GET YOUR TOWELS READY [Closed]

[mikney]

Who: Mikney, Cordy, Cherry, Sonic, other NPCs
What: Team explorer'ing
Where: South road, outside Redinn
When: Thursday afternoon

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[cherry_reyer]

Silently, Cherry followed after Tamber, taking vague interest in her surroundings. There was still enough time before sunset, she convinced herself half-heartedly. Distantly, she wondered if she should mention her little curse to Tamber, but decided it could wait for awhile. She was getting a little sick of explaining it all and, to be perfectly frank, she had not told the full, entire story to anyone. Yet. But somehow, she knew that would come in time.

Inside of the dark room, she blinked, allowing her eyes to adjust. Once she could see her charge, she couldn't help but feel overwhelmed. A poisoned arrow? How in the name of Din was a cacao bean supposed to fix that? 'This is completely crazy,' she told herself. Nevertheless, there she was, walking over to the wounded woman and kneeling down on the floor. She rolled the bean between her fingers. 'Draw out the poison?' she thought. And as the words echoed through her mind, she noticed an odd smell. It smelled like chocolate. She looked at her pathetic, little cacao bean. Was it just her imagination, or was it warmer than before?

[rowantree_npcs]

The hint of magic tingled in the air; Tamber's hand brushed against the tip of his ear, rubbing against the electric feel within it.

He sensed her nervousness. A scout was trained to read body language, almost as in-depth as a member of the Family. "I ask nothing more than that you try," he said. "She may be beyond saving."

He knelt, beside her form. "I didn't even have time to learn her name."

[cherry_reyer]

Cherry looked up at Tamber, her warm brown eyes wide with sincerity. Slowly, she gave him a nod, one she hoped might offer some form of comfort. And camaraderie. Somehow, they had become comrades in arms, although Cherry still felt fairly certain his faith in her abilities was misplaced.

"Right," she muttered.

She didn't know what to do and so she did what she considered, quite possibly, the dumbest possible thing. She touched the cacao bean to the woman's wound. Closing her eyes, she silently started chanting a single mantra. 'Draw out the poison, draw out the poison, draw out the poison...'

[rowantree_npcs]

Tamber gave a wan smile, at the show of comfort. At twenty-three years old, he wasn't even a true adult, by Elf standards - and yet, he had taken on the responsibilities and duties of a full Scout. Perhaps too early in his life.

He watched as the cacao bean hardened and blackened in Cherry's hand, and his eyes widened - he had never seen witchcraft, not up close.

And then there was a sort of 'pop', and the cacao bean broke. The wound still did not look precisely right, but some color was restored to the skin around it...

Tamber touched the Elf woman's forehead, smoothing her hair from her face. It was a hint warmer.

"I hope she can survive until help arrives," he said, softly.

[cherry_reyer]

Gasping, Cherry dropped the bean, watching its remains crumble on the floor beside her knee. What had she done? She turned to look at the elf woman. Hardly about to get up and go skipping about, she determined, but there seemed to be something...something there that hadn't been there when Cherry first arrived.

She looked up at Tamber, the shock quite evident on her face. There were a million questions tumbling about in her mind, but she didn't know how to ask them. At least, not without sounding like a total idiot. "Help?" she repeated pathetically.

[rowantree_npcs]

"Elves," explained Tamber, "from Birdsong."

She wasn't all right. There was shock in her.

He reached forward, and touched her shoulder. He hadn't heard the details - the Family was very secretive - but that Mikney was traveling with humans, two humans and a - creature, of some kind, only meant that the Rowan Tree was, in fact, open.

"You're new to this world, are you not?" he asked.

[cherry_reyer]

She laughed. There was no mirth, no humor to the laugh. It was more a release. She had been holding so much, Cherry knew she had to let some of it go or else she'd explode. Not physically, of course. Metaphorically. But it was just as bad, in some ways, although not as messy.

"Yeah," she said, running a hand through her wavy brown hair. "You could say that." It should have been obvious enough. She was practically wearing a sign. "I've never healed anyone before. Ever."

[rowantree_npcs]

"You did very well, then," admitted Tamber. He spilled some water on a cloth - cleanest cloth he could find - and dabbed it over the arrow wound, again. Seemed that that was all he'd been doing in the day since the attack.

He closed his eyes, briefly, remembering the battle. The Elf army, broken in three, fleeing.

Elf warrior didn't run. Didn't surrender.

But they did this time.

"You're going to be our allies, aren't you?" he asked, and there was a tinge of helpless hope in his voice. "You're going to help us?"

[cherry_reyer]

"You know," Cherry told him, "I have to admit, I still don't understand everything that's going on." She said it with a hint of apology in her voice. Doubtlessly, Tamber was looking for a more enthusiastic recruit, but Cherry had never been much of a fighter. She had causes, no doubt, but to join up in a war effort...that was a little bit beyond her experiences.

She dug into her pocket, taking out her piece of hematite. The wounded woman would need it more than she did anyway. "For fortitude," she muttered, pressing it into the woman's hand.

"Maybe," she continued, turning her attention back to Tamber, "You could explain it better?"

[rowantree_npcs]

Tamber settled back, kneeling, his legs tucked beneath him. "Explain what?" he asked. He wasn't familiar with the Family's orders on the matter, and was hesitant to speak without greater clarification. "The war?"

[cherry_reyer]

"Yeah. That. The war." What else could she possibly be talking about? Well...the tree, she supposed. But that was something she'd prefer to discuss with Mikney. At least he was a somewhat known entity. Now was the time to expand.

"Tell me about the war," she said, sitting on the ground, her skirt bunching up around her ankles. "Start at the beginning. Who, precisely, is it between and how did it start?" Foolishly, she hoped it was romantic somehow. A lover's spat? Some extreme love triangle? Probably not...Erik would have loved that though.

[rowantree_npcs]

Tamber frowned. "Rowan is a land with borders," he said. "In such a place, with several types of sentient species, there is little wonder that various tensions generate a constant conflict over key resources, such as fresh water and fertile fields."

It was a little bit of a cop-out, Tamber knew.

"There wasn't truly a beginning," said Tamber. "It has been waged longer than recorded history."

[cherry_reyer]

"I see," Cherry said tightly. This was a delicate situation. She had to handle it delicately. Smeggity smeg. Time to put her flirt on. She had picked up a trick or two from Cordelia. Not that she had ever had much trouble when she turned the charm on. Boys and girls were always drawn in by her personality. Not her looks, admittedly. She was no classical beauty. Cherry just knew how to project her energies, a trick she had gotten from the old theatre. From Erik.

Cherry smiled warmly. "You know, you say several types of sentient species, but aside from the people kidnapped by the tree, all I've seen are your people. What else is there?"

[rowantree_npcs]

Tamber gave her an odd look. "Would you like a geopolitical treatise while you're at it?" he asked, his tone cold. "I don't appreciate being worked for information."

He settled back. "And anyhow, you could save your interrogation techniques for a piece of information that would do you good. Besides the main species, there are the types of nymphs, mermaids, centaurs, goblins - sylphs, of course, dwarves. Trolls, if you count trolls as sentient."

[cherry_reyer]

Cherry lofted her eyebrows. Interrogation techniques? That was an awfully unfriendly comment from someone she had just helped. "It seems," she said tightly, "that at the moment, any information would do me good as I know nothing." After being kidnapped, kept in the dark, and sorely abused not just by strangers, but by her own friends, Cherry wanted to bite, but she held back, turning to look at the angle of the sun to keep the fire out of her eyes. And the gloss of frustration.

She stood up, wiping her hands carelessly on her skirt. "I hope your friend recovers," she said, casting a quick glance down at the poor woman with the shoulder wound.

[rowantree_npcs]

"I did tell you," said Tamber, his brows knitting. "There's no use taking offense. I was merely remarking on what you were, in fact, trying to do."