The start of a bad joke

[Morgan the 7th]

51st of Summer, 515.
Equipment (in case of battle):
3 Halfspears, 1 in her right hand and used as a sort of walking stick, 2 tucked into her left elbow.
Cloths (shirt, pants, tall boots, Very Old Jacket)


The wind screamed in her ears. You wouldn't be surprised, I hope, if I said it's always windy in Wind Reach. Morgan was stomping her way down the path down the mountain peak, and into the steppe and foothilles. She was on one of her favorite paths, and just about in her favorite place along it. Here, she could see for miles and miles into the mountains, over the tops of the hardy pines and such, which started a sight lower than her. There was a beauty to this place, a terrible beauty. The spires of far mountains clawing at the sky, the green of pine needles being one of the most striking colors, and yet there was the stern greys of the far mountain ranges, laced with white snow, and the clearest blue skies, past were clouds couldn't reach. Even if she didn't know where the hell her parents were, she'd always say that Wind Reach was where she was born.

The crisp smell of snow, tingling in he nose, brought her back to reality. She had spaced out, as she frequently did, not that it mattered at this stretch of the path, where she was still in sight of the Peak. As she continued down the path, she remembered why it was also her least favorite path. That is to say, her least favorite path is always the path she's currently walking on.

Wind Reach, being the home of Eagle Riders and such, has some of the worst kept, most insulting, unsafe roads in the whole of Kalea, with stones at nearly right angles to one another, with crevices that filled with water, now frozen, that in one swift motion, splits the stones even more drastically, and makes the road slick and, like the rest of Kalea, totally unforgiving.

Her horse, Morgan the 8th, followed close behind her, picking his hoof-falls much more carefully than Morgan 7 would ever have done. He snorted, whined, and whinneyed, complaining endlessly about the situation, and Morgan 7 gave him exactly 0 percent of her mind. The trees would start soon, she'd think, and that means we start hunting. Her stomach was churning, not because of hunger, but from nerves. Hunting was hard. She was never good at it. But, well, it was practice, and it paid the bills.

Not that she paid taxes.

[Seren Coolwater]

Seren Coolwater lay on her back in her tent. The wind was howling outside, making a deep concentration difficult. Her sword sat in its scabbard next to her, ever ready to be unsheathed and swung at a moments notice. You could never be too sure in these parts of the world.

Of course, all these thoughts had barely registered in the focused mind of Seren. "Nothing is the space between the snowflakes, the grain of sand among the ice." This was the phrase meant to unlock some sort of innate Voiding power-- though it had done no such thing in Seren's body. She had been turning the phrase over in her mind for years now, becoming more of a silly bunch of sounds garbled together. She had considered the physical properties of these things, everything down to the statistical likelihood of a grain of sand amongst a frozen wasteland of ice; that is to say, nothing. Practically speaking, of course.

Seren supposed she looked a bit odd, but in this semi-wilderness, it didn't really matter. Her baggy clothes hung about her body. She had taken several hours of the morning inking focus runes all over her arms, legs, and even one right in the center of her forehead. Her frequent washing habits would wash all but the most resilient off of her body. And they'd be covered anyway, save for the forehead one, but she had already rubbed that one pretty vigorously.

Shaking herself, the Icemaiden (at this point, a title of pride for her) refocused her thoughts on the phrase that meant nothing. Figuratively, AND literally! She repeated it over and over again, looking for some pattern in the words, knowing she wouldn't find one. This phrase had been the center of her thoughts many, many times in the past, and nothing had come of it. Or rather, nothing hadn't come of it.

Of course, these past weeks had been more rigorous than ever. The first and largest part of her journey, she had focused on the more important aspects of staying alive and not starving. After "mastering" swordsmanship and fishing, she focused her efforts on her magical practices.

Finally, with some strange twist of the mind, she saw something in the phrase she had never seen before; she saw nothing in the phrase. No significance whatsoever, no annoyance, it just wasn't. And with that thought, a small, black spot appeared in front of her eyes, at which point, she abandoned any semblance of dignity and poise, yelling and screaming in excitement. To an outsider, it may have sounded something like a dying animal, or something to that effect. Seren's voice was quite loud, and it carried far.

Finally settling down, she focused once more, again applying that twist of the mind. This time, when the centimeter-wide black circle appeared again, she kept it there with what felt like an immense effort. She widened it to about the size of a small pebble, when something rustled outside her tent.

It seemed as though her excitement had been heard.

[Morgan the 7th]

Morgan had heard the noise, the shout of excitement, over the wind, but only through a concentrated effort. There was only once place it could be from, of course, that being the tent a few hundred yards down the path, nestled in a little crevice in the cliff.

As she neared it, a minute or two later, she wondered if she should check in on them. Far be it from her to up and introduce herself to strangers in the wild, but, she supposed to was easy to mistake excitement for impalement. Her stomach started flipping, harder even than before, and part of her worried it burn its way out, leaving a black, charred hole.

She hesitated, at the opening flap of the tent. Should I knock, she thought, before realizing how incredibly stupid that idea was. The tent was sturdy, of course it was, but especially sturdy, in the pattern of Kalean or a higher altitude Talderins might be. The horse looked like a mountain breed, and Morgan 8 was already trying to pull forward and meet them.

"Horses are social creatures..." She'd mutter, her boots clonking along in the frozen, stone path.

At the mouth of the tent, now, flapping as it did in the violent winds. Her hair barely contained in its bun, some strands already spasming in the wind, which she tried to tame, before stomping twice, as was customary in the area, and pushing aside a flap and peering in.

"Would you... Like to buy some maledictions, ma'am?"

[Seren Coolwater]

Not altogether unsurprised by the appearance of the girl, Seren had been concocting a story ever since she had heard the rustling. What did surprise her, however, was the girl's words.

"A, uh, a what? Malediction?" Recovering slightly from her surprise, she goes up to the girl and grabs her hand to shake, not waiting for consent. Putting on a slight Southern accent, she begins spinning her tale, uncomfortably aware of her strange appearance.

"Well, I'm not sure of any dictions, particularly of the male type, but I'm sure as all get out pleased to meet another traveler out here. I tell you what, I was just lying on my back, thinking about nothing in particular, when all of the sudden, this black hole thingy appears right in front of my face!

"Now as you can imagine, this spooked me quite a bit, but I'm no stranger to danger. What caused me to yell was that this black thing began spraying all kinds of ungodly substances at me! And in the strangest of patterns, too! I mean, just look at this!" Indicating the runes covering her body, Seren uses the flurry of movement to justify moving a bit closer to her sword. Just in case.

"At any rate, I'm fine now, I just need a wash, Morwen providing this ain't no poisonous substance. What can I help you with?"

She said this all rather quickly.

[Morgan the 7th]

"malediction is where I take a bone or something, and i-" The other woman cut her off. She was following the story, quite well she'd like to think, but as it went on, she felt more and more slighted. Here was a woman, obviously doing something arcane, lying about it, and putting on an accent which, having traveled most of the world, Morgan had never ever heard anything like.

In other words it was clearly a lie.

"Well," she said, mimicking the accent as best she could, "I do indeed think that y'all've already help't me. It sure is kindly t' see a fine young lady, and at that, a fine young Jugona lady, such as your-- and my-- selves." Jugona was utterly fictional, but of course Morgan wanted to see how far the girl would take this farse.

"Now, by all accounts, myself is a kindly young woman, looking for excitements and victuals. However, as the case may be, the world does not accept nicet'ies as paymen' for goods n services." She coughed into her elbow, this voice was hard to put on over her own aquired, rather varied and cosmopolitan voice. "Fah be it from me to solicit the unwarrented kindness. However, I do not suppose you would be interested, yet again, my lady, in perusing, purchasing, or ordering some maledictions?"

[Seren Coolwater]

"Now, I can't rightly say that I've even heard of Jugona, much less do I come from there; I come from up North, not too far from here." Seren figured she could hardly lie about her place of birth. She was, quite obviously, Vani; from the highlights in her black hair to her color changing eyes (which had been slowly going from a fearful red to a playful blue), there was nowhere else she could be from.

As to this young woman, she was quite obviously lying; but then again, so was Seren. However, Seren was going to continue to be cautious; she wasn't sure how accepted Voiding was. Glyphing was a useful practice, but Voiding could be more unwelcome among some.

"As it is, money's a bit-- to say the least-- tight at the moment. I was going to head into that town a few miles south of here-- Wind Reach-- and see if I couldn't get some, ah, victuals and work. I've somewhat of a useful craft, or at least, that's what I like to think."

She thought for a moment. The young woman didn't seem to mean any harm, even if she was lying (and badly at that), so was Seren, and going it alone in the Wilderness was a dangerous thing to do. Hopefully without getting noticed, she dropped the accent (which was a bit difficult to maintain), "Hey, if you want to travel into town with me, I'd certainly welcome the company. After I get some coins, I'll take a look at your wares. Who knows? They could be useful."

Seren was still completely unaware of what maledictions were, but there was no point in saying so. Once she got a look at the wares, she would know, and if they turn out to be highly valuable items, she could probably haggle this girl down.

[Morgan the 7th]

Just as the other young girl dropped her own fake accent, Morgan dropped hers. It had made her throat feel like she'd spent an hour in a dust factory.
"Well, I was somewhat planning on going out. To, uh, check my traps. Y'know, for animals. To maledict." She pointed out, indicating her several javelin-esque spears. "You're welcome to come along, if you'd like."

She thought about the other womans words. "Well, due to the nature of the work, I don't actually uh, necessarily, strictly speaking, technically, actually have any wares on me." She blushes a little, embarrassed, "I typically uh, work for order."

Looking around, inspecting the scattered detritus, understandable for someone living out of a tent. "Say, besides all that, come out here and tell us your name, if you don't mind." With that, she pulls her head out of the door-flaps, again, trying to wrestle her hair to look presentable. She fails.

[Seren Coolwater]

It was pretty obvious that the girl had noticed her drop her accent, because her own thick, almost absurd, accent disappeared as well. I guess the time for charades is over. Fair enough.

Rubbing off the remainder of the mark on her forehead, Seren followed the girl out of the tent, this time extending her hand (still covered in runes) genuinely. Now it was pretty obvious that she had been lying about how the glyphs had covered her body, and she was taking a risk in showing her glyphs. However, glyphing was pretty commonly accepted around Mizahar, and she wasn't too worried about it.

"That sounds like a great idea. I have to pack up my campsite first, though; I want to reach Wind Reach before Fall starts. Also, my name is Seren Coolwater; what's yours?"

As she waited for an answer, she re-entered the tent and began stuffing things into bags and sheathes and jars and what-have-you. A sword gets hooked on a belt, and ink jar gets capped and bagged, and a pen gets washed in a small cup of water.

[Morgan the 7th]

"Call me Morgan." She said, failing to take her hand the second time. She gestures towards the horse, "This is Morgan." Realizing how silly that was, in a deadpan she continues, "And these are Morgan, Morgan, and Morgan." holding out each of her spears in turn.

The tent was fairly large, it was a living tent after all, instead of a little exhibition tent. She decided it was probably a good idea to help out with the breaking down of the tent. Both having lived out of the tent, Morgan perhaps a bit longer, it didn't take too terribly long, but they did so in a silence.

When all was packed and squared away, she started down the path again, assuming that Seren would follow along. "The start of my trap line is just an hour or so down the mountain, just about where the forest begins. I worry about the security, but then," She tosses her head, thoughtfully, "trapping is less common in these parts than fishing, so I like to think that I get a larger personal haul than, perhaps, I would otherwise."

Now a few yards down the path from her new companion, she asks Seren, "Well, what do you think?"

[Seren Coolwater]

After getting some help with the tent, Seren quickly attached all the bags to the horse, and began leading her horse behind Morgan. Catching her question, Seren answered: "Oh, I don't know. I grew up around fishing, so I'm more used to it. I've been able to pick it up easier than hunting. It's what's kept me fed while I traveled."

As she walked, she felt a bit guilty about lying to Morgan earlier, and decided to come clean-- or, at least, mostly. "So, uh, Morgan, I wasn't entirely truthful earlier." Seren felt her eyes go a light pink of embarrassment, knowing the her lies had been pretty easy to see through, saying "So, those shapes all over my body, I'm a glypher, and I just was practicing. I wasn't lying about that weird hole appearing out of nothing, but... yeah."

Travelers coming from this direction had given her harsh warnings of the evil Voiders that hid out in the woods to steal whatever-- showing her that maybe voiding wasn't a welcome practice in Wind Reach. Seren would keep it a secret-- at least until she knew Morgan better.