WHO: Miriam & Vanya; Miriam & Joselyn WHAT: Workin' 9 to 5 WHEN: Now WHERE: Somewhere in the Free Marches; The Crossroads NOTES: catch-all; starters in comments. will note cw's in subject lines if necessary.
"Of course." Presumably not of course given that she asked, but even so he takes the back and heaves it up. (He's tall enough the heave needn't be violent, at least.) He looks back, though he doesn't reach for the staff unless and until she offers it. He certainly knows better than to make a sudden move for a mage's staff under any circumstances, and that instinct is notably harder to give up than the rank was.
Up goes the pack and around comes the line of Orlov's attention. She tells herself she won't hesitate when it does and then is angry at herself when the joint of her arm sticks, almost involuntary but not quite enough to convince herself it isn't a trained thing.
She forces her elbow to extend, offering the hammer ended staff out to him. She doesn't both with further instruction like Gently, or Mind you don't clatter it around against anything. For one, it doesn't much matter. It's made of rather stern stuff. For two, that would require she may much particular mind to the whole matter and Miriam has already decided she's ignoring it in favor of clambering up into the front of the wagon.
She's pointedly not looking, but she can hear the absence of a clatter as he lays it in the wagon with the businesslike attention he'd have given any other well-made weapon. Once it's secured, along with his own gear, he comes around to take point, ready to grab the mules' bridles if they resist Miriam's direction. "I'm ready when you are," he says; he's mainly trying to focus on the immediate problem solving and not how much he's ready to be somewhere they can clean up and rest properly. They'll arrive when they arrive.
With a rein in each hand (for soon she suspects there will be little difference between her good side and bad side, as being jostled in the front of a wagon for the remaining duration of the trip is likely to turn the whole of her into a walking bruise), Miriam counts for his benefit:
"Three, two, one, walk on you bastards," and cracks the reins encouragingly across the mules' backs.
Happily, no mule stays spooked for long and it seems the pair of them have quite recovered from their ordeal even if their would-be masters haven't. The team bends amenably to the guidance of the reins, and to the encouragement of Vanya's hand, and while extricating both team and wagon from the stand of trees is an operation of five steps forward, two back, three right, five more forward, now ten back-- and so on, both animals are at least not the issue.
When the wagon is at last on even ground and more or less pointed in the direction of returning to the road without obstruction, Miriam wraps the reins around the hook at the wagon's footboard and considers what remains of their predicament.
"If your leg will bear helping me down again, I'll go poking around in those trees and see if there's any elf root to be found."
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She forces her elbow to extend, offering the hammer ended staff out to him. She doesn't both with further instruction like Gently, or Mind you don't clatter it around against anything. For one, it doesn't much matter. It's made of rather stern stuff. For two, that would require she may much particular mind to the whole matter and Miriam has already decided she's ignoring it in favor of clambering up into the front of the wagon.
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"Three, two, one, walk on you bastards," and cracks the reins encouragingly across the mules' backs.
Happily, no mule stays spooked for long and it seems the pair of them have quite recovered from their ordeal even if their would-be masters haven't. The team bends amenably to the guidance of the reins, and to the encouragement of Vanya's hand, and while extricating both team and wagon from the stand of trees is an operation of five steps forward, two back, three right, five more forward, now ten back-- and so on, both animals are at least not the issue.
When the wagon is at last on even ground and more or less pointed in the direction of returning to the road without obstruction, Miriam wraps the reins around the hook at the wagon's footboard and considers what remains of their predicament.
"If your leg will bear helping me down again, I'll go poking around in those trees and see if there's any elf root to be found."