Participants:

Taril_icon.gif Maura_icon.gif Kitty_icon.gif

Scene Title Lost and Found
Synopsis Maura is found, but did not know she was lost!
Location Lowtown
Date Thursday, 19 of Bloomingtide, 9:31 Dragon
Watch For A surprise Kitty
Logger Taril

Lowtown sits within the cauldron shaped pit that was once the city's very first quarry. Constructed by slave labor, the district is now home to the less wealthy members of Kirkwall's population. This is a labyrinth of shantytowns, corridors, and hexagonal courtyards with the very poor living in caves carved into the cliff's face. This district is shoddily built with walls scarred by slow collapse. The sparkling manors of Hightown can be seen over head- forever within view, and forever out of reach. Foundry smoke often smothers the area, the Darktown shafts occasionally erupting with gouts of foul air known as chokedamp. It's not uncommon to find whole slums silently suffocated, frozen in the midst of everyday activity.


Taril isn't bad at trading. In fact, it's a skill he's learned to be quite good at and the furs that had housed his meals since arriving aren't currently good for anything aside from selling. He's just finishing up settling on a fair price that doesn't seem to have the merchant too upset. All in all, this would be a fairly normal scene if it weren't for the vallaslin that mark him as something other than one of the local elf population.

Maura appears to be coming back from the direction of the docks, her expression troubled but not unfriendly as she winds her way through the crowd. She happens to stop by the vendor right beside the merchant Taril is finishing his business with. Hers appears to be picking up a set of potions and some coin, rather then the opposite type of transaction. And paying little attention for just a brief moment, when she turns to leave… almost collides right up against the elf. "Oh! Oh, I'm sorry. How clumsy of me."

Taril looks up, mouth opening to form an apology in return. His mouth closes, however, and he reaches out to grab the woman by the arm to pull her between the stall he'd been at and the nearby alchemist's stall. "Ir abelas, but I don't think you want to talk to those two," he points toward two templars making their way past the stalls. "As much as they might wish to talk to you."

Maura is tugged, with a rather surprised expression, between the two stalls. Fortunately, before she can stutter, or do something stupid, his explanation sinks in. And her face? Suddenly pale. "How did you…" Her mouth shuts again, and she inclines her head gratefully. "Ma serannas. You would be quite correct in assuming I'd prefer not to discuss anything with them. I'm usually not quite so careless." Her smile turns rueful. "I owe you a debt."

Taril grins. "You don't smell like musty tomes, but you still carry yourself like you've been in a circle," he explains. "You're not used to being on this side of things, so you're not one that's been on the run long. Your circle fall?" He waits for the templars to be out if sight and then relaxes a little. "If you want to stay out of their hands, you'd better learn to act like anyone might be the one who turns you in."

There's a ripple in the fabric of reality and those nearby get a phantom sensation rather like they're a cat whose fur has been rubbed up the wrong way all along their backs. A street mutt runs out from one of the narrower alleys and somewhere to the south a baby starts crying, but for all that the templars are trying very hard not to trip over a stray dog, no one seems to notice the tiger laying on the awning of the stall that makes up the left side of their hiding place. "Turn it around," she tells the two flesh-and-blood beings below her, turning to roll onto her back to scratch at an itch on the canvas. It doesn't move with her shifting, of course, but it's the principle of the thing. "Think like anyone might be the one who turns you in. Act like you've got nothing to be turned in over." There's a pause broken only by a satisfied sigh before she rights herself once more, peering down at the two of them with unnatural eyes.

"Hello, again."

"Well, I suppose that's good. Not smelling of musty tomes." Maura decides, though she seems torn on whether to wince or not at the rest of his words. "I… am not sure. I wait at the dock each day, hoping for word. But…" Before she can begin spilling her guts when she ought not to, there's that weird crawly sensation on her back that makes her muscles twitch. And then the cheshire cat-like voice that greets them from above. "I'll get better at this, truly. Eventually. Not soon enough though, I suspect .. I.. do you..?" she kinda tilts her head a little and her eyes flicker up at the fade tiger. "I'm not seeing things, right?" Oh MAKER. It's a FADE DEMON and it's COMING FOR HER.

Taril grins. "Well, you're seeing a spirit, so I suppose that means you're seeing a thing," he answers. "Relax, she's not attacking. I slept with her so if she wanted to do bad things to anyone, that would have been the time." Yes, he said that. "She's right, though. You should think like that and act natural. Lots of people have come here to get away from the blight. Everyone is a little nervous, but that's natural. Just don't look nervous if you go any higher up."

"I tried to tell her," the cat begins, sounding - for just a moment - almost like she's… pouting. There a moment and gone the next, a return to the endless tone of the only vaguely interested. "She slept, too. It was the Maura's dreams I followed to get here, after all." A long, lazy sigh is heard, though the mouth still does not - nor does it ever - move. "Still, I suppose they do sometimes have to be hit over the head with things before they can be accepted. Not intuitive like their older siblings."

"You slept with her." Maura just repeats that, looking at him and then the Kitty. "Well, I've heard of stranger things since the blight started in Ferelden." she decides, and so she just smiles. Until Kitty ruins it again. It followed her here? "You followed my dreams here. Well, I hope they weren't terribly dull dreams at least. And we have been taught that dreams and…" Yeah, they're in public, she won't go into that! "Right. Look confident. I suppose I could set up as another alchemist somewhere. I'm proficient at it. I just dislike the monotony of it, aside from gathering the catalysts. And are you from this area, sir?" She will ignore being insulted by kitty. Hnph.

Taril chuckles. "It's not her fault," he informs Kitty. "It's how they're raised." A glance goes to Maura and he tries to smile convincingly. "No offense." The 'sir' thing makes his nose wrinkle and he shakes his head. "Taril, and I'm not from around here right now. I will be later when my clan makes it into the area." Don't you just love the Dalish? At least the ones who are that literal. "I was… ah… separated from them. The tiger? Yes…and I did. In a tree."

Maura's figurative huff is echoed by a literal one. "It should be a crime to raise ignorant children." Her voice is deeper when she says it - richer, somehow, even while she is seemingly distracted by the slow passage of a covered merchant wagon and the shifty-eyed Dwarf driving it. There is a low, primal rumble when Taril mentions his separation from the clan, a sound that echoes despite going largely unheard; a sound that draws from the oldest of nightmares, when life was hunted in the dark. She does not speak on it, however, choosing instead to knead the canvas under her like a housecat trying to make a more comfortable bed. "Indeed. It is not often I meet a mortal hunter of any skill. The experience was… exhilarating."

"Oh. I'm sorry to hear that. But I hope you're reunited with your clan soon, then. It seems as if it would be much nicer living out in the open rather then the residence area here." Referring obliquely to the alienage, Maura tries to smile in a friendly way. "I'm Maura, though the cat has apparently already introduced me. And you've already guessed I'm from Ferelden originally." You'll have to excuse her as her eyes glaze a bit while processing this information about exhilaraingly sleeping with a skilled mortal hunter in a tree. That is, of course, exactly how her brain is parsing it. "Okay, well. Do the two of you need some time alone?"

Taril looks confused, but only for a few seconds. Once that's passed, he laughs, nearly doubling over. "Ir abelas…" It's all he manages over the fit until he manages to take a deep breath. "I keep forgetting how indirect humans are about the things that actually make life pleasant. I mean, don't get me wrong, Kitty is a beautiful tiger…" Then he's doing all he can to keep a straight face again. "I agreed to share my dreams in exchange for sharing the vhenadahl in the alienage. The flat ears might be content to sleep packed in rooms closed to the sky, but I don't think I'll manage to master the skill." Kitty earns a bow. "I'm glad you didn't find the dreams boring. I'm grateful for the use of the tree."

Watching the two of them, Kitty is the last to 'join the party' so to speak. The first response is a delicate sniff - the one that every highborn lady strives to achieve, which says the sniffer is above such things and that those discussing them should be ashamed. The second reaction is dry, almost painfully so. "You mortals spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about something you hardly ever dare to do." And that seems to be that - at least on this subject - but just as she turns her head away to watch the rest of the market, there is the sense… the impression… the essence of a roughish, rowdy grin.

Even rooms packed closed to the sky are more freedom then a circle mage might have, depending on their Circle. But although Maura's expression turns briefly wistful, she also mimics Kitty's haughty sniff with one of her own. "Sleeping in a tree sounds rather intriguing I admit. But I'm afraid I would probably fall right out." As it is, she sleeps on a sheet on a dirty floor with a chair propped up under the doorknob of her hovel until she can find better accommodation. "Well. If you go hunting again sometime soon, I would be pleased to accompany you. I need reagents for potions and obviously some skins to make extra money with so that I don't waste all of my savings on the tools I'll need. Or furniture. Assuming you don't mind me tagging along." She stares at Kitty. At least SHE asks before tagging along with someone!

Taril winks in Kitty's direction. "I don't know about *that*… It depends on who you ask." He immediately tries to put on a mask of innocence. "Er… Tools? Don't they teach you to… wait. Of course they don't. Alright, Maura. I doubt the two of us could make much of a dent in the resources. I'm planning to hunt after sunrise and find wood to replace my knife grips. I at least know where we can find sweet grasses for a sleeping pallet." He shakes his head. "…I can't leave you like a calf tossed out to fend for itself, I suppose." He glances upward and then back toward the two. "And now I have someone waiting on the food this coin will buy and I need to pay the small fingers that knotted my bowstrings for me." He is a sucker for grubby faced kids, in other words.

Kitty doesn't acknowledge that wink - at least not in any way we might recognize acknowledgement. There's a sense of almost hazy amusement, but nothing more. "Who you ask, when you ask, why you ask… all of these things shape the answer, no?" There's a lilt of Antiva in those words, the smell of cold, sharp steel and a brothel. No Rivaini merchants or shoppers in the immediate vicinity, but when one borrows words like she does, things are bound to get mixed up and turned around. Right? When Taril takes his leave, however, her attention shifts, focus suddenly sharp on the human - the mage. "Do you really not remember me, small one?"

Maura inclines her head towards Taril, grateful for his future assistance. But when he leaves, she's left to fend for herself with Kitty. And she studies the Tiger for a long moment. "I think… well, in my dreams perhaps. But you know how it would be frowned upon to admit such things where I was before. It would be seen as a very bad sign for my future." A mage that regularly wandered close enough to the veil in dreams to capture the attention of a fade creature? She would likely have been made tranquil immediately, depending on where she was stationed. A thought that gives her an involuntary shudder. "But now I know of you. And you probably know quite a bit about me…"

Kitty's snort of derision this time is all too real, all too present. "Those who think they can live entirely apart from the Fade are fools or worse." The haughty disdain she holds for such ideas is almost palpable. "The Veil rankles, yes, but it is like a sheet tucked over a cowering child. It hides nothing from no one who does not close their eyes." The great cat nigh vibrates with the intensity of her loathing, but the wind changes and as swift as it came on she is calm again; placid again. "I know you are very young, very foolish and very lucky." Her head rests on her paws, overhanging the canvas' edge by just enough to still look down at the mage-girl. "That is a dangerous combination to have out in the world alone."

"Oh, I don't know. I felt more comfortable in the Fade then I do here." Maura admits, pulling the edges of her overrobe closer together. "I didn't feel so foolish before I left. A circle life is a sheltered life. And now I am here, and I have no choice but to make the best of it." Which may well make her foolish, very young, and very lucky. But also very lost, and afraid, and alone. "Does this mean you intend to keep an eye on me. So that I don't become dangerous?" Is Kitty trying to be a Templar? Somehow, she thinks not.

The question makes the spirit laugh, but it is not a mocking sound; it's low and soft and strangely warm. "You are almost as threatening as a kitten soaked from spring rains." It's less Maura being danger and more Maura being in danger that's the concern. "I doubt I will remember to keep an eye on anyone." Even so, the pause after saying so is not the end of her contribution. "There are mercenary soldiers guarding one of the eastern warehouses. They smell like they've touched sunshine. If you've any skill in enchantment or brewing, talk to their leaders. Good work is a small price to pay for safety, don't you think?"

"I didn't mean.. I meant in case I was in danger of being demon possessed, as I am no longer guarded by a Templar." Maura murmurs, though she doesn't really sound offended at the rather accurate description of herself. "Aye. I do. Both, in fact. I can do both, with the proper equipment. I'll have to do a proper job of it for mercenary soldiers though. So I will have to spend the coin earlier then I intended." She doesn't sigh, though. She simply nods her agreement. "It is indeed a fair price to pay, and I'll pay it gladly. I will visit them before leaving for the hunt later with Taril."

"I ate a demon this morning." The remark is made as casually as if Kitty had said 'an omelette' instead. "It gave me indigestion." One shoulder lifts and lowers in a shrug, a motion accompanied by a lazy flick of her tail. "Haste makes waste, magelet. Learn all you can before you act and you may just survive what comes." Because that's not ominous or anything.