Robena asks. She asks, finally, a question she has been trying her best to hope she would not need to ask. She asks and in the asking accepts the reality at last that this is no longer the home she remembers, the home she fought across the known world to return to.

"Tell me what has happened in my absence."

She stands a little straighter. Looks a little stronger. Looks for the first time upon England with unclouded eyes.

Tristan waits for Mort's answer. These are very good questions, and he's excited to hear the answers.

If he were to add anything - oh, go on then - "Does the King have any heirs? I've talked to a lot of bards." He really has. Tristan listens to anyone that will tell him things, and bards will keep telling you things as long as you can stand to listen. He might be a little more devoted to folk heroes than is strictly healthy, as a result. "They would say - well, if it's blood, then Pellinore would be felled today, and it would be something for her heir to avenge. Or a black sheep of the family to prove their lineage, and reclaim their birthright. That sort of thing makes for the better story." He says, knowingly.

He has heard stories about the Oracles, of prophecies that baited the listener into the action that fulfilled it. "If you cross the river, a great empire will be destroyed", that sort of thing.

He trusts Merlin to be on their side. But if King Pellinore isn't... it would make sense to give a prophecy with enough slack to tie a noose from, right? One that might exploit a bold, brash temperament, to bait them into folly. That sounds like something Merlin would do! Which could also mean Nin is right too!

Tristan feels very clever for having worked this out.

Constance

This is your question to answer for Robena's ear alone. A quick a word, a sigh, a sag of the shoulders could carry mountains of meaning. But there is much you could say to Robena as well. Uther's reign is not what it once was. Would you tell her in the knightly manner, that your lady of Lostwithiel still has not sworn fealty to the High King and you have had visions of fire and blood in his livery that must be stopped through courage, chivalry, and a touch of magic? Perhaps the rumors of King Pellinore on the hunt and the Questing Beast rampaging through the woods?

Or perhaps you would you tell her that Arthur, Uther's only child, is missing and there is no heir to be found? That Merlin left the court a few years prior and is not to be found though it is your quest to seek him? Perhaps you've even heard the darker rumors of the High King's mad rantings, the tournaments he hosts from which knights do not return, and the rumors from little birds that cursed knights akin to what you saw from the Azure Knight wander the land?

Or perhaps again your ear is closer to the land and its people. Would you tell her of the rumors that the harvests have thinned and those with less fortunate land have been starving nearer to Camelot? Of winters growing colder and darker than they seemed in past? Of the rumors of monsters and wild beasts ravaging fields? Or perhaps the dire news a few farmers brought in before your departure that a blight is starting on the wheat and the whole year's crop could be lost if something isn't done.

Tell Robena what it means to you, river-daughter, that what was is grander than what is, and that as you look forward to what will be you see room for a greater fall?

Tristan and Nin

Nin you've hit on something here. Something that isn't right. "I don't rightly know sirs" Mort says and shakes his head as if to clear it, his hair flouncing. He ties his helmet to his saddle and passes a hand before his eyes as though to check his vision. "Though I grew up in the King's castle, I can't recall anything of the creature before we heard of it ruining the fields and Merlin gave his prophecy. I'm sorry I cannot be of more assistance." He shakes his head again and seizes on Tristan's question like a lifeboat, perking up immediately. "Heirs? Of course, my lord, King Pellinore is known for her fierceness in all things and the laughs and shouts of her family are a delight to those of us who serve. Why there's Tor and her brother Aglovale, already fine young knights holding the keep in our absence, and then Ladies Lamorak and Dornar both squiring and of course little Percival, who's a delight to all who visit. You must never have come to the King's castle if you've heard of none of them. I'm sure that if we complete the hunt, she would feast you for a week and introduce the whole lot of them."

So it had been ruining fields at least, and thus the hunt itself wasn't perhaps unjust. But something was clearly off about its appearance.

Nin gave a small nod at Tristan's question, as well. It seemed he'd seen her concerns. Something wasn't right about this.

The question now was what they were going to do. Nin looked at Tristan, trying to see if these revelations inclined him towards any particular course of action.

"I can see just how important it is, for us to be here, helping this hunt now, Sir Knight." Tristan says gravely, glancing at Nin only once, only briefly. "It sounds like Pellinore wants to make sure it's her that slays the beast, after all. If you were to fail today, after we managed to catch it ourselves by sheer fortune... it would make her very angry. Very angry indeed." He looks at Mort very concerned, now. Fearful for him. "I did not mean to put you in this position, Sir. Where the King would see huntsmen, such as ourselves, accomplish more than her knights... What might she do?"

He's not lying. Not really. But Mort did say something about an anger problem, and he's very curious how Mort reacts to this idea being put in his head.

If the King is kind, should have nothing to fear from being outshone by luck and circumstance. If.

[Size Someone Up: 5, 6 +2 = 13
How might I get you to speak your concerns about your king?
Where are you vulnerable to me?
How prone to anger is your king, and what does it look like?]

“Britain is... wounded.” How dare you say those words? You should snap like a branch in a storm and fall insensate at the enormity of that truth. To say it, to mean it, yet to know that you have barely explained to Robena what it means.

But, then again, she’s been on the battlefield, hasn’t she? She’s seen sucking, festering wounds. Wounds that will last for the rest of a man’s life, one way or another. Maybe she understands. Britain is wounded.

“The people like the farmer with the donkey... they’re fighting a blight on the corn. It’s worse near Camelot. I’d almost convinced myself that if we kept our heads down and did what we could, it would be better soon. But then this...”

You gesture hopelessly at the graves. More of Uther’s subjects failed by their king. More of Britain groaning under his rule. And what can you do against him?

“Merlin has not been seen for... three years, now. There’s a price for him. If he was here, maybe he could keep us from the worst of it, but he’s a traitor to the throne. Or so it’s said. And I wonder if he saw what I did. The fire and the blood and the dark rolling over us, blind and thoughtless.”

You hit yourself, fist clenched, against your hip. From a deep well the bile comes bubbling up. “And I thought I could hide by my lake and stop nightfall with candles and seeds?”

One does not imagine a bear can move. They are ponderous things, inevitable - dangerous, but safe. One does not imagine one might snatch a leaping salmon from the very air until it is too late.

Robena has turned so she looms over you. Her hands are up, sweeping her wild and untidy hair brown back behind her, binding it into a functional ponytail. As her hands descend down her body they adjust straps with rehearsed precision. Her axe no longer hangs loose, her shoulder plates are more rigid, the faint layer of rust that dimmed the edges of her lady's crest is knocked clean with a flick of armoured mail. But more than the corrections her face has hardened and her eyes are ablaze. This is no soft and gentle cub any more, no traveling naturalist knight with a nightinggale voice.

This is a crusader. A warrior of righteousness, a will that would no more suffer evil in this land than she would suffer it in any other. As the lines in her face harden so too do her scars.

When she asks you, Constance, it is not because she is in any way unaware of the answer. When she asks you it is not as a friend asking for information. The words are ritual, the precursors to violence and devastation, each one filled with fire.

"Who has done this?" said Sir Coilleghille, the finest weapon of war crafted by the land of England.

You meet Robena’s eyes, my dear Constance, and see there the same strength that underlies Britain entire. The deep flint. Yes, here is a woman for the hour. Can you match her? Can you do the same?

“Who else? Who makes the law? Who commands the knights? Who holds tournaments they do not come back from? Who has lost his heir and clings to his throne like the ivy clings to the branches? Who is the land?”

The name hangs unspoken. It is a magic spell of its own; you need Robena to say it. You are afraid of how you will change if you say his name, and afraid that Robena will fail, and afraid that Roebena will succeed. But perhaps this last is nothing more than the fear of stepping out into the unseen dark.

After all, in the first days, when Adam’s children inherited Britain from your forefathers, there were ways to deal with a king like this. Your fingers rest lightly on the hilt of your flint knife. At Midsummer, at the height, or on the longest day of winter, when the dark seemed inescapable. Can you call yourself a daughter of giants if you flinch away from the oldest laws?

“Uther,” you say, “presently King of Britain.” And now there is no turning back.

Tristan and Nin

Mort's face darkens, though not at you. Distant memories trouble him. Some past trauma most likely. Abstractly, the answer to your questions is that he needs to trust you and feel safe speaking to you because King Pellinore's anger problem is clearly quite bad. It's not that she would harm you, but she may well harm her knights for their incompetence, most likely when they're alone so that rumors don't spread. But that very atmosphere of terror, lurking just under a genial exterior also prevents Mort, or any other knight, from truly confiding in you. Asking how do people create trust with one another has a million answers. Perhaps the most obvious, if the most frustrating, is time. Ride with them, eat with them, hunt with them. Share stories and laugh together, and surely he will open up to you, intentionally or accidentally. If you're looking for something faster: save Mort's life (or at least do him a great service), swear him a favor and your secrecy with a binding oath, or find him alone and intimidate him with threats worse than what you think Pellinore may be doing if you don't mind losing his friendship afterward for that last.

None of these can be done now, riding amidst the King's other knights. Instead, you come to a break in the forest to find the king standing beside her horse, gazing outwards to the treeline. The Questing Beast is nowhere in sight and its trail abruptly ends.

"Fae magic" she seethes, loudly enough to be heard over the clopping hooves of horses, and you realize that this hunt will not be a short one.

Constance and Robena

The name falls into a silence louder than a shining knight at full tilt. The world is still, save for the tiniest motion from Cath, the black and white cat, who steps quietly forward on little paws to nuzzle into Constance's leg, offering a little warmth in a cold land rapidly growing colder.

*****END SCENE*****

Some time passes, a cool breeze blows and there's a threat of a summer storm. The air crackles like lightning could strike.

Robena

The ride is a blur to you, mixed with memories of burning and the smell of smoke in distant lands. You find yourself riding into a nearby town further along the road in Southaven. It's a town and nearby keep that border the forest on its southern side, inventively named as you'd expect. It has only a single inn, the Fox & Stag, and the gate, though barely more than a wooden palisade, had a guard stationed at it whose armor was clean and well-kept.

Now that you know though, the signs of Uther's corruption are practically everywhere else. Families are smaller than you remember from your youth and children look hungrier than they should at summer's rise. Homes are less well-kept than they ought to be and mold licks at the edges of the beams on some houses.

What knight from your memories do you find at the inn when you arrive?

Tristan, Nin

You rode from the forest's edge at a more leisurely pace, but the ride was tense. The king spoke little and the gathering clouds seemed to reflect the thunder brewing at her forehead. You could almost hear the words so close as they hissed through her mind and her mood held the rest of her knights at taut readiness. No monsters surfaced to confront your party, however, and so instead you rode and the only sounds were the neighs and muffled thuds of horeshoes on dirt paths.

You've arrived at a keep called Southaven, having exited the forest on the same side you entered while drawing an upside down U shape (with some extra curves because of how the Questing Beast tore up the land). There's a town nearby, but King Pellinore appears to be on friendly terms with the keep's lord, Sir Linus. It's a small keep, only five knights make it their permanent residence, along with a handful of men at arms. The town nearby has an inn, the Fox & Stag, but Pellinore insists on having the horses and equipment seen to by the keep smith first before you go into the town. Sir Linus looks rather overwhelmed by it all and is fussing trying to find room for the hunting party.

Nin: How does this remind you of your family and set you at ease?

Tristan: What about all this is making you want to get away from it all and get some fresh air?

Constance

Around the keep of Brythys the air feels less heavy. You went with Cath to fetch the little box, having departed from Robena in something of a flurry, and you could tell that the ghosts were, if not satisfied, at least at ease this time. The small box was heavy for its size, like it was full of quicksilver, though you did not open it nor did it leak.

You present it, along with your newly befriended cat, to the traveler with his thick tawny hair and his straw hat. You had to backtrack along the road a bit, so you're seeing dark clouds gather a ways further along, but they haven't reached you yet.

When he sees you arrive alone, cat and box in hand (so to speak) he gives an excited yell and runs over to you. Cath also gives an excited yowl and sprints forward, tangling herself in the man's legs and utterly tripping him, causing him to sprawl face first into the road with a puff of earth and a straw hat that flies off to land at your feet. Cath, looking extremely proud of herself, purrs and bops him in the head for good measure.

"Damn it, Cath Palug, would you give a man a minute's respite?!" he shouts, as he starts to gather himself.

Tell us how (or if) you go to his aid.

Robena's reputation marches before her like a herald. Much of it has to do with her most recent exploits, the returning pilgrim humbled and noble, fighting monsters and healing the wounded on her long road back from the holy city of Jerusalem. Over that journey she became quiet, wise, respectful, chivalrous. The holy city had indeed changed her and left behind a gentle giant.

But what a change it had been.

Things are different when you are invincible. When you are invincible death is your slave and all her works are glorious. When you stand upon the field of Champagne, clad in frail squire's armour, bloody axe held above your head as lady Death holds down three full knights at your feet, the feeling is such that you can only howl. When you are invincible you do not need traps, snares, or patience to hunt a gryphon - you instead charge it in the full light of day beneath an open sky so all can witness who it is Death favours. When you are invincible you can drink any poison and kiss any woman and the spectre of Death looms behind you and smiles at any who would raise objection at your conduct. When you are invincible you stand upon the threshold of the underworld like holy Paeter and with a gesture decide who goes in ahead of you.

Robena Coilleghille was not invincible. But for a while she had been able to borrow it from one who was.

Countess Alitel Sandsfern had always been invincible, but hers had been the immortality of fire rather than the might of blood as Robena's had been. Wild, untamed, unteachable for she knew all things already - that fire had grown so hot that it was judged that the only possible remedy would be the most holy site in the world. It was thought that only Bloodless Xristos himself might be able to calm that fire.

If he had tried, he had failed.

She lights up the room. Her red-orange hair flows in curling locks, lower than her shoulders and brighter than a forest fire. Deep crimson scales mark her neck and ungloved hands, armour beneath armour. A flick of eyes as alight and deadly as the Persian fire-god is enough to steal one's entire vocabulary, a simple standing motion upon taloned feet is enough to root one as surely as an oak, and a deadly smile is enough to stop one's heart.

"My... lady," Robena breathes as she gazes upon her sworn liege who she had thought lost to the curse of the crossroads.

A kiss from those lips would be enough to render her invincible again.

“What a name,” you say with a smile, kneeling down to offer the hapless farmer a hand. You are stronger than you look, after all, a firm anchor to hold. “Wherever did she get it?”

Cath Palug has been an excellent traveling companion, now that Robena... you cannot hide it from yourself, you know. You took that woman, who deserved better from you, and you set her alight. You made her into a weapon, all because she begged to become one. And now she has ridden off, full of hot and raging blood, to attempt what you have dared, what no one has dared: to stand up to a king who has been rejected by the land.

She will be broken in the attempt. But what can you do, daughter of giants? You will not shame both her and yourself by begging her to stay, to be lesser for the rest of her days. You will not draw a sword and ride beside her, not without certain matters attended to first. It is not enough that the land has rejected him. The dead have spoken now, but what of the rivers? What of the keepers of the Wheel? What of oak and ash and thorn?

There is still more to be done, more wrath to arouse, before you may draw up a sword from the waters. Old, tarnished bronze, offered to the deep when the gods were young. Not for you any sword not consecrated by that surrender to the divine.

Yet, for Robena’a sake, whether she lives or she dies, you are surprised to find that you are ready to wake those who sleep and rouse those who are silent still. And, yes, for the sake of Cath Palug and her fool of an owner, that their harvest might be lean but enough. The cross makes many promises, but its cruelest is that death is a great joy. As if this scarecrow lying on his reeds, a deflated mass of bone and skin, would be a victory.

“Here is your box,” you say, closing his hands around it. “Take it with my blessing, but be warned: it came from unquiet ground. If it is not truly yours, it would be better for you to welcome an adder into your bed than take it home.”

These knights are not his friends. Certainly, Tristan respects them - their service to their lord is unimpeachable - but he respects them as colleagues in competition. They are peers, but he doesn't even trust them enough to tell them that they are peers, because he doesn't feel safe to be honest with them.

And, as Nin's made rather clear to him, and Mort has implied, he's right to feel unsafe in honesty.

He's always retreated to nature, when he's had a crisis of authenticity. It's usually been moments when he's caught himself trying to be someone he isn't. Trying to be interesting to a crush. Trying to downplay his needs and limitations for a mentor. After the performance, he can sometimes feel himself become what he's pretended to be. Not everything that is picked up can be put back down.

It was fun to play pretend for Mort, with Mort, at Mort. And he's going to need to pretend again, and soon. Maybe for a while. That's fine. It's just important to get everything out, as difficult as getting all the sand out of a shoe.

He needs to be alone for a while, to separate the threads of performance from himself.

Being alone, in nature, is where he finds dishonesty to himself impossible. And maybe, after everything that's happened today, the world still has things to tell him.

If he can, he'll take two cups of beer from the tavern on the way out, and pay for it how he can.

Constance

"Don't you want to know what's in the box, river-daughter?" the man asks, placing his other hand over yours so that you cannot fully release the box into his care, even as he lies half-sprawled on the ground. His hair is loose and tousled without that silly farmer's hat, but his expression is serious and the depth in his eyes is older than the mountains. He looks at you intensely, and you feel that even you might drown.

"Don't you want to know what task I set for you, or are you too busy starting fires before you're ready?" His tongue is sharp, and Cath mews and kicks him again, causing him to look a little chagrined. "That was cruel of me. Your companion was not lost lightly and she is a strong knight and safe yet. Still, you need to ask. Don't expect me to just give you everything you need. Don't expect that from anyone. Ask me why I'm here."

Robena

"Robena Coilleghille! As I live and breathe!" The effected formality lasts only as long as it takes the Lady Sandsfern to rise from her chair and lift you, for all your weight, with one arm into a hug. Her fiery hair flows past her shoulders and a little brushes past your nose and catches in the fur of your bearskin. It smells of cloves and ash.

She shifts her weight and, hug done, she leans into her stance and hurls you bodily across the Fox and Stag's common room, a chair crumpling beneath your landing. She picked a spot away from the other patrons (now crowded near the bar), and nowhere near the barrels of ale, an intentional choice if ever you've seen one. Her words rush after you across the room "What gall, to greet me here! Did you not return to my tower and offer your loyalty? Were you not anointed as Lostwithiel's new champion? What have you made of yourself, girl?"

She takes a firm stance, legs planted, expecting you to stand and rush her.

Tristan
You've never been to the Fox and Stag before, but you can guess that it's not the usual custom for one of the patrons to hurl another halfway across the room. Not least because you did not see anywhere near enough carpenters in your arrival to maintain the supply of chairs in the face of such matches.

Also, the one flying through the air was obviously Robena, that knight who was competing in Lostwithiel ere your departure to hunt the badger (and greater things). The other appears before your eyes to have hair of fire and scales of blazing crimson adorning her neck and hands where the skin shows unarmored. She was sitting and having a drink from a large horn when you arrived, notable in her beauty but another in a long line of strangers. You did not see Robena walk in while you were preoccupied buying your beers. You now hold two, one in each hand, balancing them carefully as the tavern shakes from Robena's landing. The handful of other patrons are cowering near you and the various casks. The owner (a tall, heavyset woman with brown hair tied back in a long ponytail that falls past her shoulders) has an exasperated look on her face but seems in no hurry to risk herself trying to intervene.

Even though a pile of blankets may be light in terms of weight, they are still awkward to grip. The sheer bulk of them all makes it difficult to get your arms into a position where they can physically lift them. Throwing a knight in plate is not difficult with the right setup - it is all about leverage, balance and momentum. Getting a good enough grip on Robena Coilleghille is another matter entirely to the point where she did not honestly believe she could be thrown in this way.

"If by you mean champion of Lostwithiel you mean I beat the tar out of their sad excuses for knights, you're damn right," somebody said. That person stood up from the debris of the chair and pounded on her breastplate with a mailed fist. "And while I'll overlook that cheap shot because you're my lady, I can perform a demonstration if you want to learn something."

Robena's silence was a studied and cultivated thing, a thing born through long evenings contemplating virtue under foreign stars. What it covered was a mouth trained in taunts, dares and challenges in every pub from here to Jerusalem. When stunned beyond the point of sense or reason the words and smirk tumbled out on sheer conditioned reflex.

What else can be done, at a moment like this?

Tristan sips his beer and watches, taking great pains to make sure none of what's about to happen spills the other mug.

A talk with nature is still on the cards. But nature isn't going anywhere. A knight like Robena getting hurled across the room is a rarer thing indeed, and she might appreciate the drink more...

Interrupting now, though, feels quite rude indeed. It looks like nobody's getting hurt that doesn't want to.

You squat there in the dust, river-daughter, the world having shifted underfoot. Just as well that you are the one here, that Robena does not have to try and keep her footing. You can handle the ways in which the world may change unexpectedly and dangerously in a moment.

“Why are you here, ageless one?” Several names are possible. Do not make an assumption before you are certain. Bend like the willow. “I am listening now.” The world around you is a still thing, easily drowned in his eyes. You are listening. What else could you do?

Robena

The lady Sandsfern gives a joyous smile that shows off her fangs. "Now there's the Robena I know, the great bear of a woman who thinks she can throw me! None of that dour face you were wearing when you came in here." She laughs, and the deep sound is the mirth of a woman who does not know the shape of fear and has no place for it upon her soul. It is the joy of flowing blood and tensed muscle ready to spring. Though she takes another stance, you can tell that she is not going to simply stay still and wait for your next move. She's going to rush you on your next move and try to match or exceed you in prowess. She's going to revel every time she overpowers you and swell with pride in any move where you throw her balance.

This is not single combat as such, and indeed the lady Sandsfern denies any right you may have to make it so. This is a brawl between two opponents of great strength seeking to know one another through their approach to the conflict. Choose how you approach the match. If you seek to win the match in a decisive move, tell us how and leap into action. If you choose to endure no matter how the fight ebbs and flows, undertake great labor.

Tristan
The tavern owner, careful not to move too fast and distract the two knights, makes her way over to you and leans across the bar, resting her elbows on the surface with all the confidence of owning the place and knowing that one way or another she's going to be paid for every chair. "You know them?" she asks, gesturing to you sipping your beer without picking up her arm. "You sure seem a lot more calm than the rest of these guests, to be enjoying your drink. Care to bet for one? I'll give you two to three odds on the fiery-haired one, up to five silver pieces."

Constance

"Because you!" he raises his voice, and Cath Palug hisses, causing him to pull up short and begin again slowly. "Because...you are holding a very important sword that you are not ready for. Because I made, or will make a promise to your grandmother. And because I am eventually going to tutor a very important king and that won't work out well if this kingdom falls into decay and splinters."

He looks at you, and his hand is still on the box. He doesn't want to take it, you can feel that he wants you to take it. What do you have to say to this man?

He is also quite clearly not giving you the respect you deserve and are entitled to. How does it feel to be spoken to thus, even knowing that this man is likely to become your tutor?

Tristan silently slides the five silver pieces onto the bartop. He's not much of a gambler, usually, but it's very important to support your friends in all things. Even if you're not friends yet, it's never too early to start.

It would be very silly of you to get offended, wouldn’t it, Constance? Just because you can feel your heart hammering and your mind keeps twisting around to try and defend yourself, that doesn’t mean you should break your word. You said you were listening. So you will listen, even though you feel less like stone and more like a mudslide the longer you listen to him.

“The sword is not for me,” you say, very calmly. Such calm! Witness, birds and beasts and Cath Palug, your calm!! “It is for the rightful wielder. Unless you mean to say I will not recognize the rightful wielder when she comes.” You bring the box back to your chest and straighten up with smothering levels of calmness. “In which case, please, do reveal your wisdom, ageless one. And don’t even think of telling me that it’s you, because both Cath and I know that’s wrong.”