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Seas Of Erin > Tir-Nan-Og > It's only a paper moon


Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 08:41 PM
Marcello had left the tent to sit outside in the very dim and hazy light of pre-dawn, squinting as his fingers worked tirelessly at the bits of paper in front of him, until his lap was near to spilling over with tiny, intricately-worked paper daisies, which he shielded with one hand to keep from getting too damp.

When he had used up all the paper he had brought outside with him, he pulled out a coarse needle and thread and started stringing the daisies together.

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 08:49 PM
The rain had stopped, but the ground was still wet. The pre-dawn cold made her cheeks flare red, and for once she had bundled up in a large and lavishly woven blanket. The patterns flowed in dark greens and reds, rigid geometrical zig-zags around the edges spiraling into chaos as they approached the center. Order. Chaos.

Her feet were still bare though, pale and stained with mud up to her ankles.

She wiggled her dirty toes a bit as she stopped in front of Marcello, watching him work with complete and utter focus.

"Real flowers thrive from rain, these wilts. They are only pretend-petals, the shadows of flowers. Little broken spirits holding memories." She looked up to the skies, while the rain did not fall it hung heavily in the air.

"The heavens might cry."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 08:56 PM
Marcello looked up at her, not pausing in his work. "Real flowers die. These don't," he answered, shaking out the paper. "They'll hold up. It's not raining now. What did I do to deserve the pleasure of your company this time? Do you need your fool back?"

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 08:59 PM
"No. It was cold. I woke up." She hugged the blanket tighter around herself, hunching down next to him. "I wanted to see someone because me dreams scared me and the path led to you."

She watched the flowers with an unblinking stare, watching the way his hands string them together. Watched the needle.

"Rain is sweet. Tears are bitter. I didn't mean it would rain... I meant they might cry. The air is heavy with grief in this camp."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 09:04 PM
Marcello nodded tightly. "We're fighting a war instead of grieving properly," he agreed. "If she fails, she not only loses the battle, she does a disservice to his memory. It's sweet to fight in his name, but not like this. We were going to fight even if he lived. It was just a matter of time."

He glanced up at her. "Where did you come from, that you woke up?" And then he frowned again and reached for his knife. "You'll permit me a foolishness, but you're not Tuatha, are you? You can touch iron? We've just been...plagued with so many imposters here."

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 09:09 PM
She reached out to touch the blade without hesitation, nodding solemnly. "I understand. I think I am impostor, but I can't remember who I am impersonating. Sometimes when I sleep I lie so still I feel dead. Those are the dreams that scare me. To lie there, so still and never moving. I wonder if someone made flowers for me once upon a time." Her smile was sad and melancholy.

"I came from my bed. It is empty now. I can't find any path that leads to company, only to more loneliness."

She watched the flowers again, shaking her head, the red hair damp and dark. "At least you know your grief."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 09:15 PM
Marcello gave the girl a tight smile, then took one of the loose flowers and handed it to her. "Here," he said. "There's a flower for you. Was that the kind of dream you had tonight?" he asked. "The one where you felt dead?"

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 09:20 PM
"Thank you." She carefully put the flower in her hair, entwining it with some of her red strands. It stayed in place, pale against her red tresses.

"No, it was the dream of fire again. Of the skies opening and everything burning. It is always the same and it never changes." She pulled the blanket tighter, her fingers white where they clutched the rich fabric.

"Have you ever watched your doom stare straight at you with the eyes of ants? Her eyes were shallow and slightly glassy, as if she still was watching her dream.

"I don't like those dreams either, they make me remember. I think I prefer being mad."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 09:28 PM
The young man bit down on his lower lip. "Yes," he answered. "It seems to be happening every day now." He looked to the redhead. "Were you in a fire?" he asked her, cautiously, "or is it a dream of a fire to come? Or that will never come? The fire I dream about already happened."

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 09:32 PM
"Some say the world will end in fire... I think mine already did." She closed her eyes, shivering. "Hot stones under my feet... upwards, upwards, the stair spiraling and I can feel the heat. And then I see it. The fire. The city burning. I smell it. Have you ever heard the screams of people burning? It sounds like flames... or maybe that is wood screaming in the fire. The flesh... it was like the feasts of Behaal, the roaring flames and the children crying. And then I looked up and I saw it." She opened her eyes, looking at him with conviction.

"The fire always comes. We can only run." She bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.

"We never get away, do we?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 09:39 PM
Marcello looked sickened and pale as the girl finished, his skin taking on a greenish cast. He shook his head, lowering his needle and drawing his knees to his chest. "No," he said quietly, shaking his head, his eyes heavy with tears. "We don't."

And then he looked at her, long and hard, as if he were trying to place her face. "Have you got a name?" he asked her wonderingly.

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 09:46 PM
"I do. It is just sometimes really hard to find." She tried to focus, shivering underneath the blanket. "Hale... Ale... sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't. It is so long... it had to be you see. Longer than my sisters'." She giggled at that, as it that was some secret joke only she could understand.

"It seemed so important once. Names. Now they flake away like ashes leaving nothing behind. Names. Faces." She looked down at her hands.

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm even here."

She closed her eyes again, tilting her head upwards as she smelled the air.

"Maybe I am dreaming all this, one last dream. They say death lasts a lifetime."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 09:53 PM
"This isn't death," Marcello said quietly. "And death lasts more than a lifetime. But if this were death-- children don't die once you're dead. You don't lose people. You don't suffer. Not like this," he finished, shaking his head. "Maybe...maybe this is your death, but it's not mine."

He pursed his lips, chancing a look at her. "Did you have a brother?"

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 09:58 PM
"Maybe that's all a lie. Maybe we do die and suffer again and again. Maybe we all die, walking down the paths that will lead us to more death. Circles within circles and the flames gets closer." She bit down on her lip, nodding.

"He was so little and so funny. Father adored him because he was the only boy, but I don't think mother liked him as much... he was not a girl." She gave Marcello a conspicuous look. "Boys are just trouble."

They were. And the thought of her brother made her sad.

"He should have died when he was little. Maybe the flames wouldn't have come then. Maybe nothing would have burned." She seemed a little bit heartbroken at that, as if it had been all her fault.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 10:02 PM
Marcello took in a deep breath. "He was younger than you, then?" he asked hesitantly, looking as if he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer. "Being the only boy is hard. There are a lot of expectations. Good ones and bad ones. People think you have to be a younger version of your father."

Then he shrugged. "I might rather that were true. Dying and suffering again, I mean. Because it's not all suffering, is it?"

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 10:07 PM
"He was." She closed her eyes, trying to picture the face but she drew a blank as always. As long as she did not think, the words flowed easily but when she tried to tug at them the memories fled like butterflies.

"I remember him being little. And loud." She grimaced at that, then stuck out her tongue.

She was not sure why, but it felt like the right thing to do.

"No, it is not all suffering, but it is never RIGHT is it?" She looked at him helplessly as if she somehow expected an answer. "It comes around and around and the dreams just never stops and even when the happiness sneaks up on you there is always something behind you. Even if I turn around real quickly I can never see it, but it's there. Watching."

Her face grew hard like frost. "And now they are all gone. I am alone. Lost."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 10:14 PM
"There are moments of right," Marcello disagreed. "And...you're not really alone. Not if you really don't want to be. There are always other people just as alone as you are...or not alone, but missing something. It's like a puzzle. You just have to shuffle yourself around on the table until you find the place where you've got the bit the other piece is missing, and the other piece has the bit you're missing. And then it works again for a while, and then the pieces shift."

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 10:18 PM
"But I don't want the pieces to shift!" She whined and pulled the blanket tighter around herself. "I want everything to click right for once, but it all escapes like rats scurrying for cover. Every time I reach for something it is pulled away. I don't even remember the face of my mother, one day it is there, the other day it is someone else's face. Nothing is constant."

She paused, correcting herself. "Except him. And now he's gone too."

Her mouth was a thin, unhappy line. "The cards are the only thing that speaks the truth now, and they never say the nice things anymore."

They never did.

"I want to see the truth but maybe it is too terrible to be seen."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 10:27 PM
Marcello reached over, patting the girl's hand, and he picked up his needle and thread again. "I want them to click, too. There are moments where you just want to stay there and have it keep on lasting. But if that happened, I don't think you'd be as happy with that moment. I."

He bit his lip. "There's a girl. You know that. Queen of Wands. I kissed her a few times. She kissed me a few times, and it was absolute, pure heaven, even if some of them weren't the best kisses and other ones weren't given in the best circumstances. But it was starting to feel like the pieces might click. And then, yesterday...going a whole day without kissing her was pure agony. But I've gone plenty of days before without it. I just...now I have to wonder if it's ever going to happen again. Before it happened, it was just a daydream."

"And we've been out here in the mud, and before that, we were in prison, and there were all those days before that when I was happy and comfortable and felt like I was at home. I don't feel like I'm at home anymore, but when I get there, it's going to be sublime. It wouldn't be if I'd gotten complacent with it."

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 10:32 PM
"You are gushing." She giggled, watching him with a happy look on her face.

"Maybe it was a dream, but it was a good dream and maybe it can happen again. I have had dreams like that. I dreamed I had a little baby. That made me happy." She pressed her hand against her stomach, her white shift so pale underneath the blanket.

"Home." Her face grew dark.

"My home is gone." She said that with finality and grief. "I do not want a new one."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 10:43 PM
Marcello smiled sheepishly, his ears pinking. "I know," he answered, holding up his string of flowers. "These are for her. I mean, apart from yours. Yours is for you. I..." He nodded. "I felt that way for a while. Then I decided I wanted a home again. Er, well, really, the home sort of fell on me. Or I fell on the home. I didn't choose it."

Then he looked a little dark. "And now I'm fighting not to lose this one. Except I can't-- I don't know how to fight for this."

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 10:51 PM
"Trust her." She nodded, very serious now. "You are her sword, she will know when she should use you."

She closed her eyes, humming faintly to herself. "I can't see the tracks here, I can't see the footsteps. She doesn't want to dance... maybe that will end badly." She gave Marcello a stern look as if that was somehow his fault.

"She has to dance in the end, or stand frozen like salt and watch the tide move in."

She curled her hands, then uncurled them.

"Mirror mirror on the wall...
who is the fairest one of all?
The queen of coins, the queen of wands...
the queen of cups, her heart in hand...
the queen of swords who lonely stands..."

She shook her head again. "Someone is shuffling the deck, we are all running around to trade places before the music stops."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 10:59 PM
"Who?" Marcello asked.

He shook his head at her again. "I'm not a sword," he repeated, even knowing that the girl would insist otherwise. "I know you think I am, but I'm not." He held up the string of flowers. "Does this look like a sword to you? I'm all art and artifice. I make things, I improve things. I prettify things. I use words and pictures. I don't fight. I let things happen to me. I don't take action. I know myself," he added seriously. "I don't think I could ever be a sword. Not even for her."

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 11:04 PM
"I'm sorry to hear that." She listened to his exclamations as if she was hearing an argument that she had heard many times before. "But they all say that at the start. Oh I can't, oh I won't, I can't be relied on, I can't be trusted, I am flighty and debauched, I can just create and talk and do other things... they all say that."

She reached out and bopped him on the arm, shaking her head sternly. "Are you through? You are wrong, I am right, that's just the way it is. No good sword starts out as a sword. They are just dangerous and boring and no use. Swords have to be forged."

She cast him a glance filled with pity. "Forged in flames. It hurts."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 11:11 PM
Marcello raised an eyebrow at the girl. "No, that's not what I said. I can be relied on," he told her firmly. I can be trusted. I'm dependable and I like to think I've got plenty of common sense. I'm faithful. I am not dangerous or boring, and I do have a use. I've already been through fire," he said stubbornly. "I'm not a sword. Swords-- go through your deck. They bring grief or conflict. I won't."

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 11:16 PM
"Do you think you are the only sword out there?" She giggled and shook her head. "I wasn't talking about you. Men are fools for many reasons."

So many reasons.

"You already have brought grief and conflict. It's not that you aren't a sword, it's that you don't want to be one. I don't want to be mad. i don't want to not remember. I don't want to sit here and speak things of truth that I only half see. We don't want this was. We don't want it. But we have it."

She slid her hand underneath the blanket, grabbing the deck of cards.

"You think you can choose your own card? That's not how it's done."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 11:23 PM
"I'm not talking about what I want," Marcello answered tersely. "If I were what I wanted, I'd be an ace. Or the World. I'm talking about what I know I am."

He gave the girl a pointed look. "Does this mean you're going to make me pick one?" he asked her dryly. "And are you going to get all smug if it's a sword, even if you know you'd said yourself that someone else is playing with your deck?"

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 11:28 PM
"No, you can pick one if you want to. But it won't change a thing. Sometimes things rhyme true and sometimes they do not. It might be a sword and I might be smug and it might be the six of cups and your staff that's doing the talking. Cards tell you the truth. But it is hard to decide what truth."

She held out her deck to him, eyes dark and serious.

"Pick a card for me instead. I want a truth. I need a truth. Someone is playing with my deck and I am afraid to ask it what is wrong. You are not the only one that is afraid."

She was.

Petrified.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 11:35 PM
Marcello gave the girl a dry look. "I still think you have me wrong," he told her, and he slipped his hand over the deck, taking a single card.

He looked at it and frowned. "Well, we already knew that," he said to the card, before holding it up to her, the winged, hoofed devil suspended upside-down in his hand. "It's a verification of everything we already knew. Unless your Devil is someone in particular?"

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 11:41 PM
"No, the devil is the devil and we already knew that. She sighed and shook her head, glaring at the card. "It is upside down. I don't know if that scares me more, I want freedom, but is... is it this kind?"

She looked at the deck of cards, reciting softly to herself. "The queens are dangerous, as is the Hierophant. The swords cut all ways, but the three of cups lays the snares and dances the dance. And at the heart is the ace of pentacles but not for you."

She sighed, shaking her head. "I think I lost the magus. I don't think it is in the deck anymore."

She bit her lower lip, looking at the cards. "I am afraid to look for him. What if... what if he's not in there?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 11:45 PM
"If he's not there, you need a new deck," Marcello informed the girl. "The cards don't work if they don't have all their fellows. The Hierophant or the High Priestess, someone might try to sit in for him where he's meant to show himself, but if he's not there, you can't get a proper reading," he answered thoughtfully.

He held a hand out. "Do you want me to look? And what do you mean, about the ace of pentacles, but not for me?"

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 20 2007, 11:57 PM
"The ace of pentacles is already given to someone else. It unlocks the truths within." She nodded sagely as if she knew that truth. "Do you want to see which one of the queens that will cut you?"

She held out the deck to him with a slightly unhinged smile.

"Cut the deck little sword to be. Maybe we will find my Magus."


Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 20 2007, 11:59 PM
"If you keep giving cards away, you'll limit your own vision," Marcello warned, taking the deck to cut it. "I know which Queen is going to cut me," he said, sounding amused. "Or I know which Queen wants to cut me, at any rate."

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 21 2007, 12:11 AM
She nodded silently, giving Marcello a slightly condescending look as if she didn't really listen to what he was saying. "If I need them they will come back." She nodded and turned the first card, placing it between them.

"Past, present, future and the queens are dancing all for you. Four cards to a story" She watched the Tower where it lay, lightning striking the top and people tumbling out from it.

"See, the lightning strikes and everything tumbles. The tower falls and so do we all. No fire this time but the fall hurts because it is so long... That is how this begun. You are struck by lightning." She turned the next card, and it was the king of cups that smiled so very friendly at them. "See? You still think you are not a sword, this is who you want to be, isn't it? The man inside your heart. This is the you that you wish for. This is the physical."

She turned the third card, revealing the Magus, reversed. "This is the hidden. This is what lurks inside. See, I -told- you the magus was out there somewhere, but this is not the right one. It is reversed. All wrong." She frowned and offered him the deck.

"Pick the last card to crown the staff. The lightning has already struck, you can't change that."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 12:21 AM
Marcello hesitated. "The Magus," he said, frowning. "Why is he here?" he asked. "I mean, I have my own ideas about what the card means, but in my reading? Where he sits right now? Lightning's been everywhere, this entire story. There was Brighit, and the lightning it Oireachteigh, and when I got free. I--" He smiled slightly at the King. "That would be," he agreed, "except I don't think I'm halfway near becoming a king. Not yet. I don't think King is quite the right place for me."

He turned over the next card, to show a man on a horse, older than Marcello but still young, holding a large disc over his head. "Knight of Pentacles?" he asked, waiting eagerly for her reply.

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 21 2007, 12:32 AM
"No, the knight of pentacles changes the story." She looked down on the cards, weaving them together in a little dance.

"Lightning strikes then comes the kindly king of cups." She clapped her hands together, hard, sharp. "The magus is inverted and you ride off as the knight of pentacles being none the wiser. See? That's what happens when you try to avoid the swords. You end up as a dull, dull pentacle. And not a good one, like the three or even the seven. No, the knight..."

She sighed, shaking her head at him. "That is just stupid! I mean the knight of pentacles is nice, reliable, dependent... just the kind of knight you want on your side. But he's so stupid! Just look at what he's missing."

She cut the deck in half, showing him the card that rested there, the ten of swords. "See? This is what might happen."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 12:43 AM
"He's not stupid!" Marcello objected, his cheeks going pink. "He's practical. Pentacles aren't dull. They're...grounded. They're something to say for being grounded. And whole. And they don't suffer. Your swords are all well and good, but that one had to be stabbed through ten times before it gets reborn."

He glowered at the girl. "Now you're just trying to convince me to be a sword."

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 21 2007, 12:46 AM
"Maybe..." She looked innocent for a moment. "But look at him... do you really want to be grounded? It can be really risky you know. Having boundaries and lines and everything." She made a little box with her hands, thn looked at the cards again.

"I don't like that the magus reappeared. It was lost, I know it was. And now it's there, inverted. I really don't like that, sword or no sword."

She poked the card a bit as if she almost expected it to bite.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 12:55 AM
"Is the Magus the one playing with your deck?" Marcello asked. "They have a habit of doing that, of trying to pull strings and make things happen the way they want them to. So maybe that's why he's showing up now, if the reason you keep losing track of him is because he's making you see what he wants you to see."

He sighed, shaking his head. "I'd be happy as a pentacle. I could use a few boundaries. I'm tired, Little Red," he called her, for want of another name. "I thought I wanted risk. I wouldn't mind it again in the future. I think I need a rest before I have more."

Posted by: Alynealin Oct 21 2007, 01:02 AM
She reached out and patted him affectionately on the head. "We all see what the Magus wants us to see, I don't think the inverted one is any different. But if you keep a lookout for it, I will too. Maybe we can pin it down."

She collected her cards again, getting to her feet.

"I think I have to go now. Everything is slipping again and I don't want to fall wrongways." She nodded, pulling the blanket tighter around herself, then smiled softly.

"You look miserable as a pentacle." Acting on instinct she removed her blanket, wrapping it around his shoulders. "Get some sleep. I think the fires have all gone out tonight." She touched the flower in her hair.

"Don't be stupid even if it's tempting." And with that she stepped sideways and was gone.

((Aly is out of there!))

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 01:08 AM
Marcello smiled at her last remark. "Sometimes it's nice to be stupid," he informed the thin air, and went back to stringing flowers.

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 08:22 PM
Having woken up earlier than she would have preferred, Jamilah had abandoned attempting to get back to sleep in favour of a walk, soon coming upon Marcello.

She rubbed her eyes, debating with herself for a moment, before walking over.

"Good morning," she said quietly, folding her arms over her stomach. "What are you - are those flowers?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 08:27 PM
"Paper flowers," Marcello answered, holding up the string of them with a smile. "They're for Niabheara. I'm making her something."

He put them down, focusing back on the flowers. "How are you? Sleep all right? I know this isn't Titania's dungeon, but I like to think we have a few creature comforts that almost compare."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 08:33 PM
"I never slept in the dungeons," Jamilah said, shrugging, sitting down. "I only went there to visit you. Here-" She glanced around, frowning at her surroundings, rubbing her neck. "I have slept in worse places. And it seems that I will be moving on soon enough."

She looked down at the flowers, her eyebrows lifting. "How... nice," she said haltingly.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 08:37 PM
Marcello gave Jamilah a sharp look. "Stop that," he said. "They're for something. Which part of it do you disapprove of?"

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 08:39 PM
"You take offence so easily," Jamilah remarked lightly, leaning back on her elbows. "I don't remember saying I disapproved of any part of it, in fact."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 08:42 PM
"You looked at me," Marcello pointed out, reaching for the blanket the redhead hand left behind, to pull it over his knees. "With the eyebrows. You know. The disapproving ones."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 08:46 PM
Jamilah's eyebrows shot up again, but more out of indignation this time. "How can I look at you with my eyebrows?" she enquired, rolling her eyes. "Disapproving or otherwise."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 08:47 PM
"You look and me and do the thing with your eyebrows," Marcello amended, pointing. "That! Right there! Those are the Jamilah-disapproving-eyebrows."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 08:52 PM
Jamilah gave an exasperated sigh. "This is all very clever of you, I'm sure," she said sarcastically. "Don't point at me. You're only picking on my eyebrows because you know I can't see them, and you think that I'll give in and agree with you."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 08:53 PM
Marcello gave Jamilah an amused look. "This would be so much simpler if you just relented and told me why and what you were disapproving," he informed her in a singsong.

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 08:54 PM
"I am disapproving of your disapproval of my disapproving eyebrows," Jamilah said helpfully.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 09:02 PM
"Before the eyebrows," Marcello retorted. "Really, I thought we left last night as friends," he told her dryly. "We're friends now. You can tell me anything."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 09:14 PM
Jamilah snorted, sitting upright and fiddling with the hem of her trousers. "So I won't get a scene like when I told you I was a priestess?" She narrowed her eyes at her feet, pursing her lips.

With an effort, she managed a smile, and a lighter tone. "And I really didn't mean to be disapproving. Really. It's - sweet."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 09:22 PM
"It's just a bit-- when you get accused of being a liar, you know, it somewhat sours things to find out the person accusing you lied about, well, actual important things," Marcello pointed out, before he gave her a frustrated look. "Sweet, and? Sweet, but?"

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 09:28 PM
Jamilah waved a hand airily. "Background. Things I - I wasn't allowed to tell the truth about, and you never would have believed me if I had."

She looked lost to her own thoughts for a moment, but shook herself out of it with another smile. "Sweet. Sweet and - and nice." She was on the brink of adding more, but decided against it, feeling that any more was likely to spark another argument.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 09:32 PM
"You didn't believe me when I told you I was going to be a pirate," Marcello pointed out helpfully.

Then he gave Jamilah a considering look. "So...what's the problem, exactly? Are you jealous I never made you paper flowers? I'll make you paper flowers if that's what it is."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 09:40 PM
Jamilah laughed, raising an eyebrow at him. "Yes, that will add a special touch to your present to the Lady Niall; giving your former girlfriend paper flowers. I am quite all right without paper flowers, thank you all the same. What is it that you're making her?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 09:53 PM
Marcello shook his head, threading the next flower. "Surprise," he answered. "I'm not telling anyone. I don't think she'd...it's private," he finished finally, as he tied off the string, pulling out his knife to cut it off.

He shot Jamilah a slight smile. "She's better than the milkmaid, at least, isn't she?"

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 09:59 PM
"She is," Jamilah said agreeably, although Marcello probably would have been reasonably hardpushed to find somebody Jamilah held in lower esteem than the milkmaid. "I liked the little I saw of her very much indeed. Except perhaps that unfortunate curse business. How long has that afflicted her?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 10:02 PM
"Curse business?" Marcello asked, giving Jamilah a quizzical look. "What curse business? Is this part of your whole priestess-duties bit?"

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 10:04 PM
Jamilah pulled a face at him, and her eyebrows were most definitely set disapprovingly. "The one where she has to protect you from injury," she answered.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 10:08 PM
"Oh, that," Marcello said understandingly, in a tone that suggested he was merely playing along. "Well, yes, it's very tiring. No one gets to slap me anymore, and I think sometimes I really could probably use a slap."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 10:13 PM
Jamilah's fingers twitched, and she folded her hands in her lap, to avoid temptation. "That must be a real shame for you," she said nicely. "I do hope it wears off soon."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 10:16 PM
"You know, I'm starting to wonder what's wrong that you haven't tried to take the opportunity yet," Marcello said to Jamilah. "God knows if anyone deserves to slap me, it's you."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 10:22 PM
"Telling me that you think there's something wrong with me makes me tempted," Jamilah answered carefully. "Would you like me to slap you? I'd feel rude, when the Lady Niall has personally stopped me from doing it already."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 10:28 PM
Marcello shrugged. "It's up to you. I don't really feel like being slapped for something I did when I was seventeen, but if it's going to clear the air between us..."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 10:33 PM
"By making you resentful because I slapped you?" Jamilah enquired, looking bemused. "I only want to slap you when you make me angry. I don't really care about the silly milkmaid - or I wouldn't if you didn't keep bringing her up. And I don't care about the French girl and that other one either, before you start on your list."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 10:37 PM
The Italian raised both eyebrows. "What do you care about, then?" he asked her dryly.

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 10:41 PM
Jamilah was about to spit out a scathing reply, but she faltered and fell silent. "I care about the Oracle," she answered, quietly and not convincingly. "And completing the work of the Oracle. That is all I care about."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 10:47 PM
Marcello smiled to himself. "You know, five years ago, I wouldn't have to ask if you were being truthful. I would have kissed you to prove you were lying. Or wrong. You might not be lying, but that doesn't sound true to me."

He hesitated, looking at her for a moment. "Things are going to be bad here," he told her. "We don't have any defenses against the Queen. We might be committing suicide. It's much better for you to leave and find this man you need. I'm sorry we didn't meet again under better circumstances."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 10:54 PM
On instinct, Jamilah reached out to him, but withdrew her hand sharply, collecting herself. "I don't-" she started, letting her eyes flutter shut. "I hope you don't - I hope..." She trailed off again, opening her eyes. "Take care," she finished. "I - I probably won't leave Ranikhan again, once I go back, so I won't - we won't see each other, either way."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 10:57 PM
Now Marcello raised an eyebrow. "You sound like you're leaving right this instant."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 11:00 PM
Jamilah shrugged. "I'll be leaving as soon as I can. We never really said goodbye before, anyway. I thought I might take the chance, whilst we weren't arguing, in case I didn't get the opportunity later."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 11:02 PM
"Were you planning on arguing again as soon as you had the chance?" Marcello asked, shooting her a lopsided grin. "I've already been scolded by the only friends I've got here; I'm not going to argue with you unless you leave me no choice," he assured her. "I hope you, ah, you have a very nice oracular quest?"

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 11:11 PM
Jamilah smiled in return. "I wasn't planning on starting up another argument," she replied in defence of herself. "Arguments just seem to find me much quicker than they do other people, I can't think why. I, ah." She set her hands on her knees, splaying her fingers out. "Thank you. I hope the rest of my quest is short, to be honest."

She half-smiled. "There, see? That was a much better goodbye than we would have had the first time around anyway."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 11:18 PM
Marcello shot Jamilah a crooked smile. "Except that you're not leaving yet, and if you'd said goodbye the first time, I would have convinced you to stay."

"Well," he admitted, as he started chaining more flowers. "I probably wouldn't have. I was more or less an idiot when I was seventeen, wasn't I?"

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 11:25 PM
"I doubt you would have made it through your convincing," Jamilah answered, tugging her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. "Not intact, anyway. I was just a little bit angry. Shakespeare wouldn't have convinced me to stay, although he might have persuaded me to hide out in the woods for a while. It wouldn't have been different though; if I hadn't left then, I'd have had to go home maybe a month later. But yes, you were an idiot."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 11:29 PM
"I'm sorry," Marcello said, his eyes crinkling in amusement. "I really am. I mean, I really honestly thought that when you said that you wouldn't-- I thought you meant you wouldn't mind me doing it with anyone else."

Then he actually laughed out loud. "I really thought that, honest. I didn't-- It wasn't just a ploy to keep you from beating me into a pulp."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 11:34 PM
Jamilah buried her face in her knees, and when she emerged, all she did was shake her head at Marcello. "You were more of an idiot than I thought," she said, sounding somewhat impressed. "I suppose it's clear enough that I did mind?"

She paused, tightening her grip on her knees. "If - if I'd been stepping out with the blacksmith's son, or the tailor's - would you have minded?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 11:36 PM
"Yes!" Marcello answered, accidentally jabbing himself with his needle. He let out a little whimper, then stuck his finger in his mouth to suck on the cut. "I would have minded," he said in between sucks. "But I believe your specific words were that I could find some other way to entertain myself. I took you quite literally."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 21 2007, 11:48 PM
"I'll be sure to be more direct next time," Jamilah said dryly, trying not to show her pleasure at his response. "I'm glad, though, that we got the opportunity, to - ah, sort things out, I suppose. Although this is an especially strange place to be doing it in, it's not exactly how I'd pictured it."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 21 2007, 11:52 PM
"Well, I didn't picture it at all," Marcello replied. "For all I knew, you'd exited-pursued-by-a-bear. You were really the last person I was expecting to see here. Really."

He shot her a rather pleased smile. "There's not going to be a next time. Don't worry about that. I would have to be unfaithful to begin with, and it would have to be to you, and that's really not going to happen anywhere in any possible universe."

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 22 2007, 12:00 AM
"I didn't mean quite under the exact same circumstances," Jamilah corrected, fiddling with her hair. "I thought about it, when I returned home, but you managed to survive the actual one, so I suppose that's something. Do you think you'll ever go back home - to Oxford?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 12:02 AM
"The actual what?" Marcello asked. "The bear or the play? We're in the wrong play for that," he pointed out. "This is Midsummer. In the early spring."

Posted by: Fortuna Oct 22 2007, 12:08 AM
Around this time a loud snuffling sound came out from between the trees at the edge of the camp.

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 22 2007, 12:08 AM
Jamilah frowned, not quite following, but figuring that she would be away from it all soon enough. "The actual sorting things out," she replied instead. "But I hope you survive the - er - play too."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 12:11 AM
"Oxford hasn't really been the same since--"

Marcello cut himself off, starting at the sound, and wielded his string of paper daisies.

Realizing those would not intimidate the enemy, he left them to sit on the blanket and wielded his knife, moving himself forward to protect Jamilah. "Who goes?!"

Posted by: Fortuna Oct 22 2007, 12:14 AM
The snuffling seemed neither responsive nor particularly intimidated. The crake rattled under the passage of a large moving body that did not reveal itself. The sounds of crunching underfoot grew nearer.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 12:27 AM
Marcello swallowed and started forward. "If it's a bear, just start making as much noise as you can. They're-- um. More scared of us than we are of them," he said to the girl.

"Hello?!" he demanded again. "Speak if you can!"

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 22 2007, 12:28 AM
Jamilah did not look particularly comforted, and shrunk further backwards, making as little noise as possible.

Posted by: Fortuna Oct 22 2007, 12:31 AM
And as predicted, a very large brown bear obligingly rose to its hind legs from the flattened brush, giving the human man the confused you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me look that many animals give to humans who seem to feel that the woods do not belong to the animals. It loomed several feet over Marcello but appeared to be more bemused than aggressive.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 12:37 AM
Marcello lowered the knife, very slowly. "Ah. Hello there?" he said to the bear. "Can we help you? Are you an enchanted bear by any chance? Er? Do you understand what I'm saying?"

He looked back to Jamilah. "Have you got any, um, honey?"

Posted by: Jamilah Ai'livahzi Oct 22 2007, 12:43 AM
"No," Jamilah hissed back. "I didn't exactly plan to have to escape from a bear when I got up." She edged still further back, and then froze, deciding she didn't want to attract too much attention to herself.

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 12:45 AM
The bear let out a 'rowrf?' sound that sounded both interrogative and extremely amused. A moment later the bear seemed to merge down to a smallish, plumpish Tuatha woman in a grey woolen dress to match her eyes, with pink piping the very colour of the roses in her cheeks. Her expression, however, was hardly rosy. "A proper bear would have swatted you cross-eyed had you walked so near to it," she told him.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 12:49 AM
Marcello went rather crimson. "A proper bear would have gone to the tents with the food," he retorted, keeping his knife at ready. "Would you be so kind as to answer the question I posed whilst you were in bear-form, lady?"

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 12:55 AM
"Aye, I can speak, plainly; no, I haven't any honey; I am not exactly an 'enchanted' bear--" She smiled and squinched her nose and added air-quotes; "aye, I understand you very well indeed; and I am the dowager baroness of Ebhot, and you can help me if you might could point me in the direction of Mortoch of Deadfall, or else the lady Niall. Is that everything? Have I missed a question? Was the honey-thing directed toward her or toward me?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 01:02 AM
"Her!" Marcello exclaimed, looking around, before he stepped forward excitedly, both arms outstretched, his eyes wide. "You're Morgana!" he said eagerly, before remembering that the Tuatha didn't exactly hug strangers upon meeting, even if they'd heard dozens of things about them and dropping his arms awkwardly to the side. "Hello! We're expecting you--I-- I don't know if Niabheara is up yet; Moira might have put another calm on her while I wasn't watching, or else-- she hasn't been sleeping well, it's probably better to-- Mortoch," he said collecting his thoughts. "Mortoch is either in the Trul encampment there--" he pointed. "Or he's leading drills over there. I'm so glad you're here. Really, I--"

It was about at this moment that he realized he hadn't introduced himself. "I'm, ah, I'm..."

And then he realized he wasn't sure how to introduce himself. "Marcello Basciano, Ni- ah, I was Tristan's tutor. And this is Jamilah Ai'Livahzi, Priestess of the Oracle of Ranikhan."

He seemed quite pleased with his introduction of Jamilah, if not his own.

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 01:21 AM
"And you're Marcello!" Morgana burst out laughing, delightedly, and threw her arms about him--as high up as she could get them, anyway--for a fast warm squeeze. "Aye, I know, she wrote to me about you!" She had also warned that Marcello reminded her of Bram, but from first examination Morgana could not quite see it.

She dropped down to her heels again and bobbed a fast curtsey to Jamilah, her hand on her breast. "You, I do not know," she said politely. "Well met, lady."

Posted by: Mortoch Starhammer Oct 22 2007, 01:22 AM
Patrol duty, yet again- Ah, well- it was better than the alternative. Endless hours worrying the draft horses to a gloss with the curry-comb, sharpening and re-sharpening blades already razored, Polishing armor already mirror bright.

All the neurotic chores of waiting soldiers.

It was the forth time Mortoch had eased around the perimeter of the camp. Gliding silently from tree to tree in the shadows. Occasionally taking to the limbs of some of the bigger oaks, keeping abreast of movement in the forest edge, he fleetingly glimpsed the other Trul sentries gloaming in the dark. Once he nearly screamed aloud, as he trod on the cold mythril back of one of the Automata scorpions. It had buried itself in the soft mud, and was just waiting for anything to come bother it.

Rounding a huge tree, the dawn breeze brought a scent to his nose, at once familiar and yet somehow not easy to place. He stopped and snuffed, hus green nostrils flaring softly.

"Ursrah.",thought Mortoch- the Trul word for bear- "... but not wholly ursrah."

Well, whatever it was, it didn’t belong in the camp. He leaped up into the canopy, his clawed hands finding purchase on the gnarled bark. The wind song in the trees nicely covering the creaking of the limbs as he neared the campfire’s glow. Finally moving into position Just above the camp, he looked down just in time to see the bear rear up at Marcello….and then flow into a much-loved shape he remembered.

Mortoch smiled, then silently lowered himself down from tree branch to hang by his taloned feet- upside down- behind the brunette Tuatha.

“...and a proper bear would have approached the camp downwind, Meg.”

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 01:28 AM
"She was taken prisoner by the Puck," Marcello explained, hugging Meg back before nodding to Jamilah. "We were childhood friends. She--" his eyes glistened a bit. "Told you about me?"

And then the Trul showed up, and he nodded to him, too. "And there's your Mortoch," he said, nodding to the trul. "Morning, Mortoch. Any news?"

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 01:35 AM
"A bit, aye. There's been so much to happen, I feel I might've gotten the short version of everything . . . " The woman turned smiling and gave Mortoch enough of a small push to set him swinging from his branch. "Whoe'er said I was a proper bear? Down with you and greet me proper, you great skulking thing!"

Posted by: Mortoch Starhammer Oct 22 2007, 01:40 AM
Mortoch dropped from the branch, twisting in mid-air like a cat to land on his feet. He scooped up the smaller woman and hugged her soundly, his tongue swiping up the side of her cheek.

“Morganna! It’s been years- how the hell are ya?”

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 01:46 AM
Morgana wiped off her face with a sleeve. "Better now," she assured the trul. "What has that sister of mine gone and done now? I thought you were keeping an eye on her." She tapped the trul above the beltbuckle with the tip of a finger.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 01:46 AM
Marcello watched the trul-embrace with a mixture of amusement and unease, still not entirely comfortable around the much larger, stronger creatures. "I'm sure he was. I'm sure she kicked everyone out of her tent yet again. We'll get you briefed as soon as we can," he assured the woman. "There's likely been more since anyone told you anything, anyhow. Do you know about the King?"

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 01:55 AM
Morgana looked a little stiff. "I know what I've been told about the King," she said cautiously.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 01:58 AM
"That he's our hostage?" Marcello asked the woman. "As is the Puck?"

Posted by: Mortoch Starhammer Oct 22 2007, 02:01 AM
“Hmmmm……”, Mortoch pondered, tapping a claw to his teeth with a ringing sound,

“In a nutshell, The Trul mobilized to form a nation, Ellected Niabheara as warlord- Little miss got ambushed at Oireachteigh by Titania‘s forces- I almost summoned the Dragon-queen on the captain on the dire there. We came here to negotiate, Titania balked- no surprise there- sprung Marcello outen the jail, then the bitch up n’ killed poor wee Tristian. Th’ Countess nearly lost it then. Puck n’ “His Highness” caused some bad troubles at the lad’s funeral, Nibs REALLY lost it then, Th’ bard calmed her down, and now all of Deadfall, ShatterStone, and Clan Blackrock are waiting to take apart all of the Queen’s horses and all of the Queen’s men. Not to mention the whole damn island if need be.”

He paused for breath.

‘…and that about brings ya up to date, Wanna help us wipe out th’ Highborns?”

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 02:06 AM
Morgana suddenly looked very much as if she needed to sit down. Immediately. She started to say something, but shut her mouth in a hurry. Then she took a deep, calming breath. "Right. So perhaps my letter was not so all-encompassing as I might have hoped . . . Where is she? What does she think she's doing?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 02:13 AM
"Ah..." Marcello hesitated, 'proclaiming herself Queen of Avalon,' on the tip of his tongue. "What exactly did she tell you, maybe?"

Posted by: Mortoch Starhammer Oct 22 2007, 02:15 AM
"Oh, and I almost forgot... Niabheara is a priestess Of Tssarrat now."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 02:18 AM
And Morgana exploded. "The Dragon Courts?!"

Finally she sat down flat on the grass. "Yes. I am indeed one or two or ten or a dozen letters behind current." She looked helplessly up at Marcello. "The last thing I heard was that the Courts had taken Tristan and that she wanted me to Tir-Nan-Og to help conceal her movements. I hadn't heard . . . anything beyond that. Nothing at all." The woman looked miserable, bowing down her head and crossing her arms to clutch her shoulders.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 02:24 AM
Marcello went white, then swore, then reached for the woman's shoulder, with all the hesitance he had when he did the same to Niabheara. "Come on," he said quietly. "You want to come inside? I...don't really think there's much use for concealing anything at the moment. I'm sorry," he said, swallowing. "Niabheara told me you were coming, but she...she made it sound like you knew what to expect."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 02:32 AM
"I thought I knew what do expect," she told him. "Plans change faster than I travel." Instead of letting him take her shoulder, she borrowed Marcello's hand to pull herself to her feet. "No," she agreed. "I don't think this is the time for concealment now, do you? But I want to see my sister." She sounded nearly pleading.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 02:36 AM
Marcello grimaced, giving the woman's hand a squeeze, and then nodded in the direction of Niabheara's tent. "Then let's find her," he said, starting toward the pavilion. "Mortoch, you coming?" he asked, offering Morgana his arm as he led her forward.

Posted by: Mortoch Starhammer Oct 22 2007, 02:41 AM
He smiled ironicaly at her reaction. “Don’t worry yer head about it, Her membership is purely nominal. Lit’ll miss will keep her tongue, her sanity, and an un-branded forehead. It’s just the clans wouldn’t accept her as leader unless she followed the dragon mother.”

He swept her up into another hug- “Look, I’ve got to go, I’m on watch tonight. We’ll talk later- I promise- Marcello will fill you in on everything.”

His tongue swept up her cheek quickly, and he vaulted back up into the tree-line.

(post out)

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 02:47 AM
Morgana smiled and ducked her head. She rubbed her face with her sleeve again. "Mortoch," she said to Marcello, fondly, as if that should explain everything. She politely and wordlessly rejected the offer of his arm, but followed him into the camp. "You seemed surprised when I said she'd spoken of you," the woman said. "Is she well? Would she not have spoken of you?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 02:56 AM
The tips of Marcello's ears tinged pink. "Ah. I'm not sure. If you say the last time she wrote was before we even left for Oireachteigh, I really don't...I wouldn't have expected it. She's a little hard to..." He shrugged, then shot the woman a smile. "You know. She's your sister. She's--" He sighed. "I think she's-- she was doing better yesterday than the day before, but I don't know how much of that was because she was too exhausted for anything else. She hasn't been sleeping. She's got grey circles under her eyes, and she..." He pressed his lips together. "Sometimes I think she's going to fall over where she stands. But I don't really know how much better she's expected to be. Tristan's-- well, you heard Mortoch. Titania murdered him."

His voice went tight at this. "We've been doing the best we can."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 03:11 AM
"There was a letter waiting from Oireachteigh when I reached Anvil Harbour," Meg said, her grey eyes tilted in kittenish curiosity; it was a roundabout way of answering the question, to her mind. "I didn't know . . . poor Tristan." She cupped a hand around her own lower belly, as if to stifle a pain.

"My sister is definitely our mother's daughter, in many ways. I don't know if you've met my mother." She gave a faint grin, more of a grimace. "Both of them terribly single-minded persons. They forget about other people when they're upset. Nialla also tends to forget about herself along with the rest." She turned to look at Marcello as they walked. She seemed on the verge of adding something, but let it go. "Which is why it surprised me that she mentioned you. She said you reminded her very much of my son."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 03:19 AM
Marcello gave the woman a sidelong look, not wanting to ask the question of whether the letter came before or after his own abduction. "It came as a shock to us all. The last I saw of him in the palace, Auberon promised that Titania would not lay a hand on him. And then...they slit his throat," he said, his own face going grey. "Cut off his ear and threw it at our feet. Froze his dead body in a pond."

He shivered as he said it, then swallowed, as if swallowing would remove the subject from the conversation. "And I have not had the pleasure of meeting her, although Niabheara has told me she's a... formidable woman. Ah." He gave Morgana a curious look, and a dubious expression crossed his face. "She's never mentioned that to me. The bit about your son."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 03:33 AM
Morgana's lively face went very still at the description. It took a while for her to come out of her silence.

"They were very close, more so when they were younger, of course," she said quietly. "Tristan reminded me very much of Brammie at that age--chatty as a jay, ne'er met a stranger. Had to practically tie his hands behind his back to keep him from climbing things. She was much the same when she lived at home. Between the two of them . . . gods, I don't think I slept a night through until Bram was ten and Niabheara was already countess." She smiled faintly at the memory.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 03:41 AM
Marcello gave the woman an appreciative smile. "And I haven't slept a night through since I got here," he replied. "I can only imagine her as a girl; she..."

And then he frowned, as if something had just occurred to him. "She's a lot like the eldest of my sisters. Will of steel, temper changing every moment. I don't even know where she is now," he said thoughtfully, tugging at his ear. "She's close to twenty-one, for all I know, she's married and has three children," he said, looking amused at the prospect.

"So where is this son of yours now?" he asked eagerly. "If he's half as wonderful as I am, I should really enjoy the opportunity to meet him. Not with you, I take it? Not that I would recommend this place for a boy...And Niabheara said you have a baby now? Back to sleepless nights?"

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 03:51 AM
"Brammie's with his grandmother, on the sea. The only one of the family who took to the sea, and me mother's gloating about it something fierce." She smiled. "Me little one, the daughter, is home with her father. Just turned three winters." And again the woman radiated unconcealed pride. "But she's a turn again from the other two. Easy as can be, only cries when she's hurt, slept dusk to dawn her first day in this world. Her da's greedy for her. I think he near shoved me out the door this time to be with her."

Then she turned quiet again--not exactly sad, but contemplative. "Nialla's changed a great deal since she came to Cnoch-na-Niall." Morgana did not even attempt to disguise her disapproval. "She's lost a lot of that . . . I don't e'en know the word for what she was. We took a little girl who trusted everyone and put her in a place where she couldn't trust anyone. I don't know if she e'er forgave us that."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 04:01 AM
"That sounds like our Hero," Marcello said, smiling slightly. "I left home when she was still a baby; she'd be a little older than Tristan...was, I think. But she was a joy."

He bit his lip, then shook his head. "You did what you could. What would you have done, hidden her from the world? That would have been worse. You gave her a happy childhood, and a good family, and that's more than a lot of people have. She-- she's a good woman, Morgana," he assured her. "It's better her than someone who was raised not to trust anyone; then we'd be looking at the lesser of two evils and not a light in the darkness. She can't trust people, but she believes in them nonetheless. It's a fine line."

He gave Morgana a meaningful look. "That was the one thing I told Niabheara when she said you were coming. Was that I had to thank you for raising her so well."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 04:15 AM
Morgana gave her bright, soft laugh again. "We lived with her for a time at Cnoch-na-Niall. She had a wonderful bard then as well, an old man called Bhaisailli. I'm afraid I was quite evil to him those first years; I feared he might entrench her too much in Court. But he understood it. He doted on her as much as I did. There at the end, when he was dying, before he had to return to the College, I doctored to him. He taught me how to read in exchange." She tucked her hands behind her back. "No one knew just who she was back then. A few of the baronesses sent their second sons up to court her. I intercepted them, convinced them that I was the countess and that she was my daughter, and I ran them ragged ere I let on the truth. It was always fun to see their faces fall when they realised they'd spent days wooing the wrong sister. More so when they had to turn 'round and adapt their seductions to a ten-year-old. The ones that won the most favour were the ones who let her braid their horses' manes."

She smiled fondly at Marcello. "No thanks for me. Anything I gave her, I gave for love, for joy. She is dear to me."




Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 04:22 AM
Marcello gave a real laugh at the bit about the horses' manes. "As she-- As well she should be," he amended, a touch awkwardly. "I think the bit with the horses might still work with her; the second day I was in her...ah. Care? I found her up to her knees in horse-muck, with one of them eating her hair. In our hypothetical journey abroad to visit my home, I am going to make it a hypothetical point to take her to the friend of mine who raises Arabians. Just to see her face," he said, looking amused. "And then we are eating hypothetical steak and hypothetical onions and drinking hypothetical grappa."

He flashed Morgana a broad grin. "You're hypothetically invited, as soon as we manage to finish whatever the hell it is we're meant to do here."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 04:45 AM
"This will depend on my wayward son hypothetically hieing his hindquarters home again to husband his barony," Morgana replied nicely, while studying the man with a cool and thoughtful look. "I admit, I am not the best person to be telling that you plan to take my sister away. Hypothetical though it may be."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 04:56 AM
Marcello looked abashed for a moment. "I can't very well get her anything like a proper steak here," he pointed out earnestly. "Or proper cheese. Or proper olives. Or proper anything, really, especially the way Cnoch Na Niall's stores were when we left them. And it's too far for me to bring them all back. We'd hypothetically have a hypothetical chaperone, if it hypothetically makes hypothetical things hypothetically better?" he offered timidly.

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 05:05 AM
Morgana gave a mischievous cat-like smirk. "My lady sister has twenty winters, sir, and is entirely capable of being her own chaperone. So tell me: are you always so transparent when you're love-bitten?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 05:13 AM
Marcello's ears pinked again, and he pursed his lips to keep from laughing. "Does your entire family like to guilt men into thinking they're behaving like vicious cads when their affections are that transparent?" he retorted, both blushing and grinning furiously.

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 01:52 PM
"What? I think it's sweet." At the same time her eyes belied a little sorrow for him.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 03:23 PM
"I mean the scolding-me-for-hypothetically-abducting-to-Italy bit," Marcello explained, before giving the woman a good long frown. "That's what Jamilah said, too. From the looks that tend to accompany it, I can only assume it's some sort of Ladies' Code for entirely hopeless and pathetic."

He observed this in surprisingly good humor, then dipped his head to the woman deferentially. "I'm here to help her," he said earnestly. "That's all."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 04:57 PM
"As am I," Morgana replied smoothly. "You men are entirely too concerned about looking pathetic. Love expects one to grovel a bit." She smiled fondly at him.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 05:13 PM
Marcello smiled back. "Oh, I think you might wait till you know me a bit better before jumping to that conclusion," he warned the woman. "I spend far too much of my time looking pathetic to really worry that much about it. Over a variety of things, and not just love, although love has been the prime example of late."

He tugged at his ear. "I know," he said, nodding to the woman again. "Niabheara and Moira have spoken nothing but the highest praises for you. Your sister loves you. It will be good to have someone here who will care for her properly in all this. I don't know her well enough yet to always know the right thing for her. I've been trying, though," he added earnestly. "But I can hardly be you."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 22 2007, 05:19 PM
A bright red and vaguely Niabheara-shaped blur came shooting across the muddy encampment. "Morgaaaaaa-na!"

It leapt on the smaller woman and spun her half-circle in a violent, enthusiastic hug.

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 05:19 PM
And Morgana, with only the briefest warning before impact, caught the girl's full weight with an 'oof!' before laughing aloud and completing the little circle with her hands around Niabheara's waist. "Look at you! You're a mess of filth. When was the last time you washed your hands? Or changed clothes? Don't deny me, I've already gotten the full report and you've not been sleeping or eating since you began this. How d'you expect to take o'er the world if you can't sit still enough to get a single meal in you? Now go comb your hair!"

She ended the speech by setting Niabheara down with a no-nonsense swat on the ass.

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 22 2007, 05:21 PM
Niabheara's face burned, but she could not wipe the grin off her face, even as she reached around to rubbed her stinging rear end. "My sister," she said to Marcello, in a tone both pleased and embarrassed.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 05:29 PM
Marcello, too, was so taken with the reunion that he was beaming when Niabheara finally turned to him. "I gathered," he answered, shooting Morgana an amused look. "She narrowly rescued me from a bear attack this morning. So, are you going to listen now?" he asked Niabheara teasingly. "Now that there's one of our numbers who can threaten to spank you?"

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 22 2007, 05:35 PM
"I outrank her." Niabheara's chin shot up, though her eyes twinkled. "I can have her imprisoned."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 05:35 PM
Morgana's eyes narrowed. "If you have me imprisoned, Miss Wickedness," she growled, "you had best prepare to ne'er let me out."

Then she squealed and squeezed Niabheara again. When this did not slake her exuberance, she let go Niabheara and flung herself briefly and with matching enthusiasm at Marcello.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 05:45 PM
Marcello laughed, loudly, still beaming as he hugged Morgana back and shot an immensely amused, immensely pleased look in Niabheara's direction. "If the Countess treats all her prisoners alike, I can assure you now that imprisonment is really quite pleasant as long as you don't mind a bit of dust on the furniture. Some of my fondest memories are of being imprisoned, thanks to her. Being imprisoned by Titania has nothing on her. I urge you to reconsider."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 22 2007, 05:54 PM
"Well," Niabheara replied, looking meekly at her toes, "I didn't exactly know what I was taking on when I got you." Her face was still red; she was honestly growing concerned with how long exactly Marcello and Morgana had been speaking before they came to this side of the camp.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 06:02 PM
"Oh, so if you had known, you would have relegated me to the cheese room?" Marcello teased. "Or do you mean you would have seen to it my rooms were dusted first?"

When he saw Niabheara's expression, he relented, glancing at Morgana. "Morgana needs to be brought up to date. I think Mortoch covered most of the larger events, but as for the details..." he said, glancing between them. "Especially of the last few days."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 22 2007, 06:42 PM
"Or had the cheeseroom dusted," Niabheara retorted.

Reluctantly she moved nearer to Morgana and spoke for a time, quietly, in Tuathalli. During the whole brief speech her face barely altered, save to blink, and her voice never changed from its low, calm murmur. Occasionally Morgana paused her with a question; she answered tersely, then moved on.

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 06:42 PM
At the end some of the pink leached from Morgana's face. She reached out and squeezed Niabheara's hands in her own. "From the time I spent at Anvil Harbour there's been no word of any activity at Cnoch-na-Niall," she replied huskily. "Although it seems it's quite well-known that you're rading for Tristan; that much has gotten out. Silly girl, why haven't you told more people of this? Why raise the banner on your own?"

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 22 2007, 06:43 PM
"I have," Niabheara insisted, "I've gotten word to as many as I know. It's just that so much has happened so fast . . . "

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 06:55 PM
"She's doing her best," Marcello put in supportively. "We've sent word to Fiona, Moira says we have Beal-Feirste and Anvil Harbour on our side, and perhaps some others. We would have Oireachteigh if it weren't for the sickness. We have the Trul."

He gave Morgana a pained look, stepping closer to Niabheara. "It is a question of whether they arrive in time," he said quietly. "Niabheara called for aid when she could. If Tristan had been returned unharmed, there would have been no need, and Titania would have accused her of being unduly aggressive and a usurper. If there's anyone else we should ask..." he said giving Morgana a meaningful look. "I would not know their names."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 07:01 PM
"Has she spoken to Mother?" Morgana folded her arms sternly over her breasts, already knowing the answer.

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 22 2007, 07:01 PM
Niabheara drew apart from the both of them. "Mother and I are not speaking."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 07:01 PM
Morgana stamped her foot and blew a puff of air. "Of course you're not speaking! I'm not-speaking to Mother! It has been the most lively discussion of non-communication I have e'er encountered. You know her; she'd come back. Offer her anything. Tell her you'll pardon her out of exile. Beg. She has Seth on her side now; she only just sent me to speak with him in Ravensdale. He'd be willing to help you, I know he would. Humble yourself a little, you miserable child, or I'll go out and do your pleading for you! I have no shame in it if it saves your rotten little life."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 07:10 PM
Marcello suddenly looked both smug and uncomfortable at the same time. "I told you to contact your mother," he told Niabheara sheepishly, then looked to Morgana. "Would she really be helpful?" he asked. "If she'd help, I'll entreat her. I'm never not-speaking to anyone, and even if I were, I don't know her well enough to not be speaking seeing as I've never met her."

He looked back at Niabheara, reaching out to give her sleeve a little nudge. "It's our lives at stake," he pointed out quietly. "Cnoch Na Niall's future. Surely the alternative is worse than at least speaking to her. I'd speak to my mother again if it were a matter of life and death."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 22 2007, 07:25 PM
Niabheara responded to the nudge with a halfway-nudge of her own. "You weren't the one who sent the Admiral after her," she said. "If Mother doesn't want to be found then she won't be let herself be found."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 22 2007, 07:26 PM
Morgana burst into a peal of winded, frustrated laughter, tapping herself on the chest as she said, "E'en if she doesn't want to be found by you, Miss Foolishness, I can still contact her; I know exactly where she is. By your leave or not I'll speak to her ere this day is out. You do not command me, countess; I changed your damn nappies." Her blue-grey eyes flashed sparks; she wheeled on Marcello. "How long has your poor lot been putting up with this self-pitying nonsense?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 22 2007, 07:31 PM
Again, Marcello looked torn between being immensely pleased and being rather awkwardly uncomfortable. "I wasn't aware it was self-pitying," he answered honestly, because that at least was true. "Niabheara's been doing well on her own, mostly," he assured Morgana earnestly. That was true, too. "She's so far found a way clear through most of her own troubles. But I'm sure," and he gave Niabheara a look, as if daring her to disagree, "that any assistance we can find would be more than welcomed."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 23 2007, 05:46 AM
"That, I don't doubt." Morgana relented somewhat. She came forward and kissed her sister's cheek, first one, then the other. "You've always been one to stand on your own feet," she said. "But you didn't call for me if not to help you. Let me do what you asked of me."

Then she lifted a lock of Niabheara's red hair and sniffed it. "Meantimes, get a bath. You smell like last week's oil of cinnamon. I'll set myself to your perimeters. Dorelai is still your captain?"

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 05:47 AM
Niabheara flushed again, this time in embarrassment, and put her hair back over her shoulders. "She is. The camp's fair divided between mine and Mortoch's; they torment each other otherwise."

Posted by: Morgana Northsbane Oct 23 2007, 05:49 AM
"Then I'll go. Marcello, hold her in the river and scrub her if necessary; I'll be along to force-feed you both." On second thought, her eyes crinkled at Marcello. "Strike that--I'll hold her in the river, you do the force-feeding."

She stroked Niabheara's face with the back of her hand, then drew away. "Don't get too comfortable; I'll descend on you like ravens when you least expect me."

With her usual bustling gait, she set off and away.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 05:56 AM
Marcello shot Morgana a hurt look at the suggestion that he may not be capable of holding-down-and-scrubbing the younger sister, but then waved her off. "Happily, as long as you're still going to force feed me!" he called after her, before turning to the younger. "I like her already," he said, a twinkle in his eye. "If it makes you feel any better, I didn't notice the dirt. Then again, I'm probably filthy myself." He rubbed his hands off on his trousers in a show of solidarity. "What's the word this morning?"

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 06:14 AM
"She really will force-feed you, you know." Niabheara spoke as if this were one of Morgana's more irritating points. "That's her cure for everything: leek pie with bacon." But she couldn't help smiling. At the memory of leek pie she actually felt a thin thread of hunger.

"You actually just mentioned the latest: you remember Gearoid an Beal-Feirste? Played Artorius in the Imbloc act? Groped me in front of half-a-hundred people?" From her brighter tone this conversation had nothing to do with the man's social habits. "He just send a runner south. He's managing his wee sister's estates while she's still in her minority, and he's pledged himself to us on her behalf. He's going to cut off Lady Oisin before she can reach Leabharcham!" Niabheara grinned. "Of course, I rather suspect his motives--but who cares?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 06:21 AM
"Oh, Merciful God in Heaven," Marcello said, looking like he was going to drool, his eyes wide and hungry. "I want to be force fed anything that involves pie and leeks and bacon. Do you know the last time I had proper English pie-- not that you're English, but I imagine it's closer to the same thing than a pizza."

He swallowed ravenously, then looked very much as if he remembered the man in question. "Oh, yes," he replied in a teasing tone, "the one I was painfully jealous of? Of course I remember him. And he just went up about ten notches in my estimation, suspicious motives or no. That's wonderful," he said, grinning just as broadly. "And what of Titania? Any word? Does the King know his wife's given him up?'

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 06:30 AM
Niabheara gave Marcello a particularly wry look. "He refers to me as 'sweet-cuds'. He baits hounds for recreation. I personally have seen him paring his toenails at the table. With the same knife he then used to cut his meat." She pulled a face. "On the black side of the ledgers, he's managed both his sister's and his mother's estates, and acted as shire-reeve to Beal-Feirste, and I've ne'er heard any complain about his performance. His dowry's on the right side of the Tir-Nan-Og oatline. And he is good-looking," she added, rather wistfully. Then she shook her head and went back to business.

"We have three spies in the Court. One of them came back with the message about Lady Oisin. From the queen herself, there's been no word; she seems to have sequestered herself somewhere in her own court and no one's seen her since the King departed." Now Niabheara began to pace. "Moira has been dealing with His Majesty. He's been informed about the message by now. She said he had nothing to say to it--which worries me more than if he had. Now I've got to guess what the man's thinking."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 06:42 AM
"He expected it," Marcello answered, very soberly, before almost breaking out into a grin. "Sweet-cuds. The man sounds like a fine alliance if you never have to set foot in the same room as him," he informed her cheerfully. "My parents were always wonderfully in tune when it came to my upbringing as long as it was done by letter. It can work. Although then you wouldn't get to look at him." It was said teasingly, but there was a sour note.

Then he, too, returned to the subject at hand. "Auberon must know his wife. We certainly thought she might respond this way; he must have considered it as well. The question is what else he expects of his wife, or what else he expects of us. He swore Tristan wouldn't be hurt, and yet the child wound up in Titania's hands. I just don't know where her sway ends and begins with him. In the play, he spends all his time making an ass-- well, not of her. He makes an ass of someone else and then makes her sleep with him. Or makes Puck do it, rather. I've been trying to think of what we can get the Puck to make her swoon over this time, at very least to cloud her attention. I would say Mortoch, because the Queen would be chopped meat, but I wouldn't want to foist her upon him. Perhaps that other Trul? Brae'lok? The one who always has such a delightful disposition?"


Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 06:56 AM
"If you e'er refer to me as 'sweet-cuds' I will beat you with a stick," she warned. "Brae'lok is . . . I don't know, there's been something going on with the priestesses e'er since the Queensman spoke to their chieftainess, and I of course being Tuatha am not allowed to know what it is. Mortoch's here for me; the others are here for land. It would not surprise me if Titania tried to buy them out from under us."


Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 07:01 AM
"Of course, sweet-cuds," Marcello replied happily. "I wouldn't dream of it."

Then he pursed his lips. "Does Mortoch have any idea, then?" he asked quietly. "I was suspicious of that from the start; I...the Trul make me uncomfortable, to say the least, so I want to be cautious of judging them for the wrong reason, but..." He sighed, aggravated. "There must be one trul who would know and tell you, no?"

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 07:08 AM
"Any of Clan Deadfall, which is most of the ones who came with us. The ones who joined later are mostly Blackrock, Brae'lok's warriors. They're mercenaries."

Chewing her lip as she turned the matter over, the sweet-cuds comment struck her belatedly; she looked up in fury and slugged him in the upper arm. "Oh, you rat!"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 07:14 AM
"So we ask them," Marcello replied. "Unless the mercenaries aren't sharing their plans with Mortoch's people anymo--ooph!"

He had been bracing for a hit, but not a hit quite that hard, and he started laughing uncontrollably at the same time that he took a spill backward, landing smack on his rear. Where he sat, continuing to laugh. "Well, you said he was good-looking," he informed her, rubbing his arm. "I was hoping it might work for me, too."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 07:24 AM
"He's also the biggest clod on four islands--oh get up!" She burst out giggling as she yanked on his arm. Amazing how a hour ago it didn't seem as if anything would remotely feel funny again. She blamed Meg. "I didn't hit you that hard!"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 07:28 AM
"You did!" Marcello objected, pulling a face as he, instead of getting up, yanked back on the girl's arm. "I'm in hideous, painful agony!" Still laughing, he attempted to give her a mournful look-- with little success. "You heard your sister! I'm wasting away! I haven't the strength to stand any longer!"

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 07:34 AM
"You're in mud and possibly horse-shit!" And naturally, immediately after this statement, his tug pulled her enough forward that she trod on her own hem, stumbled, and ended up hitting her knees beside him. Her eyes widened in indignation. "There? You see? This isn't remotely humorous, you--"

Righteous fury outstripped vocabulary. Niabheara sank on hand up to the wrist in mud, pulled out a sizable glop and rubbed it into his hair.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 07:39 AM
And Marcello beamed back at her, getting up to his own knees to find a proper striking position. "Your sister's going to strip us both and put us in the tub like we're infants, anyhow. We might as well get properly dirty so she's got something to--"

He chortled with glee as the mud dripped down around his ears, sliding both of his fists into the mud. "No, this is humorous," he informed her, and he pressed his hands-full of squishy ammunition to either side of her head. "Terribly humorous."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 02:36 PM
The girl let out a shriek of outrage that might have passed for laughter if her face had not been contorted into a mask of determined rage. With a fast snatch for his collar, she raked up another fistful and jammed it down the front of his shirt, then slapped down hard to be certain it stuck. "We are in the midst of a military strike! Have you no sense of decorum?" The last word dissolved in a stammer of giggling; she fell back, groping behind her for fresh ammunition.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 02:52 PM
Marcello actually squealed like a child when the mud went down his shirt, wiggling to try to get it out while he grabbed another handful of mud, glancing for a moment at Niabheara's dress as if he were trying to decide whether it was at all appropriate for him to retaliate in kind.

"Exactly!" he informed her. "You need to be ready at any moment from an attack from anywhere! This is a drill, Lady!"

And he used his advantageous height to reach over her and drop a clod of mud down her back, grinning wolfishly.

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 04:53 PM
"This is villainy! This is . . . this is an attack on the person of Cnoch-na-Niall, you toad! There's a cheeseroom with your name on it, just wait!" She tried to catch his wrist to stay him but her hands were too slick; she ended up squirming from clammy mud squelching down the back of her tunic. "This isn't fair, you're bigger than I am!"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 05:00 PM
"What's that I hear?" Marcello retorted cheerfully, putting a hand up to his ear. "Do I hear someone crying foul because she is unwilling to use her small stature to her advantage?"

He happily ran his muddy fingers across his face in horizontal bars from his cheeks, in a mimicry of warpaint, then slapped his hands back down in the mud and reached, palms out, for her waist to stamp her.

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 05:13 PM
"I could scale you like squirrel with a tree and you know it!" Niabheara was still trapped in that stage between screaming laughter like a lunatic and shaking with wrath, neither of which was much conductive to fending him off. Wading toward him, her dress split at the waist when her knee came down hard on a fold. She was past caring about the dress, now well past bespattered, but there was grit in her hair, which made her furious. Cackling, she dug up another clot and flung it straight at his rude mouth.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 05:22 PM
"So why don't you try it, squirrel?!"

Marcello didn't seem all that concerned with fending off her attacks, and took the mouthful of mud in terribly good humor for someone who was eating mud. "Blaugh!" he spat, wiping the dirt from his tongue, and unfortunately leaving his teeth rather caked with it in the process, so that his grin was now as filthy as the rest of him, and his eyes shown out, twinkling, from a face otherwise covered in mud.

"Excellent," he informed her, as he re-armed himself. "I don't think there's any horse-shi--oh," he said, eyes widening with delight as he licked his lips. "No, no, there it is, definitely a manure-y flavor. Want to taste?"

He launched his own handful of mud at her face, slipping forward in the same moment so that he barely caught himself before his entire shirtfront was muddied. Most of it was, nonetheless.

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 05:33 PM
The throw caught her with her mouth open. She spat the glob--into her hands--and lobbed it back at him, grimacing horribly. "Paugh!" And looked down at herself, in a pose to later be popularised by Lady MacBeth, to find she had not one clean inch left to wipe her tongue and get the taste out of her mouth. "I'll show you a squirrel! I'll chew your nose off!" She bowled herself toward him, jamming her shoulder into his side to throw him back.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 05:43 PM
"Empty threats!" Marcello informed her, grabbing for her shoulder as he rolled to the side, in an attempt to pull her down after him. "I won't believe it till I see it. You say you'll bite someone's nose off, you've actually got to follow through on it, like so."

He lunged for her muddy nose with his equally-muddy mouth.

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 05:52 PM
Niabheara faked left, dipped down, removed her nose safely from range and actually did manage to nip his chin before slithering out of reach. The mud made for an advantageous slippery escape. It did not, however, make sitting up any easier. "We're in the middle of camp!" she protested.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 05:58 PM
"Yes, we are," Marcello agreed cheerfully, attempting to crawl after her, which left him on his front in the mud again before he managed to get to his knees and gave up on pursuit. All in all, he still looked very pleased with himself. "Are we being rude? Should we ask the others to join in? They probably wish they were having this much fun right now. Or if you'd rather find some less-public mud, I'm sure there's plenty of that for miles around."

He ran his muddy hands through his muddier hair so that it stood straight up on end.

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 06:16 PM
Niabheara struggled to rake her own much-longer and equally-bedraggled hair out of her face. From a distance, she now looked like a brunette. "I'm going down to the river," she said mournful, slapping her hands to her sides in despair. "Right now I don't know which I fear worse, that Titania will get off her royal arse and strike, or that Meg will come back and find we've spend every heartbeat since she left us rolling in the mud like a pair of piglets." Struggling to her knees, she examined the rend at her waist, which by now gaped like a mouth, and, sighing, used Marcello's shoulder to pull herself to feet.

Glancing down, she finally got a completely view of him and starting sniggering all over again.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 06:24 PM
"What?" Marcello asked innocently, tugging on Niabheara's arm to pull himself up after. "Am I that devastatingly handsome that it sends you into fits? You're quite sublimely muddy yourself"

He stepped around her, smoothing her hair down rather better, although whether it was at all necessary was another question entirely, and winked. "She said you needed a bath. You've gotten one," he pointed out cheerfully. "In mud, perhaps, but it was a good bath. And now there's no way you can excuse yourself from a proper scrubbing, so she'll be nothing but delighted, I assure you."

He offered her a very muddy arm, then turned and looked her over fondly. "You've got some up your nose."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 06:37 PM
She rubbed her knuckles over her nose. "I've got mud in every orifice," she muttered. "We'll both need purging to get it all out. Oh-ho, no." She backed away from his offered arm, shaking her head. "I can make it the river myself, good neighbour. You'll either have to find yourself another river or wait until I'm finished."

She shot him a bright grin, realisation dawning. "You're jealous!" she cried triumphantly. "Because I said one word about that swinish Gearoid! You are!"


Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 06:46 PM
"I was going to wait," Marcello said, looking a bit hurt that Niabheara would think he intended otherwise. "Unless you want me to dunk you under fully clothed," he teased, flicking at the gaping seam in her dress before offering his arm again.

And then he blinked at her. "Well, it had completely left my mind," he said, looking both amused and curious. "But I thought I said as much, didn't I? I'm horribly jealous. Horribly, painfully, terribly jealous."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 23 2007, 06:55 PM
"Oh, you say lots of things, it's a matter of sorting out which of them you really mean!" She swatted his hand away from her waist and pulled the torn seam back over her hipbone, holding it still.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 23 2007, 07:04 PM
"You're the only one who ever thinks I don't mean anything," Marcello retorted meaningfully, raising both mud-caked eyebrows at the girl.

"Of course I'm jealous of anyone you call good-looking. Especially anyone you call good-looking who's been permitted to grope you in public. And who has a standing guard to pledge to you. I'd like to have a standing guard to pledge to you. I don't think I'd be thrust into a rage, exactly, if he showed up, but I might stick my tongue out when he wasn't looking. Are you jealous of Jamilah?" he asked her.

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 24 2007, 05:10 AM
“Nu--ye--oh, that is such an unfair question . . . ” She strained to voice even the potential syllables for a denial, but got no farther than she had before. With a deep sigh of frustration, she gave up the pretence. “Aye. Not so much now. And not quite jealous; more of . . . when two people who are old friends meet you always get this sense of being . . . excluded, a bit. There’s all sorts of things between them that only they know and you don’t. It’s . . . oh, fine. I was jealous. There.”

Growing chill in her heavy, muddy clothes, she gave him a sullen look. “And I didn’t exactly permit him to grope me.”

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 24 2007, 05:25 AM
"I still say you should have let me play your part," Marcello said, biting his lip as he smiled, in an uncharacteristically shy manner, and offered his arm again. "I would have liked to see his face when he tried to get a handful of me. And I know you didn't," he assured her. "But I do envy him for being in the position to be a proper suitor and not...simply an adoring friend. Even if I know you think he's swinish. Not that either of us should be using that word insultingly, looking as we are. I'm taking you to wash," he informed her, quite rapidly. "I'll leave you off at the river and stand a hundred paces back if you so wish."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 24 2007, 06:15 AM
"Am I to weave a kilt out of water-rushes, then, like a nixie?" Her gown was gummy enough as to make walking difficult; the hem slapped against her ankles so that she had to kick it away. She took his arm with one hand and tried to hold her skirts back with the other. "Don't envy him. He is in all ways boorish and o'erbearing and you are most certainly not. He would not be a fitting suitor if he were the last man breathing and the world ending tomorrow."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 24 2007, 06:22 AM
"I like that you say I'm neither boorish nor overbearing after I throw you down in a puddle of mud and then demand you let me escort you. You don't trust me to keep my eyes to myself?" he asked nicely. "If you'd prefer, you can blindfold me the whole while and I can sit on the banks and keep you company," he offered. "Although I'm not certain what either of us are meant to wear back after this," he added, frowning down at himself, his trousers dripping and his boots squelching heavily with every step. I think you'd better weave rush kilts for both of u--that was not an order," he added hastily, eyeing Niabheara to see if she were suffering from any sudden urge to pick up rushes.

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 24 2007, 05:28 PM
"You weren't in Cnoch-na-Niall for the blizzards, when we all had to bundle in the great hall," she said loftily. "It involved the whole household piling before the fires in a great heap of furs so that we didn't all freeze--and believe me, having thirty-odd people within eyeshot deters no one. There are circumstances in which modesty makes way for survival." Conversely, however, she made sure to hold the gap between skirt and bodice well closed on the side opposite Marcello. She turned a bit pink beneath her greying muck, but went on casually. "Keeping in good odour with Meg most certainly qualifies as survival. We can wash clothes as well as ourselves. I believe your boots may be doomed, though."

She gave the boots a look from the side of her eye, then raised the glance to his face and began giggling again at his hair. "Or you could try to lick your fur flat."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 24 2007, 05:48 PM
"Now I wish I had been there for the blizzards," Marcello teased gently, giving the girl a rather fond look. "Not so much for the immodesty so much as to see you pink-cheeked and wrapped in furs and getting to bring you mugs of chocolate. Not that I suspect you have much in the way of chocolate here, but I think you'd look very sweet with a little brown mustache," he added, eyes twinkling as he traced one with his finger a few inches from her face. "Mud notwithstanding, of course. We don't get blizzards in England, and we don't even get snow in Italy. It's something I haven't had the pleasure of seeing yet."

He squelched his boots, and then tried without much success to first look at the hair on the top of his head, and then reached out with his tongue, which managed no further than the tip of his nose. Instead he rolled it into an o-shape and sighed, running his free hand up overtop of his head. "I can't reach, you're going to have to lick it clean for m--"

"Oh, here he said," dropping her arm for a moment to unfix the pin that held his button to his jacket, giving her an amused look. "As tempted as I am, I am not looking at your gaping hole. I can't even see it from this side." He held the pin out. "Here, close it up."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 24 2007, 08:05 PM
"Only people who have ne'er been in a blizzard want to see what it's like," she warned. "You don't dare go into it. It's like going blind, you can't see a wall or a stile until it's right upon you. We string lines from the hall to all the outer buildings; otherwise people would be lost. In Dumann, before you arrived, one of the lines collapsed with one of our older stablemen. He froze to death within the very courtyard walls, trying to feel for a doorway in." The girl looked solemn--but it was the same sort of solemnity she once wore when she told him about the distant ancestor who mistook his brother for a deer.

Obediently, she halted long enough to roll both sides of the rip together and twist the pin through to secure them, all the while making an earnest attempt not to laugh at him again, although her shoulders shook silently at the display.

"Does it truly ne'er snow?" She said it in the same amazed, half-doubting tone she might have used had he told her that morning came in Italy without the sun bothering to rise.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 24 2007, 08:26 PM
"I'm sorry," Marcello said, looking perhaps more troubled than Niabheara did at her story. "No, it doesn't, ever. We grow up with romantic notions of this soft, white stuff...England gets it, but it's never very much and it's always grey mush by the next day. They get snow up north in Italy, sometimes, but never down near where my mother lived. We don't get rain like you do, either. Sun all day, and then hard downpours in the late afternoon, and then clear skies again at night, if it rains at all. I'd take you to see, but your sister got very disapproving when I suggested the idea of you coming to visit Italy," he said. "Even when I invited-- What?" he asked plaintively, reaching for her hand to tuck it up under his arm again. "I don't look that awful, do I? Do you want me to start laughing at you? You look like a baleful swamp ghost."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 24 2007, 08:44 PM
"No, you look--" And of course calling attention to it just made her laugh harder; she folded helplessly over his arm, making vague sticky-uppy gestures over her head with her free hand. "I don't mind . . . I don't think we're . . . " Trying to put a damper on the giggle-fit resulted in a very loud, horse-like snort that only set her off harder; by now anyone listening from afar might think she was sobbing. Swallowing back a hoot, she hiccoughed. Twice. Then backed away from him, waving her hand to ward him off. "Don't, don't!"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 24 2007, 08:54 PM
"You don't think we're wha--," Marcello demanded, before Niabheara's laughter infected him and his face crumpled up in a look of absolute hilarity. "I am not that fun--" he started, before doubling over himself, reaching for her shoulder to steady himself. "Ny."

Her hiccoughing made him snigger harder, and when she put up her defenses, he gave her a mournful look. "Please?" he asked, lower lip quivering like a child with a skinned knee. "I'll mean it and everything. Else I'm picking you up and dunking you in the river. That's the other cure I know."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 24 2007, 09:07 PM
"No-o-o . . ." She stumbled away, holding her aching stomach, all but begging him. "No ducking. I'll--hic!"

Her eyes went huge. Trapped, she scooped up the front of her skirts and made a run for it, shrieking all the way.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 24 2007, 09:14 PM
Marcello burst into another laughing fit and sprinted after her, arm outstretched to try to catch her. "Oh, no you don't! Come back here this instant, or I'll tell Morgana you knocked me into the mud!"

And then a moment later, "And that's not really an order even though it is most certainly an order but this is not one either only you're not obliged to-- oh, hell, I'll get you for this one way or another!"

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 24 2007, 09:19 PM
Niabheara immediately jerked to a halt. Then tried to start again. Then stood in utter frustration, tapping her foot as she waited to be caught. "That is so not fair! Am I supposed to let myself be caught or not?"

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 24 2007, 09:22 PM
Marcello slowed to a halt in front of her. "I'm sorry!" he exclaimed. "You're supposed to at least give a good show of it," he informed her. "But I can't very well chase after you without demanding you stop, or it sort of ruins the whole effect, and--"

He tilted his head to one side and gave her a plaintive look. "Do you want me to catch you or not?"

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 24 2007, 09:24 PM
"It doesn't matter, I'm caught," she said, exasperated. "And I'm drying into pottery. You can catch me, just don't--hic!--dunk me."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 24 2007, 09:32 PM
"Well, you wouldn't be drying into pottery if someone could walk and laugh at me at the same time, but apparently that's too difficult a prospect," Marcello teased, and he reached for her wrists, ringing them with his thumbs and index fingers as if they were shackles. "Now you're caught. You don't want me to kiss you, either?"

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 24 2007, 09:41 PM
She burst out laughing again and tried to work her hands free. "If my filth does not offend you . . . and if you can possibly find a clean spot. Er." She fell still, suddenly shy.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 24 2007, 10:02 PM
Marcello took her wrists and pulled them around him to place her hands on the small of his back, then freed her so he could pull her forward. "I'm as filthy as you are," he reminded her, before giving her long, soft, and rather muddy-flavored kiss, the bits of drying silt flaking off his lips and chin.

He took a breath, then leaned his nose against hers for moment before tilting his head to lick the lip of her nose. "There, now that's clean," he said magnanimously. "I can just keep kissing your nose forever."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 25 2007, 12:02 AM
She wrinkled her nose, but could find nothing to scratch it on, and she was reluctant to disentangle her hands. "We seem to be doing this a lot lately," she said quietly.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 25 2007, 12:09 AM
He kissed her nose again, smiling warmly. "Not yesterday," he informed her. "We didn't do it at all yesterday. Is this a good development, or a bad one, do you-- ah. Answer if you like."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 25 2007, 12:41 AM
She almost started giggling again; the general ridiculousness kept ebbing away only to sweep up again at odd moments. This time it was her nose itching that did it. She let go long enough to scratch, tamped down the giggling, and set her hand to its former place behind his back. "You keep count?" That was a little more intimidating than she expected it to be. "A good one, I think. I mean. I don't--"

And then she quite firmly shut herself up before entering full-scale babbling mode, the first time she had managed to do so in . . . well, ever, all things being honest. Instead she moved nearer, tucked her hand on the back of his neck, and drew his face down to her level.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 25 2007, 12:59 AM
"What?" Marcello asked, as he took the opportunity to kiss her nose again. "I don't so much keep count as miss it when we don't-- fine, I count, but that's only because so far it's been an easy number to keep track of. Yes?" he asked expectantly, smiling a bit crookedly as he twisted a bit at the odd angle he was standing at. "Did you want something?"

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 25 2007, 01:04 AM
This time she didn't bother to answer directly. Mud notwithstanding, it was a pretty good kiss.

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 25 2007, 01:21 AM
Marcello pulled the girl up as her kissed her, to try to even out the difference so he didn't get a crick in his neck.

"That's sev-- eight," he corrected when their lips finally parted. "Or maybe nine? You see?" he asked, lowering her back down to her feet, though he didn't let go of her. "I'm already losing count."

Posted by: Niabheara ni Dowd Oct 25 2007, 02:06 AM
"i thought you memorised all this sort of thing." Being picked up and down was still a bit irksome. As soon as he set her down again, she poked him in the chest. "You are too tall," she complained, as she brushed at his cheeks. "And your face is flaking."

Posted by: Marcello Basciano Oct 25 2007, 02:22 AM
"You're too short," Marcello teased. "And since we can't cut me off at the ankle, I say we get you some of those nice cork-things for your shoes.

He rubbed at his own cheek with his sleeve before rubbing at hers "So's yours. I think it's darling. Come on," he said. "River-time. I'm not so much afraid of Morgana seeing her sister covered in mud as I am of her seeing me kissing her sister covered in mud," he informed her, kissing her nose again. "And no dunking, I promise. I'm just going to toss you in, wash my hands, and go get you something clean to wear."

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