================================== Bree Time ==================================
Real time: Sat Jul 10 17:57:20 2004
Bree time: Dawn 6:51 AM on Hevensday of Summer - August 23,1432
Moon Phase: Waxing Crescent Moon
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Breelands Weather
The dawn summer air is very hot and dry around you. The sky above is a glorious pale blue.

Courtyard
An open air courtyard is enclosed in the center of the Prancing Pony's compound. The yard is ringed in by the north and south wing of the Pony, and the eastern section of the building, which is set back into Bree-hill. On the fourth side bordering this yard is an archway, beyond which lies the Great East Road. The stables, which comprise the lower level of the south wing are accessed through a set of large double doors.


A blaze of molten gold rises huge and daunting over the steep slope of the Pony's roof; a promise of the scorchingly hot day to come. In the cool still shade of the partly opened stable door, a boy sits - rather slouches, leaning against the stone walls and doing absolutely nothing. Within there is a restless stamping of feet and soft whickering, but out here the air is completely still.


A fine, yellow dust rises, kicked up in lazy spirals, about the heavy boots of a man. There is a quality to his gait - a hazy something about his downcast eyes - that suggests he has not been long among the waking. Or perhaps he has yet to leave them. Either way, Drystan makes his way towards the cool cavern of the stables, briefly pressing the back of one hand to his mouth.


The tread, not particularly loud but still definitely there, echoes oddly against the walls of the inn and a pair of brown eyes lift to see who passes. There is a distinct sharpening to the finely boned face. "Hey," says Toby, pushing himself up, palms flat against the wall behind him. There is an odd mixture of curiousity and resentment in his voice. "Thorn. I got something for you. I can't call you Thorn all the time," he adds. "Some silly nickname my sister made up.. haven't you got a real name?"


Half-startled, dark eyes sharpen into focus, picking out the figure crumpled in the shadow. Drystan halts some feet from the boy, sour rue flickering briefly through his expression as he gathers himself. "Of course I do."

He smiles. "What do you have, and from whom?"


"Here." Toby thrusts a fist into his pocket and holds it towards the man. "It ain't all of it, but I'll get it." Curiousity glints brighter now. "So, what is it?" And there is a note of challenge, of surpressed excitement, as if he prods a beast of uncertain temperment from just inside the fence.


With a grimace and a handful of quick strides, the man closes on Toby, covering the extended hand with his own. Reproach flashes, underscored by the tight pressure of his fingers about the boy's wrist. "A little more subtlety from you, Master Appledore," he says softly, as his grip lessens. He coolly studies the brown eyes so near now. "Why such sudden interest in a name?"


A fall of copper glitters in the morning light, caught by a ray from the sun as Toby's hand is forced open by the pressure of strong remorseless fingers. A number of dull pennies land to lie in the dirt, to accompanyingly small puffs of yellow dust. A wince of pain is forcibly smoothed out of the boy's face. "I just wondered" he says sullenly. "It seemed silly to keep on calling you Thorn like you was something off a bramble vine."


Drystan mutters a halfhearted curse as the coins spill to the ground between them, resignedly watching one spin upon the flat toe of his boot. "Pick those up," he says. "Please. And call me what you will. It matters little."


There is a swiftly hidden flash of anger in mutinous brown eyes. "You made me drop 'em," Toby says under his breath, but he squats down and scoops the coins up, holding them out again. And a mindfulness of debt owed (and possibly of relative strength), keeps his face and tone mostly civil. Dirt trickles out from between grubby fingers and sifts down to the ground. "Here. I said I'd pay you back and I will."


"There's a smart lad."

Drystan takes the coin (and soil), watching the other with partially veiled interest. "How are you earning your way, Master Appledore?" he wonders, in a tone that invites candor.


"Working with the horses." Toby jerks his head towards the black cavernous door behind him. "Better 'n cutting up wood all day long," he adds as resentment slowly fades from his taut expression. But there is something there yet, something shown in perpetually tense muscles and a sullen bitter anger in the eyes that are so like, yet so unlike his sister's.


A smile flirts with the corners of Drystan's lips as he scours the young face before him. "Good honest work," he notes evenly, gaze shifting to the darkness beyond. "You must know the folks who come here most often."


"Yes," Toby says slowly. "It is." His eyes flicker towards Drystan's, then drop to the dusty ground. At the man's final words, not a question, not really; his gaze darts back up again and the pause before he replies is noticeable. "Yeah... what of it?" But something has been jogged loose in his memory for with no stopping at all, he asks, "Thorn, what're rangers?"


The man's eyes tarry with the shadows for the span of Toby's hesitation, half-unfocused in thought. Strong arms folded over his chest, he waits, patient. But not for the question that tumbles from the boy's lips. Drystan blinks, stares at him blankly for a heartbeat; and then reaches for his arm, stepping swiftly into the darkness of the stables.


Grabbed by the arm and dragged into the stables, Toby opens his mouth to shout, then swallows the sound unborne. His instinctive resistance to force is likewise quelled with only a momentary attempt to break free, though his free hand flicks towards his belt.. and then drops. "What?" he asks, voice lowered, when they are within the quiet, dark confines of the building.


The moment in which the boy resists, Drystan releases him, lifting his open hand in an almost coaxing gesture of peace. He licks his lips, casting a searching glance behind him, then takes the boy lightly by the shoulders. "What do you know of them, Toby?" he asks, with solemn concern.


"N-nothing," Toby says uncertainly. His hands unclench and hang curiously empty by his sides. "I.. " A frown begins to crease his forehead. "What's wrong?" he asks finally, voice still hushed. "I saw one here a long time ago, he brought his horse in..." Some tiny spark of glee dances across his face. "... and that guy, that Hewes fellow, he said they done magic or something." A fine edge of scorn hardens his words. "Like anybody could make birds drop out of the sky. Shot 'em, I say."


Drystan shakes his head slowly, dark eyes growing haunted. "There was not a mark on those birds. Neither stone nor arrow stole their breath." Though the morning is already humid, a fine shiver seizes the man, and he throws another wary look into the dim at his back. "Hewes speaks truly," he says softly, urgently. "They are an unnatural, dangerous people. Trust me. I know."


"Well, something did," Toby asserts. "And it wasn't no magicking either." The brave words are just that: words; the boy's eyes are wide in the dim air and he looks unwillingly into the darkness after Drystan. "But," he says, groping for a firmer answer, "Unnatural how? Who are they? I ain't ever heard nothing of them before... I don't think. They can't do nothing to us..."


"Oh, aye, they can," Drystan assures him, and his gaze drops into middlespace as if under the weight of memory. "Don't know who they are. But they know things they ought not, do things they ought not ... I was nearly slain in cold blood by their kind."


Despite himself, Toby's air of nonchalance is fading. Fast. He stares at the man before him and his voice thins around the bravado he tries to put on the words. "That ain't so much... /I/ know stuff folks think I shouldn't. You just listen, maybe outside doors sometimes..." But he steps a little closer to the open doorway, as if a monster of some kind might be hiding in the blackness beneath the placid horses' hooves. It is only anger that stiffens his spine and takes his thoughts away from ghosts and wights and unnatural creatures. "And I'm going to kill someone, too. When I find 'im." One hand slides towards his belt again, to carress a length of leather poorly sewn into a scabbard. Of sorts.


Patience. Drystan's brow furrows gently, with the boy's straying hand. "Who, Toby?" he whispers. "Who has earned this?"


Toby looks at Drystan with the sort of look generally reserved for small children and senile aunties. "Them as hurt Tath," he says patiently. "She kilt one and I'm gonna kill the other. I don't care how long it takes." Anger is too small a word for the rage that roars in greedy flames across his face, and amid it is a hint, a bare twist to the lips, of self-mockery or self-loathing. "Ain't no rangers or nobody going to stop me, neither."


A small muscle twitches near Drystan's mouth against the insult of the boy's condescension. But he nods in a businesslike manner, concern leeched from voice and aspect. "Ah, him. So you shall, unless I find him first." He takes a few silent steps over the straw, squinting into the pale sunlight. "But you must take care, Master Appledore. The Tall People will hunt you for this - unless you see to them, first."


"Hunt me for what?" Toby asks suspiciously. "Who are the Tall People?" He eyes Drystan and shifts his weight. "You mean these rangers? I got to kill them first?" Now he merely looks dubious. "I ain't that good... yet. Not if they can witchify me."


"I thought you didn't believe in such things." The man steadily meets Toby's eyes, lingering on the edge of the sunlight. "I said nothing of murder," he says after a time, voice still hushed. "But if you kill this man who hurt Tathar, the Rangers will hound your heels. You may find you must strike first. Do not bring their sorcery upon yourself ... lest you find yourself fallen like a bird from the sky."

Drystan releases a soft sigh and fades into the bright day.


...to leave an indecisive angry boy hovering in the door of the stable, unwatched fingers plucking the leather of his home-made scabbard...