Scene: Crossroads Who: Deidre "Dee" Aisli, Alderic Thearre, Aurin Demarc, Bethen Avilla, Ashya Devar, Thais Keigwin, Noah Durand and others from Alderic's party group should they wish to join in Where: Somewhere in the Bannorn, on the way to Amaranthine When: 9:45 Dragon; Eluviesta (Early Spring) Summary: A detour over the wilder areas of the Bannorn takes Deidre on an interception course with her past and future. Rating: PG-13 just in case
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It looked like a simple, one-person camp.
At least from a distance, it did. The glimpse of a fire beckoned the eye, gold wreathed with gleaming ruby as it licked at a practiced construct of timber and dried leaves. The single tent situated to the side suggested that it was one person (or two) that made his momentary home here in the surrounding wilderness that specked across the fertile lands of the Bannorn. Night had fallen, the stygian shades of the hour nearly swallowing up whatever illumination the starry expanse above provided. The fringes of the forest were alive with sounds, a chorus of chitters and chirps from creatures largely unseen.
It could still be considered quiet, she decided. After all, audible or no, what she heard upon closing her eyes and simply listening was part of the natural order.
Despite the comfortable set-up somewhere below her, she wasn't on the ground. Years of traveling, and most of it by herself (funding, after all, was sparsely given to young scholars who have yet to prove themselves), have ingrained upon her harsh lessons when it came to the world at large. To be fodder for bandits now, and especially at present, would be highly inconvenient. Perched on the higher boughs of a flanking tree that gave her a good view of her dummy campsite, Deidre absently scrawled on the parchment pages of her journal -- one of many that she accumulated in her relatively short life. The cover was bound in waterproofed leather, beaten by constant handling and dog-eared in several areas. It was propped against a bent leg, braced against her thigh so her writing tool could ink her hurried penmanship upon it. Her notes today flanked a small sketch she made a few hours prior of a small, isolated cottage she had passed on her detour across the farmlands.
She should be on her way to Amaranthine. She should have taken a more direct route. But the sudden impulse to take this opportunity, to explore the wilder countryside that she missed after a few weeks in the city, was particularly enticing. It had been a while since she visited the rougher areas of the Bannorn -- the folk were friendly and hardworking; simple people whose rustic lifestyles reflected a better time. She decided to take the chance now than to go straight to where she had been directed to go where assignments would undoubtedly be dictated. It was a leash in which her old one was to be traded in for, and the thought of it would be distasteful if it wasn't for the fact that she had been waiting for this opportunity for a few years.
Deidre's hand shifted to adjust the crossbow propped up against the trunk. It rested on an adjacent branch and within easy reach. The webbing of the tree's thinner limbs hanging over her head gave her a good screen.
To sleep where she was would be foolhardy, but it wasn't the first time she had done this. She wasn't a stranger to bruises, she had her fair share of injuries in the last nine years -- aches and pains, broken bones, a stabbing or several. She remembered the poisoning incident which nearly took her life if it wasn't for the assistance of a mage and a childhood friend. She bore those faded scars with pride that she survived them all... with such remembered experiences under her belt, falling from a tree wouldn't be the worst of them. Fingers brushed over her lips, poking from a glove that used to have a whole set until wear and tear had worn off its leather digits. Stifling a yawn, languid eyes peered from her sparse cover to take a look at the camp below her.
This wasn't the first time she wondered whether it was unbecoming of a Sister of the Chantry, full-fledged or not, to engage in pretenses that bordered on outright subterfuge. It was an idle, recurring contemplation that never stayed within the conscious parts of her mind for terribly long. It took nothing more than a rough childhood to harden the edges of one's inherent sense of practicality.
She clapped her journal closed, thumbing its edges quietly.