It's Just the Beginning [Elmaryia|Open]

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

Late Afternoon on the
11th of Optia in the
Season of Summer

Trekking around the wilderness, on roads or not, was a tiring thing for a woman unaccustomed to its rigors, regardless of how short a distance it had been from Jaedaxia down to Archadoon. The first thing Iseult thought to toss herself into was the comfort of a chair and perhaps the added ease of a good meal and a drink to wet her throat. A bed would come later for although she was tired she had quite a number of things brewing about inside her head that sleep seemed...impossible.

She nudged her way into the tavern. The Emerald Trinity, the sign had read. A quaint place, she supposed. Decent enough for her--she'd have stayed away if the tavern had the looks of the slums. She approached first a woman busily hovering over a book...looking something like a registry, Iseult thought. She proved to be the person to talk to about getting a room set up and soon Iseult was provided a key--a key that she tucked into her pocket.

She thanked the woman and took a seat on the ground floor, feeling a trifle too lazy to drag herself up the stairs to an area she probably would have felt a good deal more comfortable in--she wasn't usually the sort that enjoyed sharing close quarters with others. Placing an order for food, the half-breed leaned back in her chair, eyes scanning the place restlessly. One of these people could be a cousin. It was doubtful...and yet still possible. She'd never met any of her extended family, her family reserved only to the siblings that her mother had bemoaned from time to time. Not because they were troublesome, but because she'd never intended to have them in the first place.

Looking up as the woman placed a pint of cider in front of her, Iseult murmured her thanks and curled her fingers around the mug, dragging it across the table closer to the edge. She tapped her fingers restlessly against the sides, wondering where the feth she was supposed to begin this search. She had no address, only a name. Elmaryia. Her cousin. A cousin she was supposed to bring into the family so that she was somehow made softer. Feth if she knew how to accomplish that. This, she could see, was going to be something of an awkward situation. That is...if she ever found the girl.

[Elmaryia Grey Leonard]

It had been a few days since she had met her mother. While she did get some answers she was still confused and torn. For the longest time she had hoped that meeting her and seeing her would change how she felt, perhaps even make her feel. Elmaryia did forgive her for what she had let happen.

Still though her mind was muddled. Seeing a tavern, Elmaryia entered it. She was in much need of coin and perhaps she could get a job as barmade or do odd jobs. The man that she mad met before was going to teach her how to read. Truthfully the young woman always wanted to learn, when she could steal a moment she would often look at drawings in books. Now they would be richer for she would know the words to their stories.

Seeing a bartender ,Elmaryia tried to let a friendly smile curve her lips. "Greetings my name is Elmaryia and I am seeking employment. I am new to the city and am in much need of coin."

Rubbing a mug with a rag the bartender shook his head in reply. " Sorry miss we aint be higherin. All the positions are full."

With a frown Elmayria turned around and began to leave the tavern, walking past a half elven woman sitting at a table near by.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

Iseult studied the girl that had entered. She wasn't generally given to staring. She wasn't even much of a people watcher at all, though perhaps she might count more as a watcher than one who interacted. Iseult was not the sort schooled to proper social mannerisms, though she might have adapted easily enough in a given situation...if she tried. But she'd given up on social niceties, seeing little point when people either spent their time deciding her appearance to be odd, disturbing...or fascinating to the point of asking rude, invasive questions. Iseult was a private woman and hated when others pried.

But she stared at the girl now, drawn only by the name that she had spoken. Elmaryia. It sounded very much like the name Saerunn--she had trouble thinking of her as Aunt Saerunn after all these eras--had committed to paper. A name of a girl she was supposed to find. She looked young and out of place, as if she wasn't accustomed to being in such a place, although she carried herself well enough. Too confidently, like she had a chip on her shoulder and no one was going to bring her down regardless of what was said or done. So much could be read in a simple carriage of shoulders, the jut of a jaw.

The girl started to walk past her and Iseult, elbow on the table, turned her forearm out into her path, an obstacle. "Excuse me, if you'll just wait a moment." Iseult's voice was a little rough, not light and sweet but direct and pointed. Not a soft woman, this. "Your name. Elmaryia?" Succinct, jolting sentences that were incomplete, as if she were trying to puzzle something out. She stared at the young woman with strange eyes--green encircled by black, not white--that stood darkly in a pale face tinged here and there with a faint sheen of blue. Her hair was blonde, pale and braid, with strands of greenish-blue closer to her scalp. Dark slits of blue stood out against the curve of a thin neck. Gills. Yes, Iseult was an oddity and sat with a tenseness to her that suggested she did not normally do this sort of thing...and expected a backlash because of it.

[Elmaryia Grey Leonard]

Immedately Elmayria felt eyes upon her, which she assumed was to the scar on her face. In the six months since she aquired it she noticed that sometimes she was treated differently.

At the mention of her name her back stiffened. Not many had known her name. It seemed as though the stranger was familure with her, and seeked her for a purpose. What if Orian wants his property back and he sent slave hunters for me. The young woman would not put it above the smarmy dark elfven bastard. Turning her gaze she was met by a pretty half-elf. From the gills and the tone of her skin she assumed she was half sea elf.

Her tone was emotionless and without the hint of warmth, almost accusing. Taking a seat across from her, Elmayria had her hand on the handle of the dagger that was hidden in a pocket in her breeches. " Yes I am her, and if you are here by the name of Orion I will skin that pretty gold hair of your head, before I go back to Horoloth." Elmayria hissed so that she was only herd by the half elf.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

The backlash came, the young woman prickling in front of her...and yet taking a seat regardless of whatever threat she perceived from the half-breed that had halted her progress. But Iseult looked far from offended or irritated. Rather she looked mildly amused. How had Saerunn described her? Hard? Yes, this girl seemed hard. Like she'd been used and beaten down, snapping at the hands extended to her as if they were...poison. It struck a familiar note with Iseult, a wary individual herself. For different reasons, she knew, if what Saerunn had written her was true.

"I don't know an Orion. Just a woman named Saerunn." Sort of. She didn't really know the woman, just a name. Just as the woman had known her name, but not her. Otherwise she wouldn't have reached out to Iseult to provide warmth, love. Even if Iseult could not give these things, she could at least protect and nurture...watch. She'd been looking after her siblings for too long to recount.

She straightened in her chair, kicking back a little, legs stretched out in the aisle slightly, arms folded across her chest. It wasn't so much a restful position as it was defensive. "And I'm not the sort to be giving any woman over to a man 'less it's what she wants." Even then she doubted she'd be as willing to shove a woman at a man even in good circumstances. "So. You can leave my hair alone." It was a vanity, her hair, and she touched the braided mass absently. Carefully taken care of, combed, washed...cared for.

[Elmaryia Grey Leonard]

When the woman before her mentioned that she was here not on account of Orion but Saerunn. Elmayria gave a sigh of relifment, which was followed by a brief look of perplextion. " How do you know that name? That is my mother's name, how do know her?"

Waiting for an answer she looked the woman over. She too seemed hesitant and guarded like Elmayria. Also a little hard and cold, though her looks were deceiving. All in all she was a pretty woman. Her hair was like springs of gold unlike the mahognay black of Elmayria's. " If you are looking for her she had died a five days ago. If you wish to pay your respects she is resting in the local cemetary."

[Verus]

In Temujin's afternoon's off, while Seruv was training at the Wolf Fang dojo, the rhaghrnd had taken an interest in visiting the local bar's and enjoying a cup of ale while looking for any he could dice with, a game he had grown to enjoy. It was such that he was at the Emerald Trinity this afternoon, on a regrettable loosing streak. Handing over the half dozen crowns that a burly dwarf had just won on a roll of nine, Temujin bid the follow a good afternoon and leaned back in his chair, taking a draw from his mug.

His gaze roaming throughout the room, looking for his next opponent to pass the time with, he noticed a slight confrontation between a pair of woman across the bar. With on woman holding her arm out to bar another's passage, he saw the look on the woman's face.

Temujin was not one for seeking out company, if someone wanted to join his table for a game of dice, that was fine, but that was the extent of it. However, his nature went against that this time. It looked like the woman that had been stopped hadn't the interest of talking to the woman that had done the stopping, so, Temujin stood.

Walking by the bar, Verus got a refill of ale and wondered over to the table the woman sat at. Helping himself to a seat, Temujin took a draw from his mug, his ivory dice jiggling away in his right fist. "Either of you ladies care for a game of dice?" He questioned them, interrupting their conversation and giving the woman a way out if she wanted it.

While often enough, Temujin looked out of place in a crowd, with his short white hair and hairy white forearms revealing him to be a 'barbarian.' His scarred face and missing earlobe put his right at home in the bar, funny thing was, the scars and missing earlobe never occured in a fight.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

The pieces linked together, meshed. Iseult had found the girl she'd been looking for...and it hadn't taken her more than a candlemark. She hadn't even been looking. Funny how these sorts of things worked out. The questions drifted and silence held firm in the air. Iseult hesitated for a moment, shrugged. "My aunt, but I don't know her. So that makes you, what? A cousin? Never had one of them before," she remarked idly, brows lifting as if in speculation. This girl across from her was different, very different, from the family she knew. Redheaded Ava, Liam with his brown hair, the others all blonde. This girl had hair so dark it seemed odd to think them related. But she was only half-Vagaran plenty of room for some blood to mix itself, burning away the blonde for something darker.

The information about her aunt didn't seem to affect the half-breed beyond a slight tug of a frown at the corners of her mouth. Having never known the woman it was hard to feel pain or distraught at the thought of her passing. The letter had mentioned she'd been dying, that she didn't have much time left at all. Pay her respects? To what, to whom? She wouldn't know what to honor.

She started to say something, but a figure loomed upwards and over them. Not a large figure, considerably smaller than herself at least in height, she could see that without standing, but bulky where she was lanky. Odd looking bugger, too, with that strange white hair of his. Pale. He had a foreign look to him and was clearly marked from past battles. A rough man, then. Not one a person tangled with...although his request seemed harmless enough. But seemed was always the keyword.

"I don't gamble," she responded dismissively, annoyed with the fact that he was interrupting. She clearly didn't think much of him, but she was feeling awkward, too...sitting in front of this girl who was a cousin. A cousin...how did one act around a cousin?

[Elmaryia Grey Leonard]

At the mention of the half elf being her cousin she frowned. Not that she was frowning because the half elf was her cousin, but of the fact that she had cousins. Well if her mother could not take care of her when she was alive, it seemed that she was determined in death. " Well I can only imagine that Saerunn sent you that letter because she expected me not to see her. For so long I have bore a hatred for her. That is until I learned the truth." She said with a shrug of her shoulders.

" May I see the letter. Oh and I am not the warm type. I mean I did not even know who you were, but I am pleased that you came. I would like to know more about my roots and who I come from."

It seemed that her cousin was going to say more, but she was interupted by a strange man. By reading Isault's body language it could be seen that she was a little afraid of him. Though Elmayria was not she was used to rough men. " No thank you. We are two cousins who have not seen each other in a long time. We are partaking in a family reunion."

[Ilista]

She had watched for almost a full candle mark, beings coming and going from a large wooden structure through a portal in specific, that was like the opening of a blow hole... short of. They confronted the structure and took command of it moving it aside. And as the victor moved passed the structure was set back upon its original task. Perhaps it was more akin to a reef barrier, what ever it was, she had to best it. She knew what is was and she would conquer this 'durr'.

Ilista looked about her for any approaching challengers before she neared the tavern and its door and like the many she had watched with firm grip she grasped the extended fin and pushed. Nothing. Again as she had seen sher turned her wrist as her hand firmly gripped the protusion, and pressed forward. The 'durr' gave way before the Telera, and her golden eyes danced with a childs' satification.

She had conquered the 'durr'.

The young elvan woman entered the tavern, her dress had long since dried, but a damp scrap of cloth wrapped around her neck to keep her gills moist, left trails of moistue that darkened the fabric about her neckline. Hair still damp the waves of black and green were twistd up and held in place by a comb fashioned from a pale white sea shell. Barefooted the small slender woman moved energetically peering at patrons and the bar and quickly moving to stay out of the way andcontact will the milling patrons.

[Elmaryia Grey Leonard]

Waiting for the man and her cousin to speak, Elmayria was distracted by a woman who just entered the establishment. It was a sea elf, and it seemed that she was new to the surface world. Nan one of the servants in the house where she was a slave, would sometimes tell stories of these creatures. That is what fascinated her, about her cousin and this young woman that just entered the tavern.

" Look Isault, I think she just came out of the ocean." Elmayria said as she pointed to the sea elf. Iam going to invite her to sit with us. I too know how it is to be lost." It was strange since Straylor left, the young woman had been more kinder.

For a moment she left the stool and walked to the young woman. " Greetings miss. If you like you may sit with my cousin and I? You are new to the surface world are you not? I could see by you negotating with the door. It is better to blend in then stand out, and you stand out like a sore thumb."

[Ilista]

"You do not negotiate with a durr, you seize it and make its will your own." She smiled, and it was difficult to tell if she quoted those words and actrully believed them or if she was as amused with them as amusing as the phrase had sounded.

"Is it that obvious? I borrowed clothes..."The telera touched her fingers to the dress lightly before smiling a bit softer, the childish exuberance wearing off to leave the usually level headed woman.

"I thank you, for your kindness. I am called Ilista, it was the dress, wasn't it?"

[Elmaryia Grey Leonard]

At her comment about the door, Elmayria chuckled. " The dress in part but also your aura of confusion. It is alright though, come along." With that said she smiled softly and led the woman back to the table that she was sharing with her cousin.

" This woman here has just come form the ocean, I thought that she could sit with us. I am called Elmayria and this lady accompaning me is, Isult."

Turning to her cousin she smiled. "I hope you do not mind. It is dangerious for a woman to be by herself if she is not aware of her surroundings. So will you be staying here long Isault? If you need a place of loding I have a one room apartment in the city."

[Verus]

It seemed as if no help was wanted by either of the woman as Temujin was dismissed by both after asking for a game of dice. He stood there for a moment, it hadn't looked like a family reunion from when the rhaghrnd had sat during the confrontation, but from his own standpoint, he had been there if the woman had wanted any help, and he had been dismissed. If this wasn't the happy little family reunion that the woman had declared it to be, well... it wasn't his problem.

With a shrug of his shoulders, he finished the ale that remained in his mug and stood up from the table. "If you ladies change your mind, I'll be roaming about for a while," he stated, then left the table returning to the bar and leaving his mug there. He considered ordering another ale, but what he had already drank was starting to warm his belly and he had learned some time back, that being drunk was not the best way to enjoy a good bar fight with a sore loser.

Leaving the bar, he roamed the room, dice jingling in his hand as he sought out an opponent for a game, hoping his luck had changed during his rather short conversation with two woman.

[Iseult Fluersdotter]

Iseult didn't know the precise reasons as to why Saerunn had sent the letter. In all truth she didn't really care. Not really. She'd received a letter, had come here as the woman had requested, and now across from her sat the girl that Saerunn had asked her to find. Task done, really, and it was clear that this girl wouldn't allow Iseult to do anything unless the girl truly wanted it. A stubborn girl, she discerned simply by the set of her posture, the slant of her eyes as she regarded Iseult.

"Did you need to see it to make sure I'm who I say?" she asked with a lifting of her brows, somewhat amused with the presumption, although it didn't show on the carefully etched set of her face. Expressionless, almost, save for that twitch of her brows that displayed some level of surprise or question. "For all you know it's a fake. You didn't know your mother after all." Suspicious, this one, and Iseult was stubborn herself and didn't have any qualms pointing out the harsh realities. Life was harsh.

But the letter seemed forgotten as Elmaryia focused on a woman, gesturing her over with an ease that disregarded her dismissal of the other man. The man had been interrupting a reunion, but the woman was clearly not a bother. It caused Iseult some curiosity, wondering if her cousin here loathed men in some form or fashion. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Iseult was something of a manhater herself.

Silently she watched the pair of women, greeting her with a curt nod and notably wariness. Iseult was a half-breed, not fullly human, but not fully elvish either. Not a fit in either world and while she'd not met all that many thelyri, she didn't think they'd regard her all that kindly. She shrugged after a moment as Elmaryia pressed her for more questions. "Not long. I've a room here." It was enough to say that she was not planning to indulge in her cousin's home. She wasn't comfortable with the idea, family or not.

Silence shifted around the young half-breed, uncertain of where to take the conversation or what to do. Human and elf sat before her, a thing she suddenly found almost amusing in itself. Both lines of her heritage, right there for the viewing. "Can you excuse me a moment? I'm going to get my drink refilled."

She stood without waiting for an answer and moved over to the bar. Her drink was half full already, hardly needing more, but it had been an excuse for her to leave and gather her scattering thoughts. Hard to learn how to deal with family when you expected to have to hunt for them first. She hadn't expected to find Elmaryia so quickly and it had set upon her in such a fashion that she had no idea what to say to the girl.

The man behind the bar filled her mug anyway after she flashed some silver in his direction and Iseult started back, but her head was still adled. She stood alongside the pale, tiny man. She was nearly a full foot taller than him and not so pale or thick-shouldered. Silent for a moment, unsure why she'd approached him anyway. Perhaps because he'd spoken to her and she'd just needed an escape...any excuse was a good one. "Weighted dice?" she asked after a moment.