1629, Fire Season, Stasis Week, Windsday
Context
After the massacre at the ford, the group returned to Queen’s Post, where they met one of Scimitar Ornkarth’s people, a person called a ‘sorcerer’. This woman, Oriana, performed a spell to say where the rest of the iron boxes were. Session SA5-N.10.
Events
After two days of waiting around for the right day for the spell, and a lot of judgement for People Being Dead, the group is about to split up. Ornkarth is going back North, to Bagnot, where he can probably find one. Everyone else is going South, at speed, to Valadon.
In the middle of that bustle, the Scimitar taps on Maalira’s shoulder. He has timing.1Maalira passed Scan, and is not surprised.
He was tolerably obvious while approaching, although he did look for a while as if he would pass her by, and it turns out… no. He’s here for her.
“Can I help you?” Maalira asks politely.
“Perhaps,” he says with a suddenly-thoughtful look. “I would hope so. Tell me, the short little warrior, is she made of pride, or am I just approaching badly?”
Maalira’s lips quirk. “Yes,” she says.
“She insists on being responsible for the blood debt of those she killed, which is laudable, but very awkward for everyone.” Ornkarth’s voice is almost matter of fact.
“She takes her responsibilities very seriously,” Maalira agrees.
“Do you think you have a chance of persuading her otherwise? I’m short of a reason for poking my dagger in, back in Bagnot, and it’s not exactly my…” He considers, and then tries, “Personal oasis?”
Maalira frowns, trying to puzzle this out. “I can certainly try. What would you like me to say?”
“If I knew that, I would be capable of saying it, I suspect. But if she would give that responsibility to another who is less tied to notions of monetary honour, that could help.” Ornkarth sighs. “Not Irillo. She does not trust his grandmother.”
Maalira appears to smirk and then swallow it. “No, she doesn’t. I will try to intercede with her to persuade her to give over the debt.”2GM interjects: ‘She’s a lovely elderly lady!!’
“It does not have to be directly,” Ornkarth notes. “If she is prepared to send word, or someone is. I probably have a few days of grace, unlike you.”
Maalira nods. “Though, sending word might become difficult. I’ll do my best.”
“I want this stopped at least as much as she does. As you all do.”3Maalira fumbles Insight Human.
He’s behind it all. All of it. For one moment she sees through the front and gets a glimpse of the cold reptilian mind planning this whole thing… then suddenly it’s gone, and he really does mean it. BUT MAALIRA SAW.4Kindly supplied by Dormal-GM
Maalira takes a tiny step backwards.
As you all do. He has made it that way…
“And…” He narrows his eyes, thinking and looking at her. Nayale said he was planning harm to her, back when they met.
Maalira swallows noticeably. “Was there something else? I could go and speak to Berra now.”
“It is possible she may die young,” he says. He manages to make it not sound like a threat, to anyone who does not know her. Perhaps he means that she… needs to sell him the debt or he will kill her?
“What do you mean?” Maalira asks quickly.
“I mean, if that happens, to give you some words of wisdom. Nothing more than an old soldier’s habit.” A lifelong killer’s training, too?
Maalira twists her belt nervously around her hands. “Oh?”
His left hand dips, not even as far as his belt, and suddenly he is holding a folded, sealed letter. The left hand is the one favoured by dragonewts, and not by anyone normal at all. At least he does not use it for his sword, but still – it is an ill omen. Some say.
Maalira reaches for the letter. “What’s this?”
“If she dies, then read it. Otherwise, at the end of a good long life, or if you decide not to, just burn it.” There is no name on it, no sign of a sender, just a folded bit of parchment sealed with wax against being opened. It is proofed against peeking, even.
Maalira shivers. “I don’t understand. Why?”
“Oh, let’s say to bring you comfort?” It is a suggestion that implies he does not want to tell a lie and will not say the truth.
Maalira frowns. “If someone else finds this and opens it, how much trouble will I be in?”
“Do you mean because of the letter, or just in general? You must understand that I find it difficult to judge the future, not being there already.”
Maalira’s frown deepens. “I mean, is this full of secrets that will implicate me – us – or something?”
“What do you think I am?” He pauses long enough to consider that, and apparently gets lost in the answer himself.
Maalira considers this also. “An unknown,” she says eventually.
“I know myself pretty well, and I just failed to answer me. But no, I would not harm a White Lady, even by proxy. And Berra? She’s young enough to be my daughter.” Ornkarth smirks at that. “Why hurt her friends, just because they disagree with my employers?”
Maalira shakes her head in confusion. “What happens if I just open the letter as soon as you’re out of sight?” Her tone might hint that she knows she is being a touch ridiculous.
“Then you ruin my timing and have an awkward few days?” he suggests. “I did consider asking for a promise, but then I would be reliant on the sort of person you are, but with an extra layer of complexity, and I am already lost in my own personality. I do not need the complication of being lost in yours as well.” That seems to make him mildly queasy.
Maalira pulls a face. “I can’t decide whether or not I am insulted.”
“What would the difference be?” Ornkarth asks. It seems to be a genuine question.
Maalira gives a tiny involuntary chuckle. “How much I storm off, as opposed to leaving with dignity, I guess?”
“I suggest taking umbrage, leaving dramatically, and conversing with the Humakti who comes to comfort you, then.” There is a little shrug. Of course that would occur to him directly – he probably studied you all before he met the group by ‘accident’.
Maalira sighs, looking annoyed. “I will go and speak to her,” she says, and turns her back.
“I wish you the very best of luck,” he intones. He is probably not even smiling in victory behind her.
Maalira flexes her hands a few times, to the detriment of the letter in one of them, as she walks away.
She is still a White Lady, and not allowed to hit anyone.
Berra is already packed, of course – she lives small, and although she has a tent, that is already rolled up. It is more a glorified sheet with some sticks, to be honest. The Humakti is making herself useful by briefing the chief guard of the smaller cavaran that Salid will lead; everyone else gets to travel fast, so the bigger packs and most of the guards are to be left behind.
Maalira approaches and stands awkwardly, looking at Berra.5Maalira passes Scan, fails Insight. The guard moves aside because everyone knows that Maalira and Berra have a thing.
The guard sees Maalira waiting, and steps back. Berra nods to him, and turns to the White Lady. “Yes. Hello.” She looks impatient, but at the delay and not at her new companion.
“Hello,” Maalira says, then the rest of the words tumble out in a rush. “I have just had the strangest conversation with Ornkarth.”
“Oh, yes. He does that. You can ignore most of it.” Berra nods wisely.
“I don’t know.” Maalira turns the letter over in her hands, then shakes her head and stuffs it into her scrip. “He wants you to give up the blood debt.”6Maalira passes Meditate, manages to keep her mind clear of Ornkarth’s cold-bloodedness. He can’t kill her here, after all. Not while he is with her.
“Yeah, no. I can’t do that. Not to him. He’s… nah. He doesn’t get it.” Berra shrugs.
Maalira bites her lip. “I think he does get it, it’s just that he thinks his reasons are better.”
“Yeah. That’s why he doesn’t get it. He… well, he knows I don’t trust him, and you don’t trust that kind of thing to someone you don’t trust.” That presumably makes sense in confused-Humakti world.
“I don’t think you have to give it to him. Just someone else.” Maalira’s memory of the early part of the conversation is somewhat confounded by the second half.
“I’m planning to go to the High Sword as soon as I’m done in Valadon,” Berra says. “It’ll be a ride, and I’ll have to find him, but I trust his Temple.”
Maalira nods. “That sounds sensible.”7Maalira fails INTx5, and it does indeed sound reasonable.
Berra grins, and adds “Course, if he wants to persuade the High Sword I’m gonna turn up…”
“He said to send someone to tell him, if you gave it to someone else,” Maalira says.
Berra shrugs. “I don’t really care, to be honest. He’s got other stuff he can call on up there, and if I do get Lor’ Eril’s permission, I’ll go tell the Scimitar in person.”
Maalira shivers. “I don’t think you should go near him,” she says.
“What, Eril? I mean, he’s not that bad once you get to know him. He’s just about as petty as you can get and still be a Hero of something else.”
Maalira laughs a bit shakily. “No, the Scimitar. He was saying some weird things.”
8Berra passes Insight. Maalira is , or was, weirded out by something. She’s tiptoeing around something.It’s like how Varanis used to get after she talked to Dormal, almost.
Berra tilts her head to one side. “S’up?” she asks. “He does that a lot. What did he say?”
Maalira twists her belt between her hands again. “He said some stuff about how you might die young.”
Berra’s laugh is a short bark of amusement. “Yeah, rain might be wet, too. I’m twen’y-three now. Will I live ter see twen’y four?” Big shrug. “I don’t know
9GM: Modern reference, CoolioBerra: Yes. I have been hoping all IC year to get that one in.
, and unless he’s warning you about something persific, neither does he.”
“He gave me a letter. He said it was advice for if you died. It felt all wrong.” Maalira’s belt may not survive the encounter.
Berra puts a hand out, awkwardly, to comfort Maalira. “He’s good at messing with heads. Want me to have a word with him?” She is unaware that it could all be one of his plots to get her to do just that.
Maalira reaches for Berra’s hand and grabs it slightly less gently than she probably meant to. “No, I don’t think I was supposed to tell you about that. Just about the debt.”
Berra, grabbed.
There is some awkward staring, and a bit of a smile.
Maalira bit-of-smiles back.
(For just a moment she can see the exact path of every word and interaction that led from his handing her the letter to this moment and she cannot imagine it going any other way. What is she travelling with?)
“He’s playing head games,” Berra says as she pulls herself together a moment later. “Pushing at you so you push at me. That kind of thing. But the best thing to do with people who want attention is decide if you got them attention or you ignore them. Me, I mostly ignore him.”
Maalira nods. “He’ll be gone soon anyway.”
“Yeah. And we’ll go get a thing done and then get off to the next thing to do. Are you all packed? Did you eat?”
“Yes, and no. I should probably eat.”
“Go get something to eat. We’ll be in the saddle until it’s dark, and you look like you could do with some.” Berra squeezes the hand that holds hers.
Maalira squeezes back. “Don’t go without me.” There’s a beat. “I don’t know why I said that.”
Berra head-tilts. “Because we’re important to you, and you’re afraid. We’re in something big. Get me some bread?”
“Of course.” Maalira starts to step away then looks at her hand which is still holding Berra’s. She lets go slowly.
“Yeah, taking bits of me would probably be harm.” Berra winks, and turns away to get on with talking to guards.
Maalira opens her mouth, closes it, and goes in search of bread.
- 1Maalira passed Scan, and is not surprised.
- 2GM interjects: ‘She’s a lovely elderly lady!!’
- 3Maalira fumbles Insight Human.
- 4Kindly supplied by Dormal-GM
- 5Maalira passes Scan, fails Insight. The guard moves aside because everyone knows that Maalira and Berra have a thing.
- 6Maalira passes Meditate, manages to keep her mind clear of Ornkarth’s cold-bloodedness. He can’t kill her here, after all. Not while he is with her.
- 7Maalira fails INTx5, and it does indeed sound reasonable.
- 8Berra passes Insight. Maalira is , or was, weirded out by something. She’s tiptoeing around something.
It’s like how Varanis used to get after she talked to Dormal, almost. - 9GM: Modern reference, Coolio
Berra: Yes. I have been hoping all IC year to get that one in.
