RP Session 1: "A Hart's Errand"

Corson looked at the young Northwoman, regarding her carefully. "The man needed an escort. It is what I do, protect travelers along the Trade Road. Never realized that my blade would be needed so much."

Hearing no objections that might give him pause, Breuddwyd approached the minstrels, cradling his crwth and his dark eyes shimmering uncomfortably with brittle hope.

"You've arrested their attention, blodyn," he said, addressing the presumed changeling with a gentle smile. She was clearly the one who chose the beat. "Now I'm as eager as the rest to hear you play, I am. But perhaps you'd let me join you for a few songs?"

He made a vague gesture with his instrument towards the woman and her mates.

"Do you know "Ymyl y Niwloedd?"" It was a slower tune, one that might be taken for a lullaby in human terms and better suited to the end of the night, but he liked it well enough. Almost apologetically, he added, "I have some others in my repertoire as well, if you've a mind to indulge an amateur. That is, if you're feeling charitable this evening."

Pausing for a moment, Breuddwyd extended one hand to be clasped in greeting, as any Anuirean might expect.

"I'm called Osian," he said impulsively, using his real name though it's one that almost none would know outside his wooded realm. Ordinarily he disregarded this as the appellation of a child but, curiously, in this moment he thought it lent him a simple sort of elegance. Was this nostalgia?

"It's true" Salien added "there's little more to add. You doubtless know of Suiriene, a land Anuirean in appearance despite being in the far east. I have a small estate there - we produce fruit, some spirits. Some months ago the Lord Governor, Mieles Buired summoned me. He commanded that I sail for Anuire, told me that a political ally wished to ask me a few questions. He promised that I would be generously compensated, but it was clear that I had no choice in the matter. I met with Ser Corson upon the docks of Masetiele on the day the Prowl sailed, and the last we were told was that we would be met at Abbadiel by an escort who would know our destination."

The man gave a shrug "that's the whole of it. Whatever those men want, they've mistaken me for some other traveller." He turned to Corson "Perhaps the wizard? He disembarked with us."

"More like a lyre, really, but you don't have to take my word for it," Breuddwyd replied, pleased at his own little joke. "And we're agreed on the coin. I merely seek enjoyment from making music with kindred hearts and minds. Think of me as naught but humble accompaniment to your craft."

He produced the bow of his crwth with a flourish and, slipping the strap over his head, he moved to join the band. Considering the faces looking on, he saw the error in his initial suggestion—dangerously sleepy for a well-fed audience.

"Perhaps we would be better off starting with a livelier affair. I am yours to command, blodyn. Then I might teach you something you've not heard before, I might."

"From the easternmost shores of Cerilia on the Sea of Dragons to within a stone's throw of the westernmost," Lancaelad mused as he set up the board with Tovrunn. "That is a considerable journey to command merely to sate someone's curiosity. You must hold secrets greater than the recipe for peach brandy, my good man." He gave Salien a long, speculative look before shaking his head and turning to the board. "Whatsoever that may be, we shall see you safely to your destination. I merely hope that it justifies the blood and sweat spent for your sake."

He explained the aptitudes of the chess pieces to his betrothed with a fanciful, boyish enthusiasm: the resolute obedience of the pawns, extolling the reach of the knights, begrudgingly crediting the ordinal slyness of the bishops and approving of the unstoppable charge of the rooks, and glorious power of the baroness (as the queen was called in the Roesonean variant). Taking the throne-piece – for the chessboard's position of rule had sat as empty as the Iron Throne of Anuire for five and a half centuries – was the objective of the game

He was a fair enough player, skilled if not inspired, though seemed prone to losing sight of the strategic lay of the game in favour of the epic narrative about it he was writing in his head. He gave the impression that, if not for company, he might have been making little sword clashing noises with his mouth and reciting death-soliloquies as the pieces contended.

As they played one of the inn's cats, a billowing ginger hopped up onto the table, attracted by the intent gaze of the humans on the board. Settling down nearby, she watched in case any of the pieces turned out to be a mouse in disguise, her tail sweeping the crumbs from dinner. Lancaelad glanced at the cat, smiled warmly and bowed his head. "My lady," he addressed her. He reached into his pocket, removing a scrap of rabbit meat he had wrapped in a kerchief and offered it to the observer on the tip of his finger. She sniffed and gulped it down readily enough, then graciously consented to let him give her a good scratch under the chin and behind the ears, rumbling a purr.

Half concentrating on the game, he addressed the Rjurik woman across the board from him as well as Aeric, who had always given him good advice in the past. "This well-dressed, spendthrift fellow the proprietoress mentioned, Lady Tovrunn... do you truly believe he may post a threat? If so, would you counsel avoiding his attention, or confronting it?"

"Da iawn! Well done, indeed," Breuddwyd declared as the minstrels finished their first set, something not entirely dissimilar from true warmth in his smooth and typically sour voice. He considered what he knew of regional human songs that might appease a casual crowd hankering for the familiar following their repast. "Perhaps we might give "Leave Your Cloak by the Door" a shake next? Or let "Old Piggy Mayhew" out for a run?"

He set his bow to the strings of his crwth, prepared to hold up his end and let the quaint girl's sweet tones carry the number. While he preferred to engage with slower and more introspective fare—some might say perpetually gloomy—his instrument of choice was well-adapted for frivolous and upbeat music as well. Even if the musician in question was not.

But Breuddwyd found himself mouthing the lyrics along with the mixed race maiden, quite possibly enjoying himself. For fleeting instants, he didn't even feel completely superior to the crowd within the inn. He did remember, however, to cast a wary glance about the room on occasion to see if the secretive boarder had chanced to reveal himself.

Sitting there and listening to Lancaelad while the music picks up and the atmosphere of the inn begins to lull away the clouds of frustration and anxiousness that had obscured most of the day, Tovrunn found herself relaxing. Her head cocks to the side, taking in the sight of the man across from him as he spoke with a boyish, imaginative enthusiasm.

Truthfully, she had told a minor white lie in service to other goals. While it was true that she had not played much of the game, she had some preexisting idea on how the game was played. The movements of the individual pieces was easy enough to grasp as a passive observer, and while the finer stratagems and more complex maneuvers were somewhat hazy to her, she had enough knowledge to make the knight's explanation somewhat less than necessary. But then again, the explanation, and his delivery of it, was exactly what she was looking for.

For perhaps the first time in this flesh, she saw him display something other than pride bordering on arrogance or stiff dismissal or thoughtless haste. Indeed, his exuberance was infectious, and she found herself smiling at the fancifully descriptive language he chose. Were it not for the darkening bruising about his eye, she might have imagined them somewhere else entirely, with the worries of their journey distant memories or imaginations. The thought was...nice.

She wished he spoke to her more often like this. She wondered wistfully what it was that kept him from doing so.

Looking on as he doted on the cat with a knowing smile, Tovrunn took his bishop with her knight, a clumsy mistake that he might have made had he thought to look for it. She could see the wheels turning in his head, but clearly they were focused on producing another sort of outcome. More of his poetry perhaps? He was, after all, so doting on cats. She could hardly blame him for his distraction.

As Lancaelad turned conversation to their current environment, Tovrunn glanced to the stairs, and sighed. She sat still for a moment, gathering her thoughts before she spoke. "I cannot say anything with certainty," she began, moving a pawn into position. "I am so unfamiliar with these lands, and the people who occupy them. But what I do know is that earlier this very day, a veritable army and possibly even a magician of some skill sought to hunt us, even after we drove off the sea-borne smugglers. Such an array of force is doubtlessly an expensive investment, and while I would be shocked if the holder of the purse strings will be seen here, it would be equally shocking if they did not have an agent within easy reach of the operation. Such a figure would like to avoid official recognition by local lords or magistrates, yet be somewhere where they can maintain some anonymity, all the while in possession of coin enough to reward the mercenaries should they complete their mission. And we are, after all, within a day's ride of both the border and Abbadiel."

Pursing her lips and shrugging, she looked away from the chessboard and into Lancaelad's eyes. "To be clear, I mean to levy no accusations; I merely speak as I see it. Without taking this man's measure, it cannot be said with any certainty whether this spendthrift is such an agent, or if my musings are anxious daydreams. If however, we were to take his measure, and find him as I speak, then we must tread carefully. Either we must evade his notice entirely, or we must take him swiftly and silently."

Looking back down at the board, she blinked. "Um. I believe this is...what is the word? Check?"

As it turned out, the perky changeling lass put out a rather charming rendition of "Leave Your Cloak by the Door" and Breuddwyd's uncommon ebullience grew. Perhaps this group could handle some of the deeper, haunting and evocative material generally attributed to Sidhelien song. And the resonating toll of the bell outside that heralded another cool and watchful night put him in mind of an older and more intricate lay known by few outside the weald he called home.

"This one is called "Dim Iachâd i Gariad" but I'm afraid you'll not have the lyrics out of me." His rich, low voice was splendid for matters of diplomacy and offering wry and timely criticism but he was no singer. Not like his sister Ceindeg, who had taught him the melody and could deliver each strain with ethereal bewitchment.

He smiled at the girl and her bushy-browed piper. "Follow only if you dare."

It was indeed a lovely ballad that spoke of a love so secretive and intimate that it was virtually inconceivable to any not trapped within its lush and tangled vines. A delicious, consuming sort of ache that numbed the senses even as it redefined the world entire for the beings who surrendered to its whispered, perfect promise. The beginning, the middle, and the end of a tale all in the very instant of first espying another, of awakening to the new bond between two individuals. The twilight of loneliness and an eternity enclosed in a heartbeat that made every one that followed infinitely more meaningful.

Yes, it was just the sort of song that would appeal to sweet, passionately free-spirited Ceindeg.

Corson listened, but couldn't help but anticipating the shoe to drop.

Lancaelad's enthusiasm for showing Tovrunn the game soon became surprise as he found himself falling into trap after obvious trap on the chessboard. Confounded, he flailed to free himself, sacrificing pieces and leaving his baroness exposed to a bold gambit. He stared at the board in disbelief as he saw the position he was in, and finally knocked the baroness over with more force than was warranted. The harsh clack of wood on wood woke the cat from its nap on the end of the table, and it gave the knight a disdainful look before slinking away. Any pleasantness in Lan's demeanour was lost behind the veil of a sullen, thwarted child. "Well played, my lady," he muttered without a trace of good sportsmanship.

As Breuddwyd began to play his song of sweet and poisonous love the ginger padded over to him and began encircling his legs in an endless figure of eight, purring and rubbing against the elf's ankles. Lan's attention was torn from the lost game and he adopted a look of surprise, growing into wistfullness and pleasant pain that seemed to take his mind elsewhere. Scarcely breathing, his gaze turned to the shuttered window as if looking back at the Erebannien beyond the walls of the inn and the town, emotion glistening in them. He was not entirely alone in his reaction, even if he seemed to feel it more acutely; the jigs had got feet tapping and knees slapping, but this ancient lay reminded people of the dread passions and eternal melancholy of the elves who had ruled these lands before man.

There were more sighs and wiped eyes than applause as the tune trailed away like morning mist fading. Lancaelad rose abruptly from his table and strode over to the elf, grasping his elbow roughly. "Master Breuddwyd," he said in an urgent, gruff undertone. "Whence did you learn that lay?"

The warmth Breuddwyd evinced for the minstrels was gone in a blink as Lancaelad seized his arm, making his bow squeak urgently against the crwth's strings. A shadow passed over his face as he considered the lout at his side.

"It's a Sidhelien song and not so uncommon among the folk," he coolly explained, though this was not entirely true. "You've heard one like it, have you? Can you be certain?" His lips twitched for just an instant in derisive amusement. "I'm sure your ear is... glogyrnog about such matters, it is. Easily misled?"

And then the perceptive Sidhe saw something in the brusque lad's eye that gave him pause and he felt a very small and fleeting trace of pity for whatever it was lurking about Lancaelad's chaotic emotional interior. He reminded himself that few humans were ever in control of themselves, hulking infants that they were, but being close to their feelings was rarely indicative of weakness.

""Dim Iachâd i Gariad," it's called, if it has any name at all. Blunted on your Anuirean tongue, it might be spoken as "No Cure For Love," perhaps. I learned it growing up at Ysgelynwen in the Erebannien, not so far from here." Breuddwyd cocked his head to one side, narrowing his eyes slightly, curiously. "Now wherever might you have heard such a thing?"

Arglwyddes, who had been dozing near the fire and only spared a momentary interest in the local cat sovereign—some believed Cu Sidhe bore near as much feline consanguinity as canine—had lifted her head with fixed and sudden interest when the human warrior grabbed her elven charge. Now she dropped her chin to rest on her paws once again, nothing moving save for her shrewd green eyes, still wary of any escalation.

Lancaelad's expression was haunted, not by fear but by longing and wonder. "No Cure for Love," he murmured to himself, releasing the elven lord's arm and wiping his palms down a face suddenly flushed and dappled with sweat. "Oh, what a bitter truth that title proclaims. No poison but love is so sweet men would willingly lift its chalice to their lips and quaff their fill, even though it be the last draught they imbibe."

He turned to the inn's fire place, gazing into its depths as if seeking the guidance of Laerme, the goddess of flames both literal and figurative. "I... heard that selfsame song not a half-dozen leagues from here. While I stood vigil over my armour in the Chapel of the Black Hart, under the boughs of the Erebannien I... it came to me. The sweetest song, the most poignant air. Love's own truth transmuted into music, the secret that only bound hearts may share. My Lady of the Woods..." the title escaped his lips as a sigh, then he shook himself, tearing his gaze away from the fire. Breuddwyd saw shame in Lan's eyes as they glanced back at Tovrunn, and it seemed he wished to say more but dared not – at least not here, not now.

"Your pardon, Master Breuddwyd," the knight said with a curt halfbow of his head. Hastily, he strode to the bar, in desperate need of a mug of that blackcurrant wine to steady his nerves.

Breuddwyd avoided Lancaelad's game, knowing the contests of men to be feeble exercises in petty self-aggrandizement. Instead he finished out the evening with the girl and her piper, finding the company of these earnest, entertaining strangers a welcome respite from his new colleagues.

And once the crowd began to clear out and the locals commenced the arduous trek back to their lonesome, lowly abodes, the Sidhe packed up his crwth and considered his next move. Finding Tovrunn's mind in the taproom, he renewed his previous proposal.

**Our fancy fellow lodger. Does not seem. To have made an appearance,** Breuddwyd sent to the wintry woman. **If further investigation. Still seems. A prudent course to you. I may provide diversion. To aid. Your clandestine ingress.**

Moving to the bar he finally partook of the currant wine being offered. Unlike many of his kinfolk, Breuddwyd didn't weather his alcoholic beverages well at all. Perhaps it was something about his most unusual lood but, upon imbibing, he grew especially maudlin or incrementally more silly far too quickly for comfort. Either was bad enough among family and would be unforgivable adrift in human lands, filled with watching eyes and insensitive minds.

**Do follow my cue. If there's still. A bit of wily. Four-legged scouting. Left in you this day.**

Thanking the barkeep, he sipped enough to lend his aspect the possible hint of mild inebriation before heading up the stairs to face the door he believed might conceal their elusive quarry. Trying it first to see if it was barred against his approach, the elf than banged heavily upon the wood, giving a deceptively lusty impression of his interest in passing through. "What waggery is this?" he blustered in vaguely affronted bewilderment at a door shut against him—channeling the callow blond knight for an instant—before taking on a slightly more insinuating tone. "Ho now, gwmnïwr. You're in there with someone else tonight, you are."

Taking part in several more games following her surprising and frankly accidental upset, Tovrunn held true to the adage of 'beginners luck' by losing every single game she played in after the first. As she conceded her third loss in a row, she briefly felt the frustration that her fiancee must have felt, and imagined the added salt that came from losing to an absolute beginner. She was in the process of mentally mapping out a possible way to ease the bruising of his pride when Breuddwyd's intrusive thoughts forced their way into her mind.

**It seems he has not,** she agreed, glancing surreptitiously towards the staircase. **A quick glance could not hurt any, and may prove useful.**

Excusing herself from the table, Tovrunn made her way outside to the privacy one could expect to find fron the latrines before her form twisted and shrunk. A cat returned to the inn and found a perch on the stairs, locking eyes with the Elven wayfarer.

**Ready when you are.**

Following Breuddwyd up the stairs and to the room, she hid out of sight as he clumsily made his attempt at getting the occupants attention, waiting patiently for a crack in the door before attempting her infiltration.

**Find a way. I will keep him. Focused here.** Breuddwyd told the cat. **Good luck.**

He paused outside the door, dragging his knuckles across the wood with what he imagined might seem like slow and steady drunken consideration in a world of confusing possibilities.

"No," he finally answered. "That's wrong." He still sounded muzzy but there was also an air of petulant denial there, as from a very believably spoiled child who won't easily be convinced he is wrong about a petty matter. "This chamber has been claimed by my warrior friend. The surly lady by the bar declared it so, she did." He held for another moment, trying to decide what might impress a human traveler, before inspiration struck. "He let me leave my spellbook in there. And now I have need of it. Sidhelien magic is a wild thing ... not easily subdued."

Breuddwyd wasn't yelling—indeed he almost never did—but when had a member of any noble house anywhere ever needed to raise his voice to sound demanding? If nothing else, the well-dressed voyager might at least lever the door open a crack just to tell the haughty elf off.

"Hastily now. I'm a forgiving soul, I am, but I'll brook no more of your intrusive shenanigans this night."