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Post by Harrier Wren on Oct 1, 2017 0:29:44 GMT
A melancholy mouth-organ filtered through the chatter in the tavern, clear and sharp as snowflakes or the scent of food. Harrier winced each time the door opened. The cold draft drowned out the tune for long moments at a time. She turned away from the door and hunkered over her bowl of pease-porridge. Once in a while she murmured a question, and a jade pen would wobble upright to scribble an answer on a sheet of vellum in a foreign language. Sometimes the bowl of ink would freeze, on colder days. The pea soup warmed her more effectively than her threadbare cloak. She knew she made a sketchy sight: journeyman necromancy offered little income without real viciousness thrown in. Harrier hadn't been that since the pillaging of Vaundsburg - not really, not if she could help it.
She sighed hard and couldn't say why. Discomfort, maybe, that she could never quite move past the raw pragmatism that helped her survive. A far cry from life in academia.
The mouth-organ music wound down, and Harrier stirred. "Play it again," she said, and tossed the wandering performer a small coin. The music carried on, a minimal refuge from winter or her thoughts, but all she could afford.
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Post by Talaiel on Oct 1, 2017 3:05:46 GMT
Talaiel wrapped the cloak tighter around her thin shoulders as the wind cut through the cloth like a knife. She shivered down to her bones. Her hair had frozen in chunks about her face and neck, while her scarf was stiff as hard leather.
The glow of a tavern filtered through the whirling snow and the young half-elf psuhed her way forwards through the storm until she was pushed up against the door. She shoved, kicking at the snow with her feet. The door creaked and shuddered as it fell inwards. She stumbled into the room and pushed the door so that it slammed shut behind her. A small crowd filled the room, huddled in their clothes around small braziers and hot bowls of stew.
Someone played a pitiful tune on a mouth-organ. She grimaced at the sound, but ignored it as she made her way forward to the bar.
"Something hot," she said, sliding a coin across the bar, "And solid." The innkeeper nodded and moved behind the bar to scoop a bowl of soup from the cauldron above the fire.
Talaiel winced at the music again and shook her head.
"This place," she announced, and pulled the pan-pipes from her travel pack, "Needs a hint of summer." It was a bit of a pun on her part, for she referred both to the season of summer and the Summer Court. For now they were in the depths of winter, and the Winter Court's power grew strong across the face of the world. It haunted her and tracked her.
For she was a Fae-touched paladin, and she knew the ways of the Faen courts. Her own glamor was its weakest now, sustained only by her divine connection.
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Post by Harrier Wren on Oct 1, 2017 17:35:26 GMT
The mouth-organ trailed off, and Harrier stirred. “I told you to keep-” she barked at the tabletop, then cut herself off. Pipe music, light and warm as the event of fresh bread, swelled through the cold room. She felt tension leach out of the others present, the locals and travelers taking shelter from the snow. The same tension sluiced out of her shoulders and neck as the pipes played on.
The trapper who'd played the mouth-organ returned to his own food, his money made. Harrier scraped her bowl and left it on the table. She wrapped her threadbare cloak a little tighter and put away the jade, paper, and ink. Hefting her bag, she made her way across the crowded floor to the bar. The pipe-player, a frigid Elf, caught her eye.
“Much as we appreciate the music,” Harrier said, taking a nearby stool, “you'll play longer if you warm yourself before you warm others.” She glanced at the barkeep. “Mulled wine for two.”
The man nodded and plunged a hot poker into a pot of spiced wine, then ladled it into a pair of cups. Others smelled the wine heating up again and ordered the same. It was cheap stuff, vinegary and weak, but the heat and spices made it wonderful.
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Post by Talaiel on Oct 4, 2017 22:06:08 GMT
Talaiel paused as a woman came up to her and spoke. The young half-elf lowered the pipes for a moment as the innkeep scooped out two goblets of spiced wine. Its rich aroma wafted into the air and she clutched the mug, savoring its warmth as it seeped into her bones.
"My thanks, friend," she answered, hiding a grimace at the taste of the wine. It was hardly good, but it would have to do. "And you speak truth, but..." Her voice trailed off as she sat there and looked around. "The Winter Court grows strong this year and their power permeates even the hearts of mortal folk."
She downed the wine and have a half-smile as her fingers tingled. "And that is not something that I can allow to happen." A blush from the spices spread across her cheeks and she shook her nearly frozen hair away from her face to take up the pipes again, before turning back to the woman.
"Do you have any requests?"
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Post by Harrier Wren on Oct 6, 2017 4:43:09 GMT
TalaielAt the name ‘Winter Court,’ Harrier's cup froze just short of her lips. Half a heartbeat later, she took a drink. “Play me something from your people,” she said. “I've run into them before, but never heard their music. My loss, at a guess.” The last time she'd crossed paths with the Winter Court, or heard it mentioned by name, she'd been hunting a giant. A high fae had offered her a wager- Bad memories there. You didn't bargain lightly with the fae. Whether this girl was or not remained an open question. Elf versus faerie could be a continuum in many ways. She might be nothing, she might be lethal. Call it one more reason to hear the music, besides keeping the cold at bay.
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Post by Talaiel on Oct 6, 2017 5:15:36 GMT
Her people? Well, that was interestingly phrased and it threw her for a loop for a moment. After all, Talaiel wasn't even sure who her people were at this point. Her family was somewhere out there, although she had no memory of them. Nor did they know that she had been missing, as far as she had been told. But then, after all, one did not trust the Fae, even if they raised you.
"I'm curious about this encounter," she said after a moment. "For I do not think that any of them walk the mortal realm. At least not openly."
She shrugged though and took up the pipes once more and began to play. She started slow, gently, with lots of high trills that rippled through the air. It was the song of winter's thaw and approaching spring. As she continued, she began to weave a new song, one faster and deeper, that seemed to swell with every breath she took. She played the song of growing crops and blooming flowers.
Then Talaiel played something new and something wild. It was fast, like a quick stepping dance, and spiraled in and out of itself like a troop of mad dancers.
Then it ended and silence descended over the tavern as Talaiel stopped to catch her breath.
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Post by Harrier Wren on Oct 6, 2017 11:18:23 GMT
Harrier spent the song composing her words. The music helped; it dovetailed with her memory of the fae she'd met. Once the pipes drew to a close, Harrier swigged back the last of her mulled wine and set her cup on the bar with exaggerated care.
"I was chasing a giant who'd stepped on a village," she said. "Footprint as big as the whole town square. There was a bounty, and I had some notions of putting the giant to use..." She shrugged. No point in getting into necromancy. "There was a fae in the woods, a woman, a pale lady. She...goaded me, laughed at me, tried to get me to take a wager on how quickly I could kill the giant. Her price, if she won, was strange."
She blinked away from her reverie and glanced up at the barkeep. "Another, please," she said, and drained the cup as soon as he'd ladled it full. Mulled wine wasn't meant to be drunk that way: heady spices and vapors exploded in her sinuses. She coughed and kept coughing.
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Post by Talaiel on Oct 8, 2017 22:37:50 GMT
Talaiel sipped her wine as the other woman spoke and listened. It was a strange tale, to be sure, and she wasn't sure what it all meant. A pale lady seeking a wager was clear enough. That was an old way of the Fae. Any of the High Fae could do such things. What baffled her was that one of them would. It had been centuries since the Courts had deigned to meddle in mortal affairs. They had most often kept to themselves, prior to the collapse of the empire. She finished her drink and set it down on the counter. Its fiery warmth spread through her body, while the other woman coughed. Talaiel clapped her on the back to try and help before resettling in her seat. "I don't what purpose a giant would have," she said after a moment with a frown, "But that was certainly one of the High Fae that you met. One of the Winter Court, I would guess. Couldn't say which one." Her brow furrowed as she thought through everything she had known. There were stories of such things, but they were hardly rare. Such behavior had been a popular phase among the courts a while back. "She must have been ancient," Talaiel said at last, "Did she give a name? I couldn't guess who might do that. I was only a changeling after all." Harrier Wren Wren
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