CLOSED: Halamshiral - The Alienage

[visus]

WHO: Ciri, Eirlys, Herian, Jamie, Martel, Sabine
WHAT: Aiding The Locals
WHEN: Solace 31
WHERE: Halamshiral
NOTES: No tag order! Will update with warnings as needed.

Halamshiral blooms outward from the Winter Palace and High Quarter without much logic or order to its streets. It’s not Kirkwall’s famous snarl of intentional inescapable twists, perhaps—particularly with a local guide—but there are no unimpeded thoroughfares from one end to the other. Moving supplies from the outskirts of the city to the burned-out streets nearer its center requires turning this way and that where streets run abruptly into the back walls of taverns or swerve around a cluster of shabby apartment homes, shifting from dirt and sickly grass to cobblestones and back again.

The horses drawing the three carts escaped being drafted into the civil war due to aging bones or skittish temperaments, but they’re obedient. The three local elves driving the carts could manage without an armed escort. In theory. In practice they’re carrying axes—and rope, and lumber, and stone, but especially axes, supplied by the Inquisition and covered by canvas—so it’s become a party of nine, with six Inquisition members (or near enough) there to ward off trouble.

And there is trouble, lurking: elves who stop to watch the carts roll past with interest that goes beyond curiosity, a few young hopefuls who follow along the rooftops for several minutes until they notice that they’ve been noticed and vanish. But it stays quiet, save for the clatter of hooves and wood wheels on stone and the murmur of conversation, until the carts are midway through the city, passing through an alley so narrow it borders on perilous, and the forward cart comes to a halt, and the other two follow suit quick enough to avoid a collision.

“It won’t make it through,” the driver announces. His name is Brishan; his cargo is mostly stone. He’s gray-haired and wrinkled, but there’s spryness in the way he leaps off his cart and passes around the horses to examine the way ahead. “Too narrow. We should have turned right at the Torn Petticoat.”

From the middle cart, Charani says, “You might have suggested it then.” Not sharply. She’s a quiet one, and she stays seated and still, perhaps due to a placid nature, perhaps due to the pain of climbing around too much with such significant burn scarring.

Whatever excuse Brishan may have had to offer is cut short by a crack and crash from the rear, where the youngest has already climbed out of her cart, and said cart has experienced spontaneous destruction of one wheel. “Oh,” says Lela. By now everyone would have learned that she’s chatty, friendly, and takes every opportunity to smile, especially at the shemlen. At the moment everyone may also be learning that she is not very good at faking surprise. “How unlucky.”

Comments

[wontforgetyou]

Martel gets a brief nod, but it's Ciri who has his attention once she reaches the group that's now gathered at the last of the carts. As she looks over the undercarriage his eyes wind up following hers, a faint, thoughtful sort of noise coming from the back of his throat as he takes in the extent of of the damage. Not too bad, all things considered, and he nods, taking a step back so Martel can step in if he wants to.

"Looks to me like it'll be easy enough to replace the wheel once we're someplace that'll allow for that, but we'll still have to get yon cart out of here first so the others can turn around." His eyes flick back up and over to the others, moving back and forth before finally resting on his fellow rifters. "So what's the plan?"

[ancarrow]

Eirlys can feel eyes on her from all sides as they make their way through the sprawl of streets, some merely curious and others clearly sizing up the party as they make their way through the city, wagons jolting sharply over every loose cobblestone. She's very aware of the wariness and suspicion from many of the elves they pass, and while she understands it completely, it still stings quite deep knowing that they see her as a member of the Inquisition foremost, one of the establishment, rather than an alienage elf who understands the hardships they face all too well.

As the carts halt in their tracks, she can't help but have a bad feeling. She remembers incidents in Gwaren, which only served to compound its bad name and make the guards treat her people even worse, where elves had offered to guide humans through the alienage only to turn them down a blind alley and rob them. She twitches nervously but keeps her cool, mostly due to the fact that everyone else is remaining so calm, jumping down from the cart next to the others to try to assess the situation as best as she can.

"For a start, we should untether the horses. Perhaps we could lead them around to help pull the broken cart out."

[dashing]

Perhaps they can requisition a cheese wheel to replace the wooden one? For a world in chaos, Herian has encountered an abundance of cheese wheels, even these past months. Herian opts to resist her rare and rather poor spark of humour/

"If you've need of more hands," she informs the others, "I am at your disposal." She stands back from the other humans dealing with the wheel, suspecting that in the present moment she'll get in the way more than she'll help. Instead, she turns a watchful gaze about, her eye never resting on one place, carefully assessing.

Her gaze does not move to Eirlys for more than a moment. "It would be unfortunate if the horses startled when they were unharnessed," she observes, very quietly.

[wontforgetyou]

It may be a quiet comment, but it's also one that doesn't go unnoticed, at least by Jamie, and there's a moment when his eyes flick towards her and his expression grows rather more thoughtful. Maybe it's nothing, and maybe there isn't any chance the horses were going to spook any time soon. Still, if that did happen...it could a be a problem, and even he can see that.

For now, though, it seems best to keep going the way they were before, just with an eye out for trouble, and even though there's the tiniest of nods from him at the comment, his words are deliberately directed at Eirlys, to make it seem like the nod is in response to that rather than anything else.

"Aye, we'll have to unharness them from the cart at any rate. We'll not be able to move it with them still attached. I can give you a hand with that first, if you like."

[glandival]

"Quickly."

This from Sabine, who has climbed up onto the second wagon for a better vantage point. She glances to Charani, more out of acknowledgement than anything else, then joins in with the scoping out the perimeter. Her bow is in her hand, but her arrows remain in their quiver. Not quite prepared to be visibly ready.

Still. The next toss of her hair is a restless twitch, thumb itching along the edge of her bow as she watches them talk and strategise. "Whatever's to be done, it should be done quickly."

[visus]

Quickly won't be quick enough. But first:

"Mine will not startle," Charani says serenely from her perch. "They have seen worse than an alley. It is Brishan's you should worry about."

"They are the best horses in Halamshiral," Brishan protests, out of loyalty, "other than--" Those in the war. Anyway, his loyalty loses to honesty. "Yes. It is mine you should worry about." He's still near the front, as if sizing up the passageway long enough might make it wider, and one of his two horses twitches and shifts and snorts beside him.

From the rear, where she's standing aside her broken cart without further investigation, happily leaving that to Ciri, and smiling broadly at the largest shemlen, Lela says, "It is not far to a cartwright. Two turns. I can tell you the way." She leans to one side and tilts her head to look around him--at Eirlys first, a searching attempt for eye contact, and then at the friendlier boy. "He is not as good as our Lemet was, but he is a bit less murdered. I could tell you the way."

[ancarrow]

Eirlys hesitates a moment, then begins to unharness the nearest horse, which seems quiet and quiescent at least for the moment. She wonders if she'd be able to jump on its back if trouble started, pull another up behind her and ride out for help. Judging by how narrow the passageway is, the obstacles of the other carts, and the familiarity their guides have with these horses, she very much doubts it.

"That's a kind offer," she says stiffly, a little nervously, "But I think that perhaps the Inquisition carpenters ought fix it up."

Even if it's further back to their encampment, at least something here would be on their terms.

[wontforgetyou]

Jamie moves to Eirlys's side, opting to steady the other horse just in case something happens to spook one or both of them. Worst case scenario, if something does happen, maybe he'll be able to prevent the situation from turning into something worse.

For now, he keeps quiet about going to fetch the local cartwright, mostly to give a chance for the others to interject with anything they might have to say on the matter. It's entirely possible that Martel still has something up his sleeve (so to speak), and overall it seems best to at least make sure the horses are unharnessed and get the cart out of the alley so the others aren't sitting there waiting any longer than they needed to - but he finds he can't quite keep quite about Lemet's fate, even if he does keep his movements to a minimum so as not to startle the horses.

"Murdered?" The way he says it, it sounds very like he's added in a good three or four extra 'r's', stretching out the word and making it much longer than it has any right being. "What happened?"