The Ebony Crescent

Rhadho Dorrn looked grim when he entered the healing chambers, but it was a surprise to everyone when he ordered his healers to start packing their things and take as many supplies as possible. There was a pause before everyone burst into action. Rhadho Dorrn headed to his office to pack his own things before coming out to see how everyone was getting on.

Grairy arrived about five minutes later, also looking stressed.

Rhadho Dorrn looked grim when he entered the healing chambers, but it was a surprise to everyone when he ordered his healers to start packing their things and take as many supplies as possible. There was a pause before everyone burst into action. Rhadho Dorrn headed to his office to pack his own things before coming out to see how everyone was getting on.

Rhadho Dorrn looked grim when he entered the healing chambers, but it was a surprise to everyone when he ordered his healers to start packing their things and take as many supplies as possible. There was a pause before everyone burst into action. Rhadho Dorrn headed to his office to pack his own things before coming out to see how everyone was getting on.

“Hit your head?” The northerner tilted her head to the side as she tried to make out any wounds on the traveller’s skin. It was then that Merri realised in what desperate state she was, although not knowing how she had ended up here either, or by what means. The woman could have been captured, kidnapped or possibly just escaped from somewhere. 

Still unsure how to assist her, she promptly handed the woman her waterskin. “That’s all I have left for now, but you can have some, if you want.”

“I currently hope to reach the village of Stursbrun by nightfall, which is along the road. Perhaps you want to travel this way too?” Merri smiled. “Walking always helps clear up the mind, and the prospect of fresh water and food is not less tempting.” 

    Sorcha blinked at the offered waterskin for a moment, but finally accepted it. At the word that it was a very limit resource, she did accept the offer of a drink, but not much. Just the small amount was enough to make her feel a little more human, anyway.

The Northerner nodded eagerly. She was used to travelling alone. In a way, perhaps she was bound to do so as company came with protection and danger likewise. Relying on others had always disappointed her eventually and being relied on was something with which she was not familiar after all. Travelling in groups was also a welcoming change for once, though, and so Merri willingly agreed to let the woman travel with her until she was well again.

“Hopefully,” Merri mumbled to herself as she followed the man to the best of her ability. Not walking because every movement hurt was hardly an excuse for her after all those mishaps. She could rest and look after herself later. 

“I’m not from here,” the northerner replied. Well remarking that she had still not reached Hryggdal’s eastern border - a rather wide river as she had been told by locals. 

The undergrowth never seemed to give way to her steps. Soon enough she had lost track of time in an sheer endless struggle against the weeds and shrubs on the forest ground. Yet eventually the two reached what looked like a small house in the most unusual of places.

As she did not divulge further information, James let the conversation dwindle into comfortable silence. He hadn’t locked the door to the cottage, and so once they’d taken the stone path up between crowded rose bushes and wild jasmine he pushed it open for her.

                       Inside the place was sparsely furnished but clean and well taken care of. One half of the cottage comprised of a kitchen area and had a small cooking hearth with fire ablaze. There was even a water pump overtop a large stone basin. There was another much larger fireplace in the main living area with two thick chairs in front of it. The bedrooms were more like large alcoves with colorful cloths strung up on twine to keep them private.

They were indeed not as bad as she had assumed initially back out in the forest. She though looked precisely as someone who had landed in a bush of strawberries. Perhaps she even had. She did feel like it.

A little more effort and Merri would stand, eventually. Her skin, especially around her forearms and legs, felt as though it was burning. She paused a moment to look at the scratches and wounds, still bright red and fresh. She shuddered at the thought that some of them perhaps would never fully heal.  

“That I don’t know,” she replied with honesty. However zealous the waylayers were in their cause, letting someone who discovered their hideout get away seemed counter-intuitive even to her, but she did not mention it. 

Merri felt honoured about the invitation. There were few alternatives after all, and a lodge in the forest sounded promising. It might not be too far from the road that she had lost yesterday either.

“Well- perhaps we ought to get moving before they make it here just in case. The cottage should be safe enough.”

                     Said cottage was isolated but had thick wooden shutters and a sturdy oak door- all of which could be shut and bolted with iron if the need truly arose. James had never run afoul of bandits or any of the sort of folk who liked to cruise less populated places in search of mischief. 

                     Once the woman was standing James ticked his head towards the direction of his home and started walking. He kept the pace slower for her- having spotted the numerous wounds and being understanding of the exhaustion she must have felt after all that running.

“I’m not from here,” the northerner replied. Well remarking that she had still not reached Hryggdal’s eastern border - a rather wide river as she had been told by locals. 

It was nearing Ostra, a holiday Lauyrn had come to know and even enjoy through her two years of being in the Norse culture. She’d just come out of being a thrall the previous month and was still getting used to her new found freedom among the people she’d come to find…pleasing. Not as barbaric and horrid as the church of her home had made them out to be. 

They still did horrible things on raids but Lauyrn had come to realize that even the English were not perfect and neither was her Christian God. The one thing she still tried to cling to but found was getting harder and harder to do surrounded by the Norse and their Gods that seemed to be apart of everyday life. At times when she did her daily prayers Lauyrn wasn’t sure if it was God she felt or one of the many 

Her former master had set her free after she’d saved the life of his two young boys who’d nearly drowned in the river and she herself had barley gotten out of the river alive as it had been nearing a cliff to the ocean. And with her freedom was given a new name by her old master, one he felt suited her. Líknvé in væni.

It wasn’t usual for their fair sized village to have a traveler come through but it seemed today would be the day such a thing were to occur and Lauyrn had found herself facing the red haired woman and she wondered for a split second if this was the trickster god Loki come to tempt her even further from her path of Christianity and make her a Norse woman in full. 

In her way of speech, Merri found this woman to clearly be no native to Hryggdal. The fact that she was most certainly not from anywhere close by either excited her for a moment. Although she could not assign her accent to any particular region, she appeared to make an effort mimicking the tongues of the northern people. 

“Greetings! I am on my way to Vestuhamn, which should be no more than a week from here unless I’m mistaken,” Merri replied.

Dorri Irraon had her finish the weeding. The guard from earlier, whom Aradir had called Grairy, came to take her to her new room before dinner.

“Your pay will be a little less for the first two weeks,” He told her, “Linens are not free to make. You are lucky that they can be changed into bandages,”

Her new room was actually a dormitory, which she would be sharing with seven other people. Not all of them were gardeners but they clearly respected Grairy when he brought Rovja inside, getting to their feet. Her bed was right at the back, and her things had been placed into a chest at the foot of the bed.

“Oh, I’m getting paid?” Rovja acted surprised. The northerner honestly did not expect any sort of payment for her work, but felt somewhat glad about it. Although, what would she do with coin that could not be exchanged? The only plausible answer she had at hand was to carry it around until it could be weighed. 

”Well, thank you,” she added in her confusion and sat down on her bed. Before that she curiously peeked inside the chest next to it, frowning to find the very same dress she had been given yesterday stuffed inside.

Although she appreciated any help she could get, she feared that it would not do her any good any more right now. Still, Merri thanked the man for trying to help her. 

She might have pulled a muscle or two, or maybe more, and severely grazed her arms and legs. No, she definitely was not hurt badly according to her own understanding of the word and the injuries she had been through, but exhausted nonetheless. “I was being ambushed when I tried to find shelter for the night,” Merri explained to him, “then I dashed through the forest, hoping to get away.” 

Fleeing into the wood had been a mostly wise decision on her part. The trees here were dense and thick thickets covered much of the forest floor. It could be difficult for even someone who was experienced to traverse the terrain, and James only tended to get by because he was good at picking out the deer and animal paths worn through the underbrush.

“That I don’t know,” she replied with honesty. However zealous the waylayers were in their cause, letting someone who discovered their hideout get away seemed counter-intuitive even to her, but she did not mention it. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” Aradir told her, not so gently, “I think you do not see my position here. I have an uncooperative human and if I asked for advice everyone I trust would have me kill you and I would have no reason not to. I suggest you give me some. I do not want to kill you, and that is why I cannot let you leave,”

Suddenly, an idea came to her mind. The crazy it sounded to her, but if these people had not the slightest knowledge of her world, she would merely have to make sure that her people wanted her back - and there were a few. Yet, she was not ready to take that step just now. She turned towards the giant.

Then she remembered other things in her bags that she carried along with her. Tempted to look through them all, she opened a satchel and pulled out a piece of paper, just out of curiosity and to remind herself of the land she belonged to. It was a note, declaring the way she had previously travelled now being guaranteed by the lords of Hryggdal to be paved at a minimum width and to be safe for travel. Below was a map with several inns and stables along the road, reachable within a day’s journey from any adjacent ones. On the note was a stamp, showing two lions.

Dorri Irraon tapped Rovja on the shoulder once the meal was over.

“Your pay will be a little less for the first two weeks,” He told her, “Linens are not free to make. You are lucky that they can be changed into bandages,”

“You… don’t remember?” Merri raised her eyebrows in mild disbelief, or perhaps surprised to find a traveller in such a terrified state. Her explanation sounded genuine, though, as far as she could tell.

She noted the blood on the woman’s hands. Judging her clothes and lack of provisions, the woman must have been robbed on the roads.  

“I myself have been attacked by bandits out here not long ago,” Merri sighed. “Luckily they didn’t expect me to run so fast, for some reason.” The northerner could have told a story of bravery instead, but figured it would come back to her one way or another, especially if the bandits and her would ever meet again, which she hoped not.

     “I must have… hit my head…” Her hand rose, gingerly touching the center of the ache in her head and flinching as the pain blossomed even wider. She looked down, not focused on any one thing, trying to draw up any memory of what happened.

     “The last thing I remember is… being home,” she said, voice soft. “I don’t know how I… got here.”

     Try as she might, the memory of how she’d gotten from being at home with her family to waking up alone in the forest simply wasn’t there. Trying to force the memories back served to do nothing but upset her, and though she normally wasn’t a demonstratively emotional person, a tear escaped on one side. It rolled through the black smudge on her cheek before she could stop it, which only smeared further when she wiped the wetness away.

Still unsure how to assist her, she promptly handed the woman her waterskin. “That’s all I have left for now, but you can have some, if you want.”