Forsaken Inn, Late one Night
Nasty odors and a constant wetness in the air are what make the Forsaken Inn what it is. Add to that general atmosphere a farrago of unsavory characters and you have a place as dangerous as it is intriguing. People stay here because it has a roof, but there is something else that brings them here. Most of these confidence artists and thieves aren't welcome anywhere else and, while not entirely embraced in this locale, they can go about their shady business dealings in some amount of peace.
When the door of the place opens on this early November evening, a tall and lanky man with shaggy red hair pushes inside. His eyes dart around the room and he first notices the small group toward the center, who dine upon their own meager supper and pass around a greasy looking skin. Brodigh's nostrils flare as the odors hit him, none as strong as whatever foul liquor the wanders use to pass their time. Standing to his full height, the red-headed man looks past these patrons, staring through the walls of this time-ravaged place. His eyes are distant and, to remind himself of the here and now, he places his hand on the doorframe, sliding it up the wooden plank. As he risks splinters, Brodigh turns and stares deep into the dark wood. His mouth trembles for a moment, then his face hardens again. "Just wood," he mutters lowly.
Isabela, the strange wandering woman who has garnered the name of 'witch' in some parts, has a table all to herself. There is an empty mug on the table next to her, and she is bent over something that seems to be contributing to the odd smell of the room. In her hand is a mortar and pessel, and she is grinding a greenish-yellow paste with measured skill. Lifting the pessel to her nose, she inhales, and immediately withdraws, making a face as if she just licked orc skin. With measured skill, she adds a few granuals of a powdery substance from a nearby pouch, and pounds it into the mixture. She sticks her index finger into the paste and rubs it around against her thumb, closing her eyes as if concentrating... Then she looks up and away from her work. Her dark eyes refect the lamplight in the Inn, and the trinkets in her hair glint. She sees this man--Manin, he called himself--but she makes no motion to him. Isabela merely watches.
After a moment, this man calling himself Manin releases his grip from the door. He stares at it for several seconds before tearing his dark eyes away. Now, he looks down at the hand that touched the dark wood. Returning now to the present, the tall stranger looks up and continues his examination of the Forsaken Inn. In no time, his eyes fall upon the woman at the table. His eyes catch hers and he stares, unabashed, for more than a moment. Narrowing those dark eyes in the slightest confusion, he produces crinkles at his temples. Then he meanders toward her on slow and unsure feet. Arriving, he screws up his face even more at the scent of her creation. "Isabela, who I am to call Isa," he says. His voice is dull and forced. Anyone with experience in language or accents will know he has gone through much trouble to hide the traces of his own. "Why are you in such a place as this?"
As Manin approaches her, Isabela straightens in her chair a bit, as if for presentation. She meets him with unwavering eyes. "Ah, it is Manin," she says, when he is close enough. Indeed, her corner is rather pungent. It's minty, but also tinged with something that almost smells like skunk--a spicy, gassy smell. "It is hard to tell in the light if you were the one I saw in the dark." Pulling up the cloth of her arm, Isa reveals a nasty little cut, rather deep--though it looks as if it's on its way to healing. She puts the poultice she's made directly on it, wincing as it makes contact with her skin, her teeth grinding against one another. Blinking, she takes a deep breath, and says: "I come here often, Manin. And why is it strange? It is a place with a roof. I like the weather most times but it is a bit cold tonight. Here is a fire and a place they leave me be. They know Isa here and they question her not."
"Aye," Brodigh says, looking around. "It makes sense, I suppose. I never much liked this place, though, and now." A pause as his eyes move toward the stairs and the darkness beyond. "Now the memories cut deeper than any bandit's knife ever did." This last bit is quiet, barely audible. He finally looks back down at the woman, at her arm, and nods to it. "What have you done to yourself? That is no small cut." Licking his lips, he returns his gaze to Isabela's eyes and stares at her. He is silent and his tone is warming, but he shows no sign of sitting down.
"Hunting accident," says Isabela, quickly, not looking convincing, or interested in being convincing. She pulls the cloth of her sleeve down again, and goes to work putting the remains of the paste into a little leather pouch that looks to have been oiled well for good storage. She ties it shut, and puts it in her satchel, then wipes away the inside of the mortar with a cloth; she stores that away, too. Once this is all done, and the table is cleared--and the smell starts to dwindle a bit--she smiles up to Manin. "Here, have a seat with me. I will not bite, I promise. You seem tired. You have been here often before, you say? It holds rememberings for you?" Isa seems genuinely interested now, as the conversation may turn from her.
The proposal seems to startle the man and he looks down at the chair cautiously. In the end, the promise of conversation conquers his mistrust and he takes a seat. "Yes," he says, a very faint smile on his face. "It holds rememberings for me. I have not been here in nearly three years. There are many stories etched into the walls of this place, least of all mine. But that particular story..." A soft and handsome laugh falls from his lips and he shakes his head, almost embarrassed. "It speaks louder to me, I suppose." Manin--or Brodigh--swallows and digs his thumbnail into the soft wood of the table. "What of you, Isa? How long have you haunted this land? You seem to know your way around."
Isa looks at Manin thoughtfully, her eyebrows lifting just slightly over her eyes. The look appears almost as pity, but it passes like a cloud moving away from the sun. She picks at the wood of the table with her fingernail and says, "My story is short enough to tell quickly. I have none of the--memories in the walls as you do, really. My people have lived here for many years, and I learned to travel and not to be seen by living with them. But there came a time when we were seen as a threat and many were killed. One winter my mother and father took me deep into the wood but the weather was bad. They sent me back here, to this Inn. When I went back to see them after the storming they were gone." Isa leans her chin on the heel of her hand, and fiddles with a braid with her other hand. "Since then it has been just me. I come and go as I please, and sometimes I make money. It is not important. I have been on my own now... eight winters."
"You make due, it seems," Manin says, looking at the sleeve that hides Isa's 'hunting accident'. He leans back in his chair and turns to watch the rag-tag group of vagabonds. "More than some people, anyway. My family is gone, too. You seem to know what to do with your roots, though. Your mother is the things in your hair and I'm sure in the way you fixed up that cut. Your father is there too, I'm sure." His eyes meet hers for a moment and then, in shame, he turns them away, down to the cuts and grooves upon the table. "Others cannot keep the people they have known. In life or in death, they elude them. I'd... I'd imagine it to be a rather troubling existence. For such people."
"Make due?" asks Isabela, as if the phrase is not familiar to her. She bites her lower lip, and raises her eyebrow. "I know I cannot have them back, Manin, that is all. We believe that when you die you become part of those who you leave behind. I carry them with me, yes, but I do miss them, as well. I am alone, always alone, and that is not easy. But I do talk to them--do not laugh--it is my way to feel them," says Isa lightly, looking up to Manin, concern deep in her eyes. "You speak as though you have someone still with you but you cannot let them go though they are gone..."
A bitter laugh, and Manin looks up again. "I carry countless people with me," he says, shaking his head. "Your customs are very familiar, though. It reminds me of things my own mother told me, when my brother passed away." The smile on the man's face warms considerably. "I find it odd, to be talking to someone again. Before I saw you the other night, I hadn't spoken a word to anyone but myself in... well, since the spring. Now you have me telling you details like I would an old friend." He narrows his eyes and tilts his head. "I shouldn't trust you. I don't know you from those beggars on the ground there, but... for some reason I don't feel concerned about it."
This seems to flatter and brighten up Isabela a bit. She offers a gentle smile, her wide lips lengthening into a sweet and universal expression. "For some reason? I do know it is difficult to trust a person--but I find it is easier to begin with a little trust when someone seems..." she says, trailing off, searching for a word. Her brows furrow, and she tilts her head to the side. "Seem... apart from others. It is not each day I find a man sleeping in bushes, Manin. And it may be that we come from the same ancestor, and we are carrying her in us still," she says with a wink. "You look much better when you smile, Manin."
"It's been awhile since I did," the man says, the smile fading but not disappearing altogether. "I might be sore from it." He chuckles, a soft and quiet noise that sounds more like heavy breathing than laughter. "And, Isa, don't call me Manin. I'm sorry if I mislead you, but that is not my real name." His voice has grown more comfortable of its true nature and there is no doubt, now, of the man's ancestry. His accent reveals his Dunland roots. "My name is Brodigh. Some people don't look to kindly on a name such as that, so it hasn't gotten much use in the past few years. But you may call me Brodigh." His smile widens. "You will call me Brodigh."
"Brodigh!" she laughs, pronouncing the name smoothly and with no accent at all. "A much better name, I think. Manin sounds funny to my ear; but I will not use your name too much if it is not looked upon well. No one asks my name," Isa adds with a shrug. She flexes her hand and watches it a moment, as if testing it. "It is nice to hear another use it. In my family our names are very -- meaningful. A name can mean very much." Reaching into her satchel, Isabela produces a few copper coins, and looks at them thoughtfully. "Would you like something to eat, Brodigh? I must eat something, and have another drink..."
Shaking his head, Brodigh declines. "I appreciate your offer, but I ate earlier. There is half a rabbit back at my camp, unless it's been pilfered, and I wouldn't want to waste it. But if the swill in this shithole is drinkable tonight, a drink would be nice." He chuckles again and scratches at his neck. "My mother once told me that my name meant 'large-chested,' but it may have been a joke. It certainly doesn't fit me." While his accent is there, it is faint. He isn't working at hiding it anymore, but years of camouflage have left their mark. It still has the burr of a Dunlending, but it has been dulled by exposure and adaptation to countless other languages.
Isabela smiles, and mutters something that is not the common speech, but seems to hold an interesting resemblance to Dunnish. "Large-chested?" she asks, eyes wide. "It is a good thing then you were not a girl, Brodigh!" Isabela stands, and takes the copper coins in hand. She has a strange swagger to her step, a lightness, but also a unique and almost feline walk. When she gets to the bar, there is now a barkeep there, and she talks with him in a low voice. Then, instead of paying him in coins, she retrieves the little pouch she filled with poultice earlier, and gives it to him. The barkeep seems glad, and pours two mugs of beer for her. He also gives her a small loaf of bread, which she tucks under her arm. When she returns to the table, she places one mug (which looks rather gritty around the edges) before her, and another before Brodigh. Then, Isa attacks the bread in hand with curious vigour, caring nothing for manners, and simply ripping it with her teeth and swallowing loudly.
The manners don't bother Brodigh in the slightest, but he does shake his head. "I've been half-starved, beaten within inches of my life, and literally lying in the ditch at the side of the road, waiting for someone to come and finish me off," he says, pulling the grimy mug toward him and pointing at the loaf of bread in Isa's hand. "But I don't think I've ever been in a condition bad enough to consider eating food created in that kitchen." He indicates the gaping maw of the Forsaken's cooking area. Grinning slightly, he brings his mug to his lips and takes a small sip. With a grimace, he holds the cup aloft. "Thank you, Isa, for the drink. It's comforting to know that some things stay the same."
Isabela swallows down hard on a big lump of bread and smiles. "It is not the best ale I know of, but the bread is good. I am used to eating off the land; and to me, this is better," she says, indicating what's left of the bread. Taking the mug of ale to her lips, she guzzles it down with amazing stealth, downing nearly half of it before she puts it back down on the table. "The barkeep does not trust me, though. I must tell you, this is not a hunting accident. I told him I would pay him for ale I took with healing herbs, but he thought I would poison him. So I told him to cut my arm, and I would prove to him it was not poison. He believes me now. It is hard to gain trust some days."
"A loaf of bread is truly the wayfarer's treat," Brodigh says, watching the woman eat her food. "I stole a loaf that was cooling in a window, to find that its baker was a lone hunter and not an old maid, as I had assumed." He chuckles. "That bread was sweeter than any I have ever tasted." The man lifts his mug to his lips, but pauses as he watches Isa drain hers. Impressed, no doubt, he takes a large swallow of his own drink and sets the mug down. "'If it's good, drink it fast,' we used to say, 'But if it tastes like piss, drink it faster.'"
+os :LOL.
<OOC> Isabela LOL.
<OOC> Brodigh says, "Heheh. I've never actually heard that one before,
but it seems like good advice."
@emit %rWiping the froth from her upper lip with the back of her hand,
Isabela offers Brodigh a little shrug. "It is good advice I think,
but sometimes if it tastes bad to you, there is reason for it. Always
trust your tongue," she warns, most ominously. "There are as many
herbs to heal as they are to kill, for that is the way of the earth.
Balance. Some give, some take. It is how it must be.
Many have too much, or more than they need. Some must make it balance
again... by perhaps taking what others have?" Isa questions Brodigh, looking
at him with one eye closed. "Sometimes I am that person." Her
eyes widen at this comment, and she seems thoroughly amused with herself,
before she goes back to gnawing on the loaf of bread.%r
Wiping the froth from her upper lip with the back of her hand, Isabela offers Brodigh a little shrug. "It is good advice I think, but sometimes if it tastes bad to you, there is reason for it. Always trust your tongue," she warns, most ominously. "There are as many herbs to heal as they are to kill, for that is the way of the earth. Balance. Some give, some take. It is how it must be. Many have too much, or more than they need. Some must make it balance again... by perhaps taking what others have?" Isa questions Brodigh, looking at him with one eye closed. "Sometimes I am that person." Her eyes widen at this comment, and she seems thoroughly amused with herself, before she goes back to gnawing on the loaf of bread.
Brodigh nods. "At times, I have been that person, too, Isa," he says, crossing his arms over his chest (and wide it is not; if anything, Brodigh could gain a few pounds). "Sometimes for the wrong reasons. I have found that things routinely fall apart when one forgets... the reasons." Brodigh's ratiocination is a claw, pulling him back from the brief respite he has encountered here, of all places. Whatever is on his mind darkens his mood. However improved his looks are with a smile, he opts now to stare down at the dirty clay mug in his hand, into the clumpy, watered-down ale within. "You get by by your wits, Isa, as do I. Unlike those who sit in their homes in Bree, reading and sewing and counting their money, we are barely separated from the animals who prowl these very woods. At times, it's difficult to remember what it is that separates us."
The sun flashes brightly on the horizon. Night gives way to morning.
Isa reaches down next to her and jiggles her sword. "This is what puts us apart, Brodigh," she says, her mood darkening as his does. She knaws a moment on her lower lip before sighing abruptly. "I have reasons. Lots of reasons. Reasons that the--" she says a word native to her here, but the meaning is understood, "--that killed my family should suffer. It is all in balance. But you are right that no one should fall too far to one side. I have seen the men that sometimes prowl the wood--no they are not men. They are monsters. They kill beasts out of joy of death and not for need of food. I have killed--men, too--but I have never not had reason. There are days I have too many reasons..."
With a sad smile, Brodigh downs the remainder of his drink. "I always wondered if that was it," he says, looking down at his hands, clasped around the mug. "We have tools to help us with the killing. If that is it, then I'm not sure that's really a separation." He sighs and his own hand goes to the hilt of his sword. "I suppose there's a sense of justice to it. I thought I had slain my enemies... those who had wronged me. But there are always new enemies in the woodwork, waiting for you." His lips have gone dry and he wets them with his tongue. "An endless struggle, it is, your allies falling all around you, and when it seems to be over, it only starts anew." With a sudden motion, he looks up and gives a sheepish grin. "I'm sorry. I'm babbling."
"No, no, it is all right," says Isabela, leaning in as Brodigh speaks. She seems to have been wrapped up in his words. "But it is true, blood once split brings more blood. It is the way of the world. But if you believe in what you kill for there is something more. The beasts kill only for territory--they do not kill for love, they do not die for love. My parents died to protect me. I thank them for that every day. There is beauty in that, no?"
"A viscious and dangerous beauty." Brodigh closes his eyes and exhales briefly. "I know all too well about such beauty. But you are right." Looking back at Isabela, he smiles warmly. "I appreciate your invitation tonight. My words have not fallen upon human ears for some time now, and for some reason I find no reason not to talk to you. It is, however, getting rather late and if I hope to find my camp tonight in time for even a little sleep, I should be heading out."
"Ah, sleep is a great gift," says Isabela. She touches her index finger to her brow and says: "I hope your dreams are of peace, tonight, then, Brodigh. Brodigh who is not Manin." She chuckles, the wrinkles next to her eyes deepening. "It has been many years, more than I can think, when I spoke to one who was not afraid of me. Thank you for that." Isabela does not stand, but she bows her head slowly to Brodigh in a gesture of farewell. "I hope the next time we meet you may tell me more of you. I hope I find you again."
Standing, the tall Dunlending smiles and nods in farewell. "You shall," he says. "I will buy your drinks. Until then, Isabela." Again, that same gesture at his brow, a combination of a salute and a wave. Brodigh turns and walks to the door. There, he places his palm firmly on the wooden portal, sliding it down the surface. Pausing for a moment in thought, he finally pushes the heavy thing out of his way. As he passes it, he drags his hand over the rough wood, but he doesn't give it a second glance. The door shuts in his wake and he is gone into the night