Talk Around Town
OOC Note: My first RP with Yselde. : )
Main Passageway -- Keep of the Ard-Righ, Level One
A few lanterns set back in sconces upon the stone walls, provide the little light available in the passageway. Several doors leading to various rooms can be seen, while a staircase leading to the palace's tower sets at one end. The other side ends in a dark staircase that leads down to the dungeon.
Gossip is spreading, "The Stags will attack Iolair ! Their army is marshalling north and where do you think they'll halt before Iolair ? Here !" a townfolk woman of an undefined clan shrieks and this perhaps draw one bear of the prelude to the long winter sleep. She shuts her mouth but all in Stilicon gear terrorizes her, "Even the Bear are fleeing !" she cries and flees herself down the passage way, letting a bewildered smith with his package rolled...
And there came Lanya, missing to bump in the doomsayer but she seemed unafraid and discussed with Stilicon for a couple of minutes before hurrying to care for her own packages.
Now the smith is leaning against a wall, prolly a certain maiden dancing before his eyes.
Lantern light flickers across the face of a passerby, her expression illuminated yet largely unreadable beneath the the drape of a broad gray hood over her shoulders and head. Yselde's errand brings her in from without, though steps toward the infirmary draw to a sudden halt as the lady avoids a collision with the frightened woman. She shuffles to the side, a roughly wrapped envelope clutched closer to her chest.
Once much of the bustle has passed, the healer's gaze falls to Stilicon. Though caution remains in her discerning gaze, her words to him are plain enough. "Good day," she mutters distractedly, pausing in her steps long enough to look back over her shoulder toward the woman once more before returning her gaze to the smith.
Soft feminine steps and Stilicon turns immediately toward the sound, smiling "Lan.. Oh good day," he smiles and greets politely the young woman once the second of surprise at her sight is passed. "I was expecting another, please forgive me. I am Stilicon" he says in earnest, a sincere warmth filling his voice, the desire to apologize.
His surprise is met with Yselde's own, it would seem. Twice she blinks, a slightly lopsided smile curving on her lips not the only indication that there might be amusement behind her curious study of the man. "Stilicon," she repeats in measured tones. "It is nothing to warrant an apology surely, but I will take an introduction as the remedy. I am Yselde." Her voice holds a certain confidence in its strength, though quiet.
"Eh well, good day then Yselde" Stilicon greets her a second time and bends slightly to retrieve his large bag, slowly as he hauls it up on his shoulder, he observes the young woman. "No offence was meant also" the man adds and looks about "Will you stay there and heed the few who speak of the Stags coming ?"
From the infirmary itself, a figure emerges. Bear, like the hulking Smith, at least by the crimson tunic, the faded dark leather of her trousers, the dark iron of sword at her hip.
The smile fades, the amber in hazel eyes sparking with uncertain meaning. "Even if folk hadn't been so unsettled, I would still hold to my original intent. This new murmur gives me little more than another reason to do what I would anyway, and that's to set out soon. I have a mind to see my son out of the city afore any trouble..." Here Yselde loses her words for a moment, her eyes lifting to the infirmary as one there passes.
"Yes, it seems me a wise idea. I don't believe the Stags will attack the city or pillage it while coming, it's nonsense, but perhaps they'll carry to Iolair. We'll see, what is your clan my good lady ?" Stilicon last asks. He fixes her a second and the next foot steps finds him warded for when he glances at Corona, he doesn't shout the Bear healer name, but merely offers a polite "good day."
"The Stag aren't going to pillage the city, they've pledged to rebuild it," Corona shakes her head, looking from Yselde to Stilicon and back again. "Though I do doubt we will get that triphome any time soon, after all. If they try to hold good to their threat."
"Iolair." This remains Yselde's only word for a matter of moments, her voice kept close in immediate company, though it is no mask for the quiet uncertainty that lies therein. Her eyes dart between the two, their sparkle speaking more of the unspoken skittishness of one watched by many than only two. "Threat?" the lady inquires of Corona, a raised eyebrow in accompaniment of her words. "Will you forgive the questions of one less informed?"
"Aye, they pledged to raze Iolair," Stilicon nods at Corona's words rather approvingly and adds to explain to Yselde. "So, Corona" he says while adjusting his bag and setting his hand on his hip, "We'll be going back home now, to ready ourselves and keep you and other in safety." he announces.
Corona snorts softly. "I'll be going back home when Banedil wills it, and not you." She turns a kinder eye on Yselde, nodding, "Aye, the Stag pledged that if Iolair where not declared a clan by night's end, they would burn it at the festival's. That's tomorrow."
"Aren't you the one supposed to protect me also Corona ?" Stilicon muses and shakes his head angrily, "And what will you do here ? You should be in a safe place and we need to reach it before anything the Stag could do, I am quite sure Banedil is of my opinion."
Yselde's response is more to herself than anyone in particular, though any might hear. "Rebuild or lay to ruin," she mutters darkly. "I see not how it is chance worth taking." Hazel eyes narrow and rewiden with the fading of an inner anger and the appearance of a blank yet determined glimmer. To Corona and Stilicon she inquires again, cold indifference an attempt to disguise the stake in her question. "Will no one stay? Whether or for what the Stag come, do none contest?"
Corona sighs softly, ignoring Stilicon and his presumptions a moment. "There are many who Protest. Wulf, who holds the Keep along with Iolair, for now. Bear, who sees it as our own, for its Lord is ours." She shakes her head. "I do not know that it will not end in battle and flame, anyway."
Stilicon still holds Corona under the weight of his gaze, the topic of her trip is postponed but not forgotten. "Rebuild this town and destroy the keep of Iolair. And I suppose now the clan of Wulf and Bear will oppose this definite solution of the Stag" Stilicon completes Corona words.
Furrows deepened by worry show across Yselde's face. "And to think I have met so many that would not leave at first chance. Myself among them, aye, and yet I have little choice." A sigh rises and falls in her chest, wiry work-strengthened shoulders falling slightly beneath the drape of her cloak. "If it will come to war anyway, then I do not suppose remaining and leaving will mean much difference."
"Go promptly and take your son to a place you can be safe with him" Stilicon says and shakes his head, somewhat touched in his hardness by her plight, "A siege is never pleasing not even for the besieger, so for the besieged... It's prolly women and children be put outside, but do not wait."
Corona shakes her head, "The city is safe enough. There are those," her eyes fall in a soft glare on Stilicon, "Who might think otherwise, but there is no clan that wishes it destroyed any further. Seek asylum here, with Korrina and the healers, if you wish."
Quietly Lanya comes walking along the passage, approaching the small cluster from which snippets of speech drift, trying to pick up the thread of conversation before she is close enough to be immersed in it.
In taking a deep breath, Yselde finds strength of resolve. "I had not meant to hide, but...Caidan cannot fight a man's war. If I can get him to my mother, I will. But for where I go after that...would I be of use?" The woman loosens the crossing of her arms from over the wrinkled envelope she carries, eyes drifting further beyond Stilicon and Corona's shoulders to look within the infirmary. "I sought one among the healers now, in fact. Maybe there is one I might speak to."
"Ah no, you misunderstood me Corona" Stilicon shakes his big head and finally puts down his bag, obviously they wont leave in the hour following. "The city is safe, but in a few days, perhaps very soon the passage to Creatrach and our land wont be anymore, and we'll be of more use over there than here."
Lanya nears close enough to speak comfortably, as she adds her own words. "Besides that it is nice simply to go back home to Creatrach, than to stay here and be ever surrounded by that which was once great, and is now but a charred husk of itself," she remarks.
Inner conflict holds Yselde to silence, and she draws away mentally if not physically from the gathering of Bear. Lingering in what shadows are left my firelight for only a moment's time, the healer and carpenter then darts into the infirmary with a distracted nod to those gathered.