Harvest Moon.

Harvest Moon.

Postby catch » Fri Aug 16, 2013 11:27 am

Since Rhaena's marriage to Governor Glenn, the Tellim House has seen a change of fortunes.

They had been minor nobles, once, and still were, though a long line of squanderous squires and eccentric dabblers, as well as drunken gamblers, had long since broken their fortunes. One such man had been Heir, since old Sir Richard Tellim had died trying to make lead into gold, and it seemed he would have drank himself to death, the mortgage leaking out the bottom of a bottle, their ancestral home, having survived Baie and Drow and Fires, would be sold out from under them.

That was before the Fellowship.

He had awoken from his drunken stupor one morning to find his burning need for thirst, his genetic rage, gone. There was a strange peace, there, the drinking and gambling, the sound of his fist on his wife a daughters, a distant thing. What had he been doing all this time?

Tellim still owed the bankers quite a bit. But extensions had come on their loans. Some of the best farmland was returned. Slowly, slowly, silver and gold began to accumulate in their coffers once more.

That is when the messenger came to the door.

"Mister Giuseppe", the butler had said, though Jon Tellim had thought him as Head Inquisitory, a smaller, darker man.

"Coincidence," the tall, broad man had said, his face half-hidden under a large-brimmed hat, showing only a curly, pale beard, and a wet, black eye. He was dressed splendidly in pale blue and an odd, golden collar. He looked quite pale, but declined a seat, and refused a cap of brandy.

"I have m-m-many places t-t-to visit, Ser," he said, in a voice that sounded compellingly like bells.

"Have you been to the Fellowship?" Ser Jon asked with sympathy. "I'm certain they could pay the surgeons to fix that stutter."

"N-n-no, Ser. I'm j-j-just a messenger, Ser. Perhaps someday."

"Well, so long as it's not fear. You've nothing to fear from me."

The tall, drawn man smiled, and Jon got a sudden, giddy feeling of deja-vu. That he was doing something proscribed, speaking to this man. A desire to get away.

"No, Ser," he said. "I c-c-came to, to invite you - a grand Ball, Ser, a party of rarity and, and splendor. To b-b-be held in a, a week's time, at Marshal-Lady Ariane's Darkenhold. It will last for a long time, and so I, I extend the invitation, with - with assurances th-that the Fellowship will see to your holdings as you, you f-f-feast and dine in honor of Lady Rhaena, the p-p-passing of Summer, and Vice-Governor Agnie... Agnieeshka's appointment."

"Really!"

"Really, Ser."

The lie was easy.

_______________________________


To each place he went in turn, remembering the faces, remembering where they lived. He knocked and parroted his message. It would take a day, maybe two, to reach them all.

The last place he went was Lady Ariane's office in Myrkentown.

"I n-n-need to speak to Airy Ann, please," Catch tells the boyish secretary, wavering on his worn feet, his voice a gentle rasp in his throat from saying so many words.
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Re: Harvest Moon.

Postby Carnath-Emory » Sat Aug 17, 2013 5:06 am

It speaks to the lady's distracted state, perhaps, that even at the remove of two days she's yet to hear a word of what he's done.

The scowling rascal in the blue velvet doublet is quick enough to convey the tall man's message, and perhaps because he is so very tall. There's not height enough in the world, though, to keep him from scratching irritably at his lacy cuffs as he goes. But it all proceeds smoothly enough nonetheless: a swinging door admits two burly fellows into the foyer - one nurses a bandaged hand, and the other a smirk - and invites the visitor to take their place in the Marshall's office.

"Good morning, Catch." That, when he's made his way in. Perhaps he'll think of closing the door behind him; he might need to, for the Lady Marshall is standing by the windows, and shows no signs of turning back about in the immediate future. "Does something trouble you? This is a terribly long way for you to come, and I'm to lunch with the Lady Carys inside the hour."

Abundant sunshine. Upon her desk, a slender vase and two dainty lilies.
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Re: Harvest Moon.

Postby catch » Sat Aug 17, 2013 5:37 am

Those lilies were something to focus on. He had trembled at the two burly men, afraid for Giuseppe's ill-defined threat, his words of snapping chains, of insanity. He had wanted to flee, and his whole fever-spawned idea would have been lost. His eye had flickered across the boy's wrists, red, as Kacela's had been being forced to wear a silver bangle. Glenn Burnie had done that.

That lace-irritated wrist made this easier.

He kept his hat at a jaunty angle, hiding one half of his face, a slightly-crossed, black eye the only roving thing visible. Trying to focus on those lilies, and not on the Lady-Marshal's face. He could not bear it, otherwise.

"The... the Lady is. Is sorry f-f-f-for the intrusion, b-b-but she is - she is -"

Even with that boy with the itching wrists, Catch swallowed heavily against his words, knowing that his stammer and stutter was a thing inexcusable. A real messenger could say his message without such hesitation, and that thought spurs him into blurting.

"The Lady is sorry f-f-for the intrusion, b-b-but she wishes to hold a p-p-party at, at Darkenhold, and b-b-begs your good humor in hosting such an event. It is - it is f-f-for her, and Vice-Governor Agnie's appointment, and a, a harvest-festival of sorts, b-b-because the harvests are so good." A deep breath. "I have - She has p-p-provisions, and, and c-c-can help. B-b-because she wishes it to be a party of parties. It will b-b-be a grand thing that will g-g-go on for days, you understand? Darkenhold has - has b-b-been made beautiful by you, with m-m-many rooms to satisfy, and gardens to st-stroll in."

"It will happen a week's time," he ends, and only now does his eye flicker up to Ariane's face, almost shyly, afraid to see what may be on it.
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Re: Harvest Moon.

Postby Carnath-Emory » Sun Aug 18, 2013 5:27 am

The two burly men were only farmers, farmers who sometimes wielded a brutal little club and lugged barricades between allies, farmers who occasionally dug ditches against the fires that Catch himself had lit. They were only farmers, but the guilty mind has a talent for painting strangers as monsters...

"Oh..."

It all seems so unlikely, with Catch as her Lady's messenger being the unlikeliest of all.

"Well. I... "

It all seems so wonderful. Hadn't it been just last week that they'd spoken of this, she and the Inquisitor? Or else the week before, there being a reckoning owed, a matter to ajudicate, the sort of matter that might only be solved upon the dance-floor and to the accompaniment of some of Razasan's finest musicians. A grand ball, she'd insisted, and laughed as she spoke the words; sparkling wine by the fountainful, pretty garlands for the walls; it all seems so wonderful, and its timing could not possibly be worse.

"Of course, if my Lady wishes it, we shall endeavour to delight."

But when she turns, when she faces him at last, it's with an uncertain frown and troubled eyes.
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Re: Harvest Moon.

Postby catch » Mon Aug 19, 2013 9:18 am

He is a far cry from the dirt-grubbed creature that tended the green-house blossoms, from the fae creature that slipped into the Stables, where few dared to tread, to share stories and fat Dagger-mice with the seething shadow trapped within. Hrimfax. If there is one thing he could forever hate and despise of Airy Ann, it was Hrimfax. That had been no Rhaena-induced madness, and oh, how the two creatures suffered for it. He wore silk and fine linens in shades of sky-blue, with the peek of lace at his cuffs, sprouting from his long, slim neck like white moon-flowers. Only the hat seemed out of place, a wide-brimmed thing, set so low over his face that the addled man must cock his head to one side in order to see.

His black eye could only linger on that troubled face for but a moment before it dove, hiding in the bowing of his head against her probing eyes. His hands, his scarred fingers, twisted in his lap like a fidgeting child's. Such a messenger he is! Catch quivers in his chair, ready to spring up any moment, ready to flee at the slightest sign of denial, a sign he was certain to miss if he kept himself hidden behind that hat.

"Sh-sh-she does," he mumbles. "I have - Sh-she has items sh-sh-she can spare, f-f-fine crops and - and some late-summer lambs and p-p-piglets. And linens, sh-sh-should you need th-them - for the guests -" He babbled, a little, his mind scrambling as to how he could procure linens. The rememberdarium? Would such a theft be perceived?

"I'm sorry," he said, letting weariness creep into his throat. "I - I have b-b-been ext-tending invitations m-m-most of the day." Two days, but he doesn't know it; he had operated in a fevered frenzy, half-blinded.
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Re: Harvest Moon.

Postby Carnath-Emory » Tue Aug 20, 2013 3:11 am

Hrimfax may remain a lasting point of contention. Even if she were to recover - even if there were much left of her to recover - how might the lady marshall explain that issue to a creature like Catch? How, exactly, would one explain that Hrimfax - above all, Hrimfax - was the one weapon she could never be permitted to wield? But in any case, it's a very fine courier he's made of himself this summer day: Catch has caught the sky down from the heavens and clothed himself in it, and dabbled with a bit of lace about the edges besides, and just days ago she'd have clapped her hands with sudden delight on seeing it all.

Her features cannot quite shed their narrow frown.
Perhaps the hat-brim, merciful, will keep his eyes from seeing it.

"Well," the lady murmurs, and it's the second time she's said it. "Between the refugees and our own household, the accommodations will be limited, you understand," she explains - and concedes, a moment later, that he probably doesn't. "Linens will be essential; toiletries; kitchen staff, if we're to be feeding so many and to such an - extent." The word is a discomfort upon her lips. It all seems so wonderful. But they were to visit the orchard, tomorrow; they were to continue their hunt through the manor's rooms today, the better to accommodate a man's healing wounds. The timing of this could not be worse. "Wine, of course. Ciders. On what day would my Lady have her festivities commence?"

But when she looks, really looks past the veil of her own reluctances, it's to discover a Catch gone worn at the edges, a Catch rather wilting; the shape of her mouth allows a moment's wordless sympathy. In the next she is moving for a pitcher and glass, and: "Would you care to sit yourself for a time?" As she offers him some water for his throat.
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Re: Harvest Moon.

Postby catch » Tue Aug 20, 2013 3:59 am

Well. Well. She said that word twice, and in Catch's ears, she seemed to say it for eternity, stretching and echoing. His eye comes up to stare at her lips - only her lips - watching it form and flicker, painted wrongly, red as sacrificial blood.

There was something in those wells, deep and water-filled, that kept him focused on the words. Servants and linens, refugees and space. Her mind was off on party-things, except it wasn't. There was that frown, those bloodied, frowning lips, that draws him in. That causes him to find the chair with a hand, even as he says, weakly, "I have more messages to run - more - m-m-more messages -". And he sits, even if his nerves scream at him, his body bending unwillingly into the chair, a body pushed beyond it's limits. Worn. Ragged. Faded. Much more than just in his body.

She pours the water from the pitcher, and his eye quivers on it. Thousands of clear, thick crystal-shards. He wonders why she offers him crystals to drink; when he takes the glass, that is what it feels like, a thousand pain-filled needles that scrape their way down a throat gone sore from dust and speaking. He must tilt his head to drink; water tinged with sluggish red dribbles down his chin, wetting blond curls into stiff salute.

There is something in her, and a weakness in him, that brings up a painful surge of hope. He knows of the Book. He did his best, Hrimfax's best, to aid her. Red lips. They frown, and her hands do not clap. Hope. LIke a child, he jumps into that hope without even looking at it, and his head tilts up. It shows what he tried so hard to hide from her, the ruin of an eye, caked in pus and dried gore, a dribble of deep, red ichor. His good, black eye quivers, and his scarred fingers are a daring thrust towards that swordswoman's wrist.

"Airy Ann?" he asks, tentative, wavering on joy. She is frowning. She does not clap at his clothes, and she does not coo in delight at the prospect of a grand party. For this one, wild moment, he dares his hope. "Are you back?"
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Re: Harvest Moon.

Postby Carnath-Emory » Sun Aug 25, 2013 6:58 am

Bloodied lips look something like this; accordingly, they are on familiar ground. Wasn't it just weeks ago? That his fist struck her face; that, stunned, the lady tasted blood -

A distracted glance catches on the sight of dribbling, bloodied water; catches and lingers, slightly wincing. Two fingertips tug a handkerchief delicately free from beneath a tight sleeve-cuff, and this she offers him a little gingerly, a small tilt of her chin indicating his own. He's not a very grand Catch now, either - he's working himself into a fine state of nervous exhaustion - but this time, at least, she's greeted him with sympathy rather than scorn.

"Goodness, Catch. And at the height of a day so warm as this? Why, you'll have your death of the heat, Catch; no. No. We must have you seated for a while right here, so that you might catch your breath and enjoy some refreshment," thin little sandwiches, clearly not intended for guests but their plate is slid towards him nonetheless; one of the little rectangles has begun to leak watercress. "I assure you, my Lady would not have you suffer so. Not even for the sake of such important news."

A quill. A sliver of paper. Her own inexpert hand, applied to both.
It was never much made for writing words, this hand. But that just means it must more diligently practice.

"Now. Upon what day are the festivities to begin?" she starts - but his face is as startling a sight as he'd suspected, and the words die soft in her throat. He reaches for her; does she even realise it? And it is days-ago all over again, except that then the reaching hand was her own, and the man's wrist was slippery with blood; it had been all her weight pressed down upon that limb to keep it from wrenching apart the stitches she'd tremblingly sewn, stitches because she could not stand the sight of blood-splattered features and dying green eyes -

"Oh Catch," she whispers, and it is barely even a tremor of sound.
"Oh, Catch, what has become of you," she breathes, and hardly manages the words.
And when he asks, when he asks a thing which is improbable in the wake of his face's confession, the words tug from her a sound like sighing laughter. "Catch, I must seem distracted, I know. But this is all so sudden, so unexpected," she murmurs, no less reasonable than his question had been, than the sight of his eyes.

"And I just can't imagine what I'm going to wear."
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Re: Harvest Moon.

Postby catch » Mon Sep 02, 2013 7:01 am

My lady. My lady.

My Lady would not wish you to suffer.

Catch draws back, but his rough fingers snag on the fine cloth of her kerchief. And he does not think of the ruin that he would do to it, the way he presses it against a swollen, twisted lid, inciting all his nerves to screaming. It is a good thing that his mind is so dull. Like the most stoic bull, he does not even think to bellow with the pain, both physical and emotional. Crushed is a word, crushed like an ant under a boot, as she reaches for him, as she professes her concern. A false concern, and it angers him, it confuses him, because he knows that it is real - but how can anything real come from a creature so false? This creature that flutters about dresses, about a party, and not about the very town being twisted into paper cranes.

With the kerchief clapped to his eye, he bends his head back down, so he would not offend; he takes another drink of the crystal-water before he mutters.

"You are - you are so b-b-busy, I. I f-f-feel like I hardly know you, anymore. B-b-but th-that's not - not important. A week's t-t-time, d-d-do you believe? I will. I will d-d-do what I c-c-can, of course, and the - the Lady, too." There are linens, cedar-packed, in the Dagger's storerooms. There are many who would give their fingers to be a part of such an event, however small. "I will f-f-find the things you need, and work the Garden. You sh-shan't want f-f-for anything, taxing th-thought it may be."
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