1875-05-10: Report to Adriono
Report to Adriono
Summary: Myrana reports to her father after reaching Gendiel lands with Ramius
Date: 1875-05-10
Related: Pawn Threatens Knight
NPCs: Adriono
Players:
Myrana  Adriono  

The moongazer that landed with a sudden weight and rush of wings on her legs gave a racous caw, rousing Myrana from her exhausted sleep and nearly scaring her to death. It's wings buffeted the crust of snow that had built up on them in the night, sparkling in the spring morning.

Behind her, Ramius opened one baleful eye, saw the moongazer with it's little gold leg-band, and growled sleepily in the back of his throat. But he released her from where she'd slept against his chest curled sideways in the warmth there, the both of them sitting in the lee of what remained of an old Gendiel watchtower. The roof had been burned out, and one of the walls knocked down during the war with Icenailia years ago, leaving only blackened remnants and a place out of the wind. Last night they'd built a fire and slept crammed into a corner, wrapped in Ramius' massive ramskin coat and the massive bear cloak given to them by the chief of the village they'd debarked in far north of Lyionesse.

It was big enough to drape about them both, the intact head and claws decorated with bonecarving and making for an uneasy canvas, lined interiorally with rough homespun like the rugs Myrana had seen in the houses of her father's friends. At the time she'd thought of them as Magic Bears, and asked many innocent questions of dangerous old Syndicate pappas. Where did you fight it? What was it called? Did it talk? They'd laugh, and tousle her head.

The village chief had handed it directly to Myrana, saying something that she couldn't make out in his gravel Icenailan and she'd staggered under it, much to his amusement. Ramius had taken it before she could fall, and they'd been given an escort. The carved claws and teeth gleamed at her and hung heavy when Ramius had eventually helped wrap it around his tiny wife in the saddle behind him, insuring both that she wouldn't freeze and that she'd stick in that saddle like a burr. In fact, she'd slept for much of the time against his back, and dreamed of clicking, clacking teeth. Did those noblemen with these barbarian cloaks on their floors have dreams like that?

Myrana reached her arms out of the warmth she'd nestled in and took the moongazer on her arm before standing from where she'd slept curled on Ramius, shivvering and breath streaming white. The moongazer cackled at her and turned its moon-marked face up to look at her as she chkk'd at it and opened the latch of its little legband. "Pretty bird, thank you."

One word only, in her father's hand: Report

Moongazers were smart. This one waited approximately two heartbeats as Myra stared unseeing at the message from her father, frozen to the spot, before turning its head again and pecking inquisitively at the bright gold discs of her earrings. pk!. She shook her head with a jingle. "Hey!" But it just chattered at her and went after the shining disc again, walking sidelong up her arm for a better angle, observing its reflection in the hammered design. Myra stretched her arm out and tilted her head away, but the moongazers aren't small birds, and it wasn't until she found a piece of smoked rabbit jerky from her pocket that it relented, and sat instead on her shoulder to gobble it down and sun its wings, muttering conversational little /rkk-kks// and crawws.

"I hope you like apricot glaize, pretty bird." She stroked its chest feathers with her fingertips without looking as she stooped down over her satchel and drew out paper and stylus. For a moment she just chewed on the bent knuckle of her thumb, sitting on a tumbled stone.

"God…" she sighed, handing the bird another morsel of her breakfast. "Alright."

Father

We were finally permitted our audience with Her Majesty. It was stuffy in the room; I opened a window and turned back to address her. A crossbow bolt came through the window over my head as I knelt. It hit the Queen. She fell. It's all my fault. I don't know what happened to her then; Ramius just grabbed me and jumped out the window.

The stylus fell still. Fat tears welled up to blur her eyes as she stared through the paper.

Queen Cynthia falling, red blooming where the crossbow bolt sprouted…

'MORE!'

The moongazer's weird rough voice was a shrill trumpet in her right ear, startling her out of it with another gasp. She could feel it's talons pinching her shoulder and its long beak polishing impatiently on the top of her head through the thick angora of the hood, the capelet of which fell generously over her shoulders against the cold. It cawed again, blasting her half deaf on that side. 'MORE. MORE. PRETTY!''

"o-Ow! Alright!" Myrana scrubbed her sleeve across her eyes and took a rough breath. "Pretty bird, yes! One's Breath…" She gave up another piece of rabbit, and the bird relented to sieze it in its talons and peer at it and pick off strands of wool lint. A little croak squeezed up suspiciously, but the rabbit soon passed muster.

She shook the hair from her face and tilted her head back to look up at the branches of the pines growing up around the ruined watchtower, nerves slightly jangled by her visitor and frayed by grief and exhaustion. Clever brown and black juncos hopped among the new green needles, making little puffs of snow drift down through the morning sunlight. Watching them for a little while, she collected herself and drew her knees up to her chest, perched on that stone with numb butt and freezing feet, the paper from her journal fluttering a little in the cold breeze

"We couldn't go back," she murmured quietly enough that Ramius hopefully wouldn't hear her echoing him in her throaty little voice. "It'd be death to do it. We couldn't go back." A deep breath. Calmer. He was right. The Queen couldn't be dead. She must have survived.

She returned to the report.

Father, someone has given the Queen chaos stone earrings. I felt them when she entered the room. They are pink stones, pear cut, set in gold, with pearl drops hanging two to a side. They must be the source of the malaise in Averynon. If I'd noticed them sooner perhaps I could have stolen them and thrown them in the sea.

Ramius wants to tell our allies. I can't convince him otherwise. He remembers Baele Son of Horse, who couldn't be saved. But when I was held prisoner in Herensurge during the Siege, I saw things that make me uncertain. I want to go back. I refuse to believe her majesty would fall utterly under the influence of a chaos stone. Her faith is strong, and if Baele could master it enough to show humanity before the end, couldn't the Queen? If we had removed Son-of-Horse's armlet, maybe we could have exorcised him.

Myrana brushed the bangs from her face and chewed her lip, frowning down at the letter. She had never told her father nor anyone else, about the Chaos Stone she, along with Sir Havelock and others, had found in the hold of a ship in Four Corners. Havelock smashed it apart with his hammer and threw it into the sea. It'd fallen out of the pocket of a madman, the sole survivor of the dead ship. And she'd picked it up out of curiosity, and turned her handcannon on Sir Havelock.

Please tell me what has happened to her Majesty, if she is alive. I am afraid, and I am heartsick. And I'm sorry, father. I don't know what to do.

Drying it, she rolled it tightly and slipped it into the bird's cylinder before setting it off back to Fiorello. Myrana watched it go for a moment, but it was much too cold. She climbed back into the warm shelter of the bearskin cloak, putting her head beneath Ramius' chin. They'd move out soon enough, when the sun was a little higher and the ice thawed. A great deal of work would follow it.

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