#troupe1.theroadsofar

[hiddenvaldis]

who? @agrcn where? Caribellan streets when? during the road so far drop

“You don’t look like the usual sort,” Valdís muses as she falls into step next to the armored man. The armor is a good make, solid craftsmanship. Worth a pretty penny in the market, but easily recognizable too. Probably a heirloom or important enough that jumping the stranger for it would be too much of a hassle in the long term. That, and it’s really not worth getting into trouble in Caribella. The man is clearly not a pirate, the armor is too heavy and fancy for most raiders to take out in open sea and risk rusting, and he is altogether too clean for someone who calls the port home. “Lookin’ for a bounty or for passage? Or somethin’ more interesting?”

[temperednuvi]

“And yet here you are,” Shenuvun points out, her brow raised pointedly as she speaks. For all the warrior seems to be insistent in putting himself down and dismissing himself due to his apparent age, there is no denying that he had been a force to reckon with within the battlefield and she would not be forgetting that anytime soon. Someone who only cared for profit would have likely long have moved on to guarding merchants, and yet, here he is with the refugee group and without a merchant to guard. It was telling, but she couldn’t pinpoint of what it was telling. The conversation with the Princess comes to mind, and she wonders if she had truly allowed her social skills to fall to the wayside or if this was a result of her time in the minds. Perhaps it was both.

“I would love to say yes,” she admits with a grim smile, before shaking her head. It had been one of the first things she had tried, once things had calmed down and she had been able to, but it had been impossible to open a door beyond the barrier shimmering above them. “Unfortunately, it seems that we are stuck on this side until the Lysaran figure out what to do.”

She had a point when speaking of a regular person, but there was a difference when one was a part of his Guild, after all, it was an association for people who didn't value their own lives and other stupid brutes such as himself, when you thought about it. "People in my line of work rarely live too long, some of us are too stubborn to know when to retire... Me? I've been thinking of retiring since before I became a member of the Warrior's Guild, but money has a bigger say on this..." It was somewhat true, but there was more to the job than the simplicity of coins, although he knew most of the warriors cared more about that than the good they were doing.

Alder would remember her name, she seemed like the type to do great things in the future, he was sure of that, and that was something he was rarely wrong about. "Nuvi it is." He smiled towards her, satisfied with having met so many interesting people during this predicament. "So, Nuvi, that thing you did back then..." He spoke about the door she created to get them there. "I don't suppose you could use it to get us to the other side of the barrier, right?"

[hiddenvaldis]

who? @shewolfaurea where? Hole in the Wall, Feronia when? During the road so far drop

Rarely does Valdís venture as far inland as Feronia, the region too far from the ocean she is familiar with to be comfortable. There is no denying the temptation to explore the Northern coast of the Wildlands, but her fleet has yet to reach that far. It’s a rarity for Valdís to take a Standing Stone deeper into Lysara, but she can’t help the curiosity. She knows the refugees and their welcoming party gather at the edges of the odd magical bubble, and she wants to know more. Not enough to venture too close to the barrier, though, not when she is sure there are plenty of eyes on them. Instead, she finds herself in Feronia’s pub, sitting at the corner of the bar as her eyes lazily flicker through the crowds, trying to gather anything of note. Deep in her musings as she is, she doesn’t react much when a pretty stranger sits next to her, only raising a brow in amusement at the entrance. 

“Let me guess, you saw me across the room and liked my vibes?” She asks, an amused smirk on her lips as she raises her ale to her lips. “Or did I fail a vibecheck, and now we are honor bound to duke it out?

[hiddenvaldis]

"A passing fancy is different from interest, specially in these parts. Interest is currency, and the other? Well, as useless as a flower in the middle of a storm," Valdís says with a shrug, peering over her shoulder and nodding to one of her passing crew before turning back to the stranger. Despite her self-admitted lack of interest, there is no denying there is amusement swelling on her chest as she takes in the tight cant of his shoulders and the tighter grip in his sword. She is almost tempted to provoke him further, if only because it would be hilarious to see the end result of an outside breaking the law of unity within the island, but the whole thing would be too tiring. Like Elokian had said, Caribella is where they can be themselves without the anger and violence of the waves, and spiteful amusements would not benefit her here. "Oh? You certainly have big britches for someone walking among criminals but that is clearly not one of the sort. Please, do enlighten me then. What else is beyond the shiny facade?"

"Your desire to follow me tells me the exact opposite. If you weren't interested in my presence, then you wouldn't bother with this whole performance." His hand was firmly planted on the hilt of his sword as per usual and he had every desire to let this woman know that he was not afraid of using it. He didn't particularly care who she was. Not that Agron needed someone to be high profile or low profile for him to pay attention to them. If someone caught his attention, it was as simple as that. This one did not catch his attention regardless of if she was someone important or not. "Mm, you don't know where I come from. Your lack of understanding is, well, understandable. I'll let it slide this time though."

[temperednuvi]

“I am sure you exaggerate,” Nuvi says with a little snort of amusement escaping her lips as she eyes the warrior thoughtfully. The Weave is telling her to pay close attention, but she has been cut off from it for so long that she doesn’t know why. It’s likely that it only wants her to pay attention to the warrior to remember him in case she needs to hire a bodyguard in the future, though, so she waves the curiosity away and focuses on the conversation at hand. “Even in mortal years, I would say you have a considerable amount to live. Do not let something as insignificant as age stop you, not when you are quite clearly very skilled.” 

Carefully, she tucks his name into a corner of her mind, and resolves to try and find out if the Warrior’s Guild has a list of Blademasters. It seems unbecoming to ask him to tell her how he got his heron after he saved her, but she can’t help being curious about it. Luckily, she has always been a good researcher. 

“Shenuvun, but you may call me Nuvi,” she offers, extending her hand for a handshake. "It's a pleasure."

Alder didn't know exactly how old the High Elvhen in front of him was, but he supposed it didn't really matter for now since she must have been older than any human could be to say that. "You might be older than me in number, but the limits of our existances are quite different..." He replied with a small shrug. "While you must be in your golden years, I'm already past due." He laughed it off with a shake of his head, in fact, he was way over what humans could achieve by centuries at this point.

The blademaster shook his head at her apology. "Don't worry, I was just cleaning my blade." He explained, bringing his hand to rest on the hilt of his sword with a light pat at it. "I'm Tek." He introduced himself, although that would probably change in the future. There was no real explanation for that except for the fact that Freydis had given him another name he still wondered if he should use. "How about you?"

[hiddenvaldis]

Two plus two equals four, and there is only one alpha worth mentioning in Lysara. Figuring out the identity of the stranger means little, though, when Valdís has no possible idea as to why the Queen would seek her out while she is traveling incognito. Any other woman, any other place, the utterance of her name would result on drawn arms and a brawl, at the very least, but as annoyed as she is at having the anonymity she had been using ripped from her, she is far from stupid enough to start a fight with an Alpha on her own turf. 

“Congratulations on recognizing me, should I expect some of your guards when I leave? Perhaps a nice and tidy invitation to stay in your welcoming cells?” It’s a lazy set of questions, spilled from her lips as she drinks from her ale, but the carelessness of the motion is undermined by the sharp look on the Captain’s eyes as she meets the Queen’s. She hadn’t visited Haven to start a fight, but if the new Queen wanted to capture herself a pirate to gain recognition, then she wouldn’t mind fighting her way out. “But you are right, I wouldn’t look for a fight with an Alpha if it doesn’t benefit me. Why go through the trouble?”

It's places like this that she thinks she should probably be wearing a cloak or something to disguise herself. But Althea had pointed out time and time again that she's a queen and she tries to take it to heart. In the sense that she can do what she wants, not that she should be doing what a queen should do. So when eyes follow her as she makes her way through the tavern to the bar, she's not surprised in the slightest. "I know who you are, Valdis." The woman, the pirate, Aurea had sniffed around Caribella and the Tiber Bay enough to have an idea now about who was who when it came to ships. And smugglers, and those that worked in the underbelly of Lysara that are of good use. "And I'd like to think you wouldn't 'duke it out' with the alpha. But I haven't had a good fight since Ulric." The smile that spreads across her lips is almost sly as she sits down.

[hiddenvaldis]

A bark of laughter leaves her lips as she gives him another slow and measured look.

“Please, you are not the sort to hold my interest long enough for me to make any offer,” she tells him, disdain evident as her eyes flicker to the shiny armor and the shinier heron-marked blade. All prim and proper, she wouldn’t be surprised the stick up his ass is polished enough to shine too. All the more strange to see such a man striding confidently through Caribella, when his sort usually preferred to skulk about and avoid recognition. Something something, trying to avoid being seen mingling with the worst of society. “It’s just an odd sight to see one of you fancy idiots around here and not seeking to hit rock bottom.” 

There were only two reasons he ever stopped within Caribella. One was for Queen Arethusa and the other was for Nari. This woman that had decided to come speak to him as he was on his way to the bar was neither. Brows furrowed as he gave her a sideways glance, still moving in the direction of his destination. Not the usual sort was something anyone without eyes could have figured out. He was the Queensguard and, honestly, the fact that this woman didn't know him felt like some sort of slight he could not ignore. Was the heron-marked blade not enough? Apparently the armor wasn't either. When it seemed like she would not stop walking with him, he halted. "I'm not interested in whatever you are trying to offer here."

[temperednuvi]

The ruins they have encountered are fascinating, and she finds herself wandering across them with wide eyes. For the first time since the mines, she feels a sense of peace she had thought forgotten. Nuvi knows she is still not out of danger, but for now, she can set that aside on her wonder. In her wonder, she doesn’t notice where she her feet are leading her until she crosses paths with one of the warriors that had gone to rescue them. A blademaster, if she correctly recalls. 

She laughs quietly at the joke, eyeing the man critically. 

“If you are an old man, what would that make me?” she muses with a soft smile before shaking her head in amusement. “My apologies for the distraction, I was captivated by the ruins and I didn’t realize I interrupted your training,” she apologizes quietly, eyes falling to the heron mark and upward, in consideration. “I must admit, I never caught her name.”

Location: The Lostlands.

Time: Morning.

Closed: @temperednuvi.

Alder had come back to more unwanted duties that he could easily transfer to others within the Guild but chose to fulfill himself in order to avoid thinking about everything that had gone through over the time they'd been traveling and finding problems one after another. It was work that he chose to keep his mind busy, but deep inside he worried for those who'd come back with him and his group to the larger troupe.

He'd been thinking about the portal that brought them back when his gaze fell upon that of the girl who'd summoned it. "Oh, hello..." He offered her a smile filled with hospitality. "If it's not the one who saved an old man from having an aching back for the rest of our trip." He joked, sheathing his sword, the one with the heron-mark of his own merit. "What can I do for you?"