
Dorelith
Darkwood
Nautical Dawn
Ephraim of Theren and Evelyne
The Darkwood was aptly named. Even now, at first light, it carried an air of permanent dusk about it, the trunks and branches of the trees usually a dull grey or even blackened, twisted and gnarled beyond what was generally considered normal for whatever their species be. A thick fog swirled along the ground, reaching thigh-height even on someone as tall as the traveler that now moved through it. He couldnāt see where his feet were landing, but he didnāt need to. He just sort of⦠knew where they should go, but if ever he stopped to consider the how and why of it, he immediately started to trip and stumble, so he didnāt bother giving it a lot of thought. Somewhere overhead, a raven cawed, the grating sound the only one in the silence about him. Occasionally, a shadow would pass overhead, but such occurrences usually brought a slight smile to his face more than anything. Sure, griffons might be good things to follow, but that was assuming they were willing to lead. Osiris seemed more inclined to follow him than anything, at least for right now.
Dark and gloomy as it was, Ephraim completely missed the trap until heād stepped into it, abruptly finding himself suspended, upside-down, from a rope tied to the branch of a tree, like a rather unfortunately-large rabbit. The reverential silence was shattered by the undignified yelp that escaped him upon discovering this predicament, and he swayed slightly on the line holding him. Perhaps, if heād weighed more than the average pile of twigs, his heft might have snapped the line, but whomever had made this trap had made it well, and it was holding most admirably.
But who on earth would be laying traps in Darkwood? He thought he was one of few people stupid enough to even dare traversing the placeālocals liked to say that the mist would drive you mad if you breathed it long enough. Ephraim didnāt really believe that, but he knew that lots of other people did. Anyone whoād dwelled here long enough to bother with snares was probably crazy, but the mist wouldnāt have anything to do with it. Well⦠his pack was a bit too far away for him to reach, and he had the sneaking suspicion that Sir would only find his predicament funny, so it was try to wiggle out on his own or hope that perhaps the owner of this trap was a benevolent kind of crazy, and not the man-eating kind.
āUh, hello?ā he called out into the forest. The sensation of blood rushing to his head wasnāt really pleasant, but the fact that circulation was slowly being cut off in his ankle was worse, so he wasnāt going to try moving himself too much to fix that. āI seem to have found your trap, and Iād feel really bad if I had to destroy it or something, so⦠can I get a little help here?ā He really had no idea if the maker of the trap was even close to his location, but he was finding that his magic was being just as unresponsive as the forest, so he wouldnāt just be breaking himself down anytime soon.
Stupid magic.
Ephraim's only immediate answer was the creaking of the tree that bore his weight. The ambient sounds of the forest soon returned once his echoes died out, leaving only him and the woods around him. At least, that's how it was for a time. Roughly ten minutes passed before the peace was broken by a loud exaggerated sigh. Though her feet made no sound, a hooded girl stepped out from behind a wide tree in front of him. She stared at the spectacle before her before closing her eyes and chuckling. "D'ye believe it? I sit the trap well out of his way and still he finds it," She said, finally breaking the silence with the sound of another voice. The only thing was... She wasn't speaking to Ephraim, but to the tree at her side.
Finally turning her attentions squarely on the man in the trap, she moved forward and pulled back her hood revealing a flowing mane of red hair. She knelt to get a better look at his face, clutching both sides of his head when the rope threatened to spin him in the circle. "Stop spinnin', let me get a good look at ye," she demanded like he had any choice in the matter. She stared at him for a moment before she resumed chuckling. "How're ye still alive?" She asked, unaware that she was running her fingers through his hair. "There nastier things in these woods than some rope. Ye lucky I was here before somethin' came up and ate ye like a trapped... Well, like a trapped rabbit. A big rabbit. I mean, really, ye need some sense about ye in these woods. Ye need to look where ye goin', maybe watch where ye droppin' ye big ol' feet every now and then before ruinin' a poor lass's trap. Serious fella, it's dangerous in these woods. Did ye not see--"
āUm.ā It was an inelegant way of breaking into the one-sided conversation, but it was just about all he could do. Ephraim, for all his experience with the strange and the awkward, was very sure heād never been in a position quite like this one before. Usually he was at least right-side-up when thoroughly embarrassing himself. āYou know, normally, Iād say you were absolutely right and everything, but the mist down here does make it awfully hard to see the ground.ā Also, heād been daydreaming again, but he wasnāt going to mention that. It was a bit of a feeble excuse, and he knew it, but he felt it worth pointing out all the same. He wasnāt sure whyāhe had no pride or dignity to defend, really.
As for the part where the lady who had found him was actually touching his person, well⦠he just considered it to be good fortune that she was being relatively nice about it. And that heād washed his hair the day before. Sending his (potential) help away in disgust was not exactly going to be of benefit to him here. āAlso, if itās not terribly inconvenient, would you perhaps mind letting me down, miss? I donāt want to break your trap, you see, and I can chance the guess that it was not meant to hold such, um⦠l-large rabbits.ā He tried for a smile of some kind, but it came out more a grimace than anything.
"Oh? Oh! Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure," The girl said as a blush crept into her face. Finally taking her hands out of his hair, she slipped behind him which had the unfortunate side effect of letting him start spinning again. Her hands went to the creaky cedar tree bearing Ephraim's weight and found a dark rope that looked like a vine at a distance. Once again, she began to speak to the tree as her hands began to work the knot. "Y'did good, but I cannae keep what ye caught," She said, casting a glance backward to Ephraim, "Just as well, he looks too stringy to eat anyway." As the note came undone, she gave Ephraim one last warning before he found the ground rush upward to greet him. "Watch ye gourd! ye comin' down."
There was a snap as the tension gave and Ephraim found fresh ground beneath him again. The girl went to his feet and began to undo the rope that bound him there, and continued to collect the rope wholesale, coiling it around her shoulder. "Eh, you ruined my spot anyway," she explained, "All ye floppin' scared all the animals within the mile. Shh, listen," She said, pausing what she was doing and holding up a finger, urging him to do the same. "Hear that? Nothin'. We're eatin' light tonight. A shame, ye look like ye could do with a decent meal," She said, moving back where Ephraim was, and giving his ribs a light pinch.
Catlike reflexes he did not have, but that wasnāt so bad, considering he was pretty durable. Heās fallen from worse heights, sometimes quiet memorably. At least he didnāt fall directly on his āgourd,ā though landing on his back still knocked the wind out of him for a minute, during which he wheezed a little and then managed to haul himself into a sitting position, trying to ignore the way the world spun around him as his blood reoriented itself right-way-up. He was still tingling at the extremities, though, and only caught enough of what the woman said to understand that she was talking about food. āUmm⦠sorry?ā He actually didnāt know if sheād accused him of anything or not, but he generally found that apologizing for his existence rarely went awry, so he defaulted to it. āFood, uh⦠thereās food in my pack still.ā Dried travel rations, mostly, but definitely edible. He did sometimes know what he was doing, and travel was one of those things he could do with some competence.
Gradually, Ephraim got his legs underneath him, pushing himself back up to his awkward height, such that he was towering over the woman and blinking down at her with all the mild confusion of an especially large, lean dog. Maybe one of those racing hounds the fancy lords had sometimes, for retrieving fowl taken down in the field. Actually, now tat he could see properly, woman might not be quite the right word. She looked somewhere just between that and girl, not that he was one to judge. He still looked halfway like a kid himself, at least where his face was concerned. Her hair was really red, thoughāhe wondered if she ever had concealment problems.
Dismissing the question as irrelevant, he brought a hand up to the back of his neck. His aunts would be ashamed at his manners, honestly. āThank you, by the way. Itās, ah, appreciated.ā He stuck his other hand out, offering a shake. He didnāt really know how to do the whole elegant lordly greeting thing, and he suspected it would be even more awkward anyhow. āIf, erm⦠if you care to know, Iām Ephraim. Of Theren, that is. Not sure if there are others somewhere else. Probably. Iāll⦠shut up now.ā
A moment was spent staring at his outstretched hand, her head tilted as she examined it. Only a moment, however, as a smile slipped into her face and she took the hand with the roughness of her own, giving it hardy shake. "Eh? Of Theren? Where's Theren? Never been there before, is it far away? Is it fancy? Never met another fella who was named of some place, less another Theren. Are ye nobility? Ye don't look like a lord--" Her mouth worked for a moment more before she stopped, feeling that there had been a line she was dangerously close to approaching. If he was a lord, then she just inadvertently insulted him. Her lips slowed and pursed while her cheeks reddened. "Oh, uh... Sorry. I didnae mean any insult," She apologized, acutely unaware that she was still shaking his hand, albeit slower than she had been. "Maybe it's my turn to shut up," She said with an awkward chuckle.
Running her other hand under her cascade of red, she looked back to the tree for a moment and shrugged, turning back to him. Rather, turning up to him. She hadn't noticed when he was upside down, but Ephraim was tall, easily towering a foot over the the girl. "Bloody geez Eph, yer a tall one, aren't ya," She with a furious shake of her head and another reddening of cheeks. In an attempt to play it off like she said nothing at all, she launched into her own introductions, "I am Evelyne. Of the Aecian. Sorta. Really, I don't have a title. Or a surname. The mountains are just where I was born. Though me friends call me Evie, so that's somethin'." Finally a moment a silence passed between her teeth, and she seemed to slow down a fair bit. With a breath of fresh air in her lungs, she began again, though this time her words came slow enough for him to understand.
"Come on, I got camp set not too far away," She began. "We can talk there, and ye can meet Meister. Then we'll see about gettin' ye where ye need to be goin'." Still refusing to relinquish grip on his hand, she led him into the forest. She strode through the trees and branches with ease, her pace slow enough to allow Ephraim to keep up. To the uninitiated, it appeared that Evie just picked a direction and began walking in it, but soon it was revealed she knew exactly where she was going and what exactly was the easiest way to get there. What Evie led Ephraim to was a small clearing, about fifteen feet in diameter with a bay horse loaded down with a saddlebag grazing on the outskirts his reins loosely wrapped around a branch. Finally allowing Ephraim's hand to become his own again, Evie went to the horse and... Presented him to the man. "This is Meister. Meis, this is Ephraim. Of Theren. He's goin' to be our guest." She lowered her tone and moved closer to Meister's ear and spoke in a hushed tone. "Be nice to 'em. He's had a hard day gettin' caught in our traps."
Ephraim decided not to mention that, the odd occasion of stepping into a trap excepted, he was actually quite capable of navigating the forest on his own, and had done so many times before. It would⦠probably just result in a lot more apologies or something, and he felt very strange, being apologized to. Was this possibly how he made other people feel with his habit of the same? He had to admit that when looked at this way, it was entirely possible. If so, he hoped they never told him, given that heād most like apologize for it.
He was beginning to realize that he didnāt talk nearly as much as he thought he did, or, perhaps, nobody could find much room to talk when Miss Evelyne was filling up all the silences on her own. There was finally a pause long enough to say something when he was being introduced to the horse, and really, this was perhaps one of the least weird things about the situation. So he bobbed his head agreeably. āNice to meet you.ā He took a moment to scan the campsite. Minimally invasive, very efficient. The sort of thing that spoke of a lot of experience navigating wilderness. He wondered about thatāfew people ever wandered about in the Darkwood, and those that did really usually preferred to skirt the edges on their way to Dorchaidhe, or else take the most established path the forest hadāthat to and from the Keep. Why anyone would want a Keep in the Darkwood, he had no idea. It was probably some lord thing he would never understand anyway.
āBy the way, you donāt⦠uh. You donāt have to always say the āof Therenā bit. Itās not a title or anything like that. Farthest thing from it, actually. You get the town name if you donāt have a proper one.ā He shrugged, a gesture that somehow made him look even more like a scarecrow, and ran a hand up the back of his neck, inadvertently fluffing the hair in the back of his head. He was the furthest thing from a nobleman, really, and that was counting some of the slaves, at least the ones who got to live with the noblemen. Not that he'd ever envy them that. He was more or less content; he doubted very much that many of them were. There was a bit of an awkward pause, and then he figured he might as well ask. āSo⦠n-not to sound rude, Miss Evelyne, but⦠what exactly are you doing here? I almost never run into people in the Darkwood. Or traps. I suspect those two things are related, actually.ā
"Not bein' called Miss Evelyne, that's for sure," she said with a hearty laugh. She took the spool of rope from her around her shoulder, Evie tied it off in the middle to ensure that it didn't tangle in transit and slipped it into a saddlebag for later use, and retrieved a strip of dried meat from a different pack. Letting the meat hang from her mouth, Evie took a seat on a nearby root and gestured for Ephraim to do the same. "I told ye, Eph, I dinae have any titles, only Evelyne. Though ye call me Evie-- everyone else does, Right Meis?" She said, calling back to the horse. Meister, seemingly used to her banter, subsequently ignored her and continued to chew on the hard grass of the forest. For Ephraim's actual question, Evie watched him for a moment, chewing the jerky in her mouth and contemplating how to best answer him. "Could ask ye the same thing, Eph."
Her tone lowered and she watched him in an effort to judge him. "The Darkwood is dangerous y'know?-- no one goes through her just for an evenin' stroll. The few that do know what they're doin'. She's harsh, These woods. She's got rabbits with fangs that can take a chunk out of ye leg, d'ye know? Evil critters, they are. Ye lucky it were me trap you tripped into and not a spider's," She paused for a moment and arched an eyebrow. She gave the meat another chew or two and before pausing and blushing again. "Not... Not that I'm ye mum or anything, ye see? It's just.. Right. Forget I said anything," she said defeated. Rubbing her forehead and forced herself back to Ephraim's question. "Why am I here?" She repeated his question, just to make sure they were back on the same page.
"Well, uh... because we're followin' ye?" She laughed at that, giving it the impression that it was a joke. She decided to not tell him how serious she was. Evie had been following him for the past few days, checking his progress and making sure he didn't get himself lost. Like she had explained, the Darkwood was a dangerous place, and to travel it alone was either brave or silly. But she had to admit, he seemed to know what he was doing, traversing the woods well enough for someone who wasn't a Ranger. She decided that it was probably best she didn't tell him that, for that would be too terribly awkward for even her to handle. But neither could she tell him the truth, at least not yet. Though her heart wanted to, her head told her she couldn't trust a man she'd just met.
Swallowing the meat, she interlocked her fingers and laid her chin to rest on top. "I'm sorry Eph, we cannae answer that." Evie looked saddened by that fact. A small, apologetic smile crept into her lips as she continued, "But if ye want... We can travel together 'til we leave these woods. If ye have a mind about it, anyway. We dinae wish to intrude where we aren't wanted."
āOh, uh, no, thatās completely fine, really.ā Ephraim lifted both hands into the air by his shoulders in a gesture of harmlessness. āI didnāt mean to pry, I justā¦ā Well, he wasnāt quite fool enough to admit that he had no idea how else to start a conversation, and one had felt⦠called for, maybe. He was a little taken aback that she offered to accompany him out after telling him that she couldnāt divulge why she was here in the first place, but if heād ever met anyone who didnāt make him the least bit suspicious, it was probably her. He paused to consider that for a moment, wondering if it should be a red flag all its own, but in the end, the combination of his guilelessness and what seemed to be hers bade him relax at least a little, and the line of his shoulders eased visibly. He flicked a little, twitching smile, then nodded.
āIf itās really not a bother, I donāt mind. A little company might be nice, for once.ā