions and sifted through it. Father had never touched it, and when Léof left he had been about the same size as she was now. She found a serviceable pair of breeches, a shirt, and a hat, and stowed them at the bottom of her pack. A boy travelling alone would be less remarked upon than a girl, and a disguise would make it harder for anyone trying to come after her.

She was so eager to put this plan in place that she did not even mind that once she was caught her father would probably never let her leave the cabin again – at least not until he married her off, a possibility that loomed increasingly likely now that she had passed her eighteenth birthday and now that her father was remarrying, thus gaining a wife to care for his home as his daughter had for so many long years. She wouldn’t have it. She had not yet thought of a suitable resolution to this problem, but pushed it to the back of her mind for now.

She had to finish packing.

[Mithalwen]

Elfthain left the kitchen to find Safran where he had left her, eyes closed seemingly dozing and resting her white hind foot. "Wake up Saff, he said softly "let's get you sorted out". The mare flicked an ear and blinked at him as if to say that she hadn't been asleep, merely resting her eyes. It was only when he had unhitched her and retrieved his helm from the waggon seat where he had abandoned it before he had started unloading that he realised that no one had actually told him where the stables were. Deciding he couldn't go back and ask yet again, and that they couldn't be so far away he let the mare around the Meadhall buildings and before long found the stable yard. He paused to allow Safran to drink from a trough and caught fragments of a less than cordial discussion. One voice he recognised, that of Wilheard. The other was strange to him as was the name he thought he heard, Jan or something like it.

Saffy finished drinking and spattered her master with water. resigned that I was hardly going to mar his appearance at this stage he led her on in to the stables talking to the mare so as to give warning to the men lest they prefer their discussion unwitnessed.

He acknowledged his commander as military discipline required, then turned to the other, who was a perhaps a little more than him in age though a little less in height .

"I seek the ostler, Leof, the Lady Saeryn bids me tell him and any other here that food is now ready... and I also need to know what to do with my mare". He though he heard a stifled snort from Wilheard though maybe he imagined it. He knew some of the older knights laughed at his "pony" though he couldn't imagine why Wilheard had any cause to sneer. Saffy might have the soup-bowl feet, abundant mane and sturdiness inherited from her cob ancestor but she was brave and enduring and wise, while it seemed to Elfthain that Wilheard's mare was simply the most malevolent thing on hooves he had the misfortune to ever encounter. "where to stall her I mean.. or she could be turned out if that is easier.. she is very well tempered" he said pointedly "but I need to rub her down first .." his voice tailed off and he wondered if they would realise that he must have heard their conversation to know that Leof wasn't present. Saffy bumped his arm with her nose... she was ready for a bite of hay now and ideally a nice bit of mud to roll in. Her winter coat was starting to shed and it itched.

[Folwren]

Athanar had disinherited his eldest son? Javan had not known that. Perhaps it had been common knowledge in the hall at the time, but Javan had been a mere boy, and had spent every free moment he had outside with the Cnebba and Garmund. They had not paid attention to the heir of the eorl, for they felt no love either for him or his offspring. Still, the information came something as a shock. It certainly proved Javan’s words unfounded, and left him feeling more than a bit foolish after all.

He was grateful for the interrupted that the stranger brought. He would have felt inclined to retract his words and possibly apologize, and that was an idea he did not much care to think about.

“Léof’s up there,” Javan said, waving somewhere past the young man. “I can tell you where to take the mare, though. If she’s good tempered, as you say, she can go out into the yard with some others. You can rub her down here first, if you’d like.” He walked down several paces from the stall where Wilheard had stabled his mare and indicated a ring set into the wall where the mare could be tied while groomed.

“I am Javan,” he said, as the boy tied the mare to the ring. “What are you called?”