CHAPTER 1.13 - THE WOMAN OF THE WOODS: III
Hugo sits in silence, weighing the dryad’s words. The others seem to be doing similar. Thae is the first to break the silence. “Do you think Thaesurala is evil?” It’s hard to read Anuk’s face, her ever-present scowl obfuscating whatever she’s thinking. Hugo can feel his own uncertainty, sees the same doubt in Rian’s eyes. He offers, lamely “Do you mean about Wiln?” Thae nods, then Rian surprises them both, the man’s rumbling voice slow as though arranging his words into a line.
“Don’t know. Don’t think so. She’s a wild thing. Nature hates waste.” Hugo catches his own surprised look, sees something similar in Thae’s expression. Rian, for his part, lapses into embarrassed silence. Again, Hugo finds himself amused. The man is big, scarily so, and Hugo’s certain people routinely mistake his bulk for evidence of stupidity. “We shouldn’t…” Hugo tails off as the dryad approaches her empty stool, cupping Three in her hand. The red squirrel’s gazing up at the woman, her foliage now glowing with resplendent autumnal colours. She leans over, still unbedded baby gazing seriously at the tiny creature scampering down onto the woven wood surface. The squirrel resumes his adoring gaze up at the dryad’s face as she opens her hand and a patter of seeds and nuts drop from the empty palm. After a few seconds, the creature is surrounded by a small pile of treats. Still standing on its back legs, Three gives out a light squeak and does a delighted little dance, before allowing himself to drop onto his back. The tiny creature’s lying in the pile as though about to make a seed angel. Thaesurala rewards this with a warm chuckle.
Hugo murmurs, voice conversational “I once knew a barmaid from town; pretty thing with her eyes oh so brown; she would still fill my cup; when the inn was closed up; raised my spirits when she took her drawers down.” In his peripheral vision, he is aware of Thae and Rian’s puzzled looks, Anuk’s furious glare, but he’s busy scanning the woman of the woods. She looks to him with a gentle smile, but he can’t spy any comprehension. She gives them a little bow, before wandering back towards her son’s cradle to put the baby down. The huge Night is nowhere to be found, but Hugo reckons the brightness of the day might explain this.
He looks, primarily to Anuk, says soothingly “I just wanted to be sure that our hostess doesn’t understand the Common tongue.” Sees the girl’s expression souring still. “I was aiming for something she’d have a reaction to…forgive my impropriety.” The pale half-elf looks somewhat mollified at this, but her voice remains loaded with irritated suspicion. “Her story gives me the creeps.” Anuk purses her lips. “Some…guy…just appears. He’s beaten and cut half to death – not a great sign itself – and what? She nurses him to health, he uses her, knocks her up, and then…what? Off he fucks?” She looks like she could spit. Hugo senses he might be the worst person to approach this topic, is relieved when Thae pipes up. “We do not know, really, how these things worked. Are we certain that this man was not…” Thae’s hands circle vaguely, and Hugo is reminded of the dryad’s ensorcellment of Wiln, almost of themselves. Anuk switches topics as though nothing was said, grimly hissing “Look at…his child, that beast that he left with her.” Everyone lapses into silence. “IN her” she adds with a shiver.
Hugo pulls the dagger from its sheath, having checked Thaesurala is distracted, kneeling as she is in front of her son’s bower. Looks at the unnatural metal, holds it up for the group to see. “Anyone seen something like this before?” Thae’s head shakes, Anuk gives the slightest indication of the same. Rian extends his hand towards the item, Hugo happy to pass it to him. As the big man weighs and examines the blade, Hugo opens the small pouch. Inside, he finds around fifty flat hexagonal slivers of similarly dark metal. He pours some out into his palm, feeling a similar chill from these as from the dagger. The tokens are reminiscent of coins, albeit extremely plain, unadorned. Primitive, even. Hugo holds his hand out, letting his comrades see, then places the metal slivers on top of the pouch at the foot of his stump-seat. Rian hands the blade back, wordlessly shaking his head. As he stoops to place this beside the pouch, Hugo casually says “You mind if I take a look at that monocle, big guy?” He studiously focuses on his activity but keeps Rian in his peripheral vision. He can see the conflict on the man’s face, before his hands go to his belt pouch. At this, Hugo looks up happily “I promise to be careful with it. It’s just that I have a way to find out more about things like this.” Rian nods, stretches forward to place the gold loop between the dagger and the pile of ‘coins’.
Anuk seems ready to begin a fresh tirade, but Hugo intercedes before she speaks. “Seems to me like we have a lot of unknowns here. We don’t appear to be in danger for now, so let’s try to take things one piece at a time.” The woman looks at him flatly, nods after a cold moment. He offers her a tight smile. “First things first: Our…hostess.” He looks around the others, eyebrows raised. They take his implication: don’t use her name unless they want her attention. Thae fills in “If she had meant us ill, she could have murdered us in our sleep. And for all that her story of Nobody does not seem…fully healthy…she did tend to him, after all.” Thae looks slightly embarrassed, quickly adds “His…his wounds, that is.” Hugo waits for any response from Rian, or an outburst from Anuk, but neither presents itself.
“I’m inclined to agree. I wonder about ‘the Mother’. Sometimes it strikes me that she might be talking about Gaea or similar, or sometimes a goddess…?” Rian in particular looks confused, mutters “I thought Gaea was a goddess.” Hugo is about to speak when Thae responds to the woodsman. “Gaea, or Gaia, is generally thought of as a Primordial.” Rian’s confusion deepens, but the half-elf continues “They are less…human…than gods. Better thought of as forces of nature with just a little bit of personality and intelligence sprinkled on top. And now that I say it, it does make me think that Th…our friend over there did just see…the bandit…as an evil man who offered nothing but harm to the world.” His friend’s gaze seems to stare through the disturbed ground. “But she seems to have seen something redeemable in..” Thae gestures to the jet black dagger. Anuk snorts, but her thoughts remain her own.
“It strikes me that maybe this man came here from somewhere else.” Hugo offers. “She spoke about him as though he just appeared. So maybe the blade, the dog…?” He suppresses a shiver of his own. Thae’s head whips up, mouth dropping slightly open: “Oh! You already said dryads are sort of between worlds. I have not thought about this in…” Everyone observes as the cleric looks up, obviously searching. “There is a vow that we make as Acolytes to my order. Part of the wording always confused me – ‘to protect from the fey and the fel’. I…made a bit of a nuisance of myself, when I was younger. Finally, one of the older priests gave me a very dry lecture. Mostly about faith, but I did focus on one particular part of it. They spoke about the places where the Gods live.” Anuk’s staring at Thae, her face suffused with focus, but Hugo is certain his friend doesn’t notice. “…but also other places…demi-planes?”
Rian gives a confused “Hmm?” Thae smiles at the big man, warming to the topic. “Plane of existence. It is very technical, but the demi-planes…I am not certain I am using the correct term, forgive me…those are like reflections of our world, but…different.” Anuk, who has been nodding through this, adds “The fae – the fairy folk – come from a place where everything, nature, colour even, is intensified. Words have power and can be traps, everything mundane has a touch of magic. That sort of thing.”
Thae grins, nods. “Well, the priest said that the…opposite mirror…exists. A place where darkness is all they know. It is believed that that is the source of undeath.” Hugo and Thae share a look, remembering the corpse in the tunnel. Hugo ponders, says “That would really fuck your head up. Gods, imagine landing in a forest – imagine landing in this forest – from there?” Rian blurts “The trees! In my vision. White trees, bleeding black." Even Anuk seems to soften, whispers “Imagine watching the sun rise after that.” She shudders. They all do.
“Okay.” Hugo looks briefly to Three, munching away at his seeds. The little guy is obviously ecstatic, seems overcome with the breadth of his choice of repast. Hugo smiles. “Well, Rian’s monocle brought us here. If you all don’t mind, I’m going to take some time to examine these.” He gestures to the items in front of him. Anuk stands, stretches. “Is there more of that coffee?” Rian’s attention is already turning towards his pack, but Thae smiles brightly, stands up. “We might still have enough for a cup each, Anuk. May I?” The woman looks quizzically at the armoured figure, before a genuine smile stretches her lips. She gives a muted bow, speaking overly formally “Do, please, lead me to it.”
Hugo is aware of them leaving, dimly so of Rian turning on his seat to watch them as his back turns to the halfling. He has retrieved something from his pack, is hunching over it, but Hugo’s mind is already opening to feel the threads of magic, arranging his thoughts to exclude the sunlight, the clearing, everything but the items about which he intends to learn more.
-x-
Time seems to resume; Hugo feels the tension in his back as he emerges from the trance state. Well now, that’s interesting. He stretches a little, looks over to his squirrel companion curled up at the heart of a somewhat reduced pile of seeds. As he drives a knuckle into his spine, he is aware of Rian’s eyes on him. The man has turned back to face him, having apparently watched over him for some time. He offers the big guy a bright smile, gratefully accepts his proffered waterskin before sucking greedily at the contents. The man accepts the heavy pouch back, then surprises Hugo by offering another item, a wary smile between pursed lips twitching his beard and moustache. “It’s not much, but it’ll do you for now” the wild man mutters. Hugo detects some embarrassment in his tone.
Hugo’s gobsmacked as he accepts a simple sling bag covered in soft grey fur. The thing has some weight to it, and inside he finds the waterskin Rian had previously gifted him. “Rian! It’s beautiful…” he begins, admiring the tidy stitching around the mouth of the bag. The big man’s smile broadens, his face reddening. He seems compelled to explain. “I told you about the wolf, right? The thing was so wounded there wasn’t enough pelt to do much more than this.” Hugo fixes the man with disbelief. “I mean, it! This is beautiful.” He pauses, at once hit with the generosity of the gift and Rian’s attempt to diminish the same. He’s certain he can see the big man’s face glowing under his matted facial hair. “I shall treasure this, Rian. I mean it.”
The shy man’s eyes shift to the little array of items. Hugo didn’t even touch them during his ritual, but Rian apparently wants to shift away from the halfling’s praise. “Did…did you find anything out?” Hugo stands to his full 3’3”, stretches his knotted back. He can see that Thae and Anuk are sitting cross-legged with Thaesurala, although their conversation seems to be tying up. He nods towards them “Let’s give them a minute and reconvene, shall we?”
Rian nods, although Hugo’s certain that the big man’s eyes keep being drawn back to the band of gold on the clearing floor. Wonders if he’s testing the woodsman’s patience.
