[AU] an evening like any other

[sai_delgado]

Sunset's long come and gone, the horses are settled for the night, but it's too early by far to sleep. Susan Delgado's in the bar, curled up on the couch near the fireplace, a basket of golden straw nearby and a second one with dark leather strips beside it.

Bit by bit, she braids the golden straw, shaping it into a long plait that coils back into the basket on the floor. It's a contrast of sorts to her own sun-gold hair, which as usual she'd unbraided and brushed into a long smooth fall for the evening when she changed from her work-clothes into a simple chambray dress in a light denim blue.

Susan's humming softly under her breath as she works.

Comments

[bialy_wilk]

When the door opens, a sickly, damp scent wafts through from the swamp just visible through the murk beyond. Someone looking, peering through the fog, might see ornaments dangling from scraggly trees that line a wending path.

Someone looking more closely might be horrified to realize that those ornaments do not just look like human ears.

The witcher steps through from swamp into the bar, a frigid mist coiling around his boots as he does, and as the door closes, he glances around for a place to sit.

The Bar is busy tonight; the quietest spot is at an armchair by the fire, across from a golden-haired girl quietly braiding straw. Geralt doesn't ask her permission to take the seat; but he nods to her once the waitrats have taken his order, his eyes glowing yellow-gold in the firelight.

"Evening."

[sai_delgado]

"Give ye goodeven, sai, and may yer days be long upon the earth," she returns, with a polite smile - one that brightens suddenly as she spots his eyes.

"Oh! Ye've the same eyes as sai Crowley!"

[bialy_wilk]

Geralt gives her a long, level glance.

"He a witcher?"

[sai_delgado]

"Nay, he's no witch--"

(demon and dear)

Belatedly, it occurs to her that not everyone's like to be comfortable with being compared to a demon, especially not on first meeting, nor a witch either. Susan flushes slightly and shakes her head.

"Cry yer pardon, sai. I meant no insult."

[bialy_wilk]

"You given none that I can tell."

He gestures at his eyes. "Never met someone with these eyes who wasn't a witcher."

[sai_delgado]

"He's no witch," she says again, firmly. "Mayhap he's -- he's not human, do'ee ken? But not a witch."

She marvels at herself even as she says it, for it's not all that many months ago, everything considered, that she'd have been far more upset at the idea of sitting and talking with a witch at all - or wizard, either. But this one's given no sign of harm or cruel intent, and Susan Delgado's learned to make allowances rather than assumptions here in this waystation at the end of worlds.

"My name's Susan Delgado, late of Hambry in Mejis," she says. "We're well-met, I hope."

[bialy_wilk]

"Geralt," he says. "Of Rivia. And I'm not a witch either."

Or human. But that's neither here nor there. "I'm a witcher. A monster hunter for hire."

[the_seafarer]

Her soft hum is eventually joined by a merry whistle, and Caspian appears, gray eyes twinkling, his hands full with two mugs from which sweet-smelling steam wafts.

"Good evening, sai Delgado," he says, just as if they hadn't made prior plans to meet precisely here.

"Care for a little company?" He hefts the mugs, as though offering a bribe. "I've brought cocoa."

[sai_delgado]

She beams up at him, her hands stilling on the straw, and frees one to pat the couch beside her in invitation. "Long days and pleasant nights, Caspian. It's good to see thee."

[the_seafarer]

"Thank you," he says, politely, and takes the proffered seat before holding one of the mugs out to her.

"You look very pretty this evening, Su, I must say."

[sai_delgado]

She drapes her braidwork over the arm of the couch and accepts the cocoa with both hands, curving them around the mug to feel its warmth - and if doing so brushes her fingertips over his, what of it?

"It's kind of thee to say so," she tells him.

[the_seafarer]

A faint, delicious shiver runs through him at the brush of her fingertips over his, and he smiles. "I was aiming for 'gallant'," Caspian teases, "but how could I but speak the truth?"

And truly she looks lovely; he casts an admiring glance at the silky golden fall of her hair. "What's this you're working on?"

[sai_delgado]

"Oh, well, thee are never not gallant," she teases back. "Something to do with yer nature, I wot."

Susan glances at the straw plait, then looks back to him. "It's to be a hat. Sheemie could use a new one."

[jaskoleczka]

The black mare the Baron had given her isn't as fleet as Kelpie once was, but she's sturdy and swift; both useful traits on the Path... or at least on this winding road through a dark forest. "I could swear there was an inn somewhere around here," she tells the mare's pricked ears.

She receives no answer, and no inn appears where she expects it.

Well, that's no quite accurate. One appears, but it certainly isn't where she thought it would be... or the inn she thought it would be.

Ciri pickets the mare outside and leaves her to graze as she enters, her bright eyes scanning the room for any familiar faces. Seeing none, she turns to ask a quiet question of the bar.

A few moments later, she's approaching the golden-haired woman by the fire, her smile crooking onto her lips. "Excuse me," she says. "Bar says you're the one to speak to about stabling a horse."

[sai_delgado]

Susan looks up from her straw-plaiting, a ready smile on her face, and blinks.

If you meet a girl with green eyes and ashen hair – and a scar along one side of her face--

"Aye, ye've the right of it," she says, after a second. "I'm Susan Delgado, lady-sai, of Hambry in Mejis, and I manage the stables for sai Bernard. Do ye have yer horse here, or will ye be bringing one?"

[jaskoleczka]

Her smile isn't hampered by her scar, which is old now and no longer gives her any pain or pangs.

"She came with me, this time," Ciri says, and gesture towards the lake door. "She's just out there for now."

And, because the girl had given her name so willingly and she knows she's safe here, she adds: "And I'm Ciri."

[sai_delgado]

Susan beams back at her and sets her work aside as she gets to her feet. “Let’s see to getting her settled then, aye?”

She beckons Ciri to come with her, and starts for the lake door. “This time, ye said. Have ye been here before, then?”

[jaskoleczka]

"Once," she says. She steps back and waits for the golden-haired Susan Delgado, then walks easily alongside her. "I'm happy to be back."

Outside, the black mare is peacefully cropping grass in the circle of her loose picket; Ciri comes up to her and she lifts her head to be patted and made much of, her calm liquid eyes going to the other girl. "Here she is."

[sai_delgado]

“Oh, and there’s a beauty,” she murmurs, fog-gray eyes bright and pleased as she looks the mare over with a professional eye. “We’ve a stall ready—“

She’s started keeping one ready at all times, and oh, but it’s been useful.

“— if ye‘d like, I can settle her in for ye, or ye’re more than welcome to come along.”

Different folk have different preferences, she kens.

[hears_no_evil]

Nick Andros had left Shoyo, Arkansas, at about a quarter past one in the afternoon on July 3rd. He crossed the border into Oklahoma early on the morning of the 5th and decided to camp for the hottest part of the day in the shade of a large farmhouse. It's empty, like everything and everywhere else; the family seemed to have taken their chances on the road, not knowing or not caring that Captain Trips could find them wherever they were. If not for the impossible stillness, the farm would almost look normal: the dairy herd, dozens upon dozens of black and white cows, grazes across a wide fenced-in sprawl of land, and Nick can draw water from a well in the backyard, cool and tasting strongly of minerals.

He fills his canteen and considers the screened-in porch of the house, then heads towards it, walking his ten-speed until he can lean it up against the railing. However had lived here had taken good care of the house; he prowls through it, but finds no sign of life anywhere, though the place is neat and tidy.

Satisfied, he heats a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli and has lunch, then heads back to the screened porch to nap until early afternoon.

What greets him, though, is not a quiet summer's morning, but a strange, impossible place. He steps into it, wondering if he's once again dreaming, and the door closes behind him.

He doesn't hear it. Nor does he hear the humming from the girl by the fireplace, though his glance is caught by the sure, quick motions of her fingers and the way the firelight gleams from the golden straw.

Nick glances around, then approaches her, careful to circle around so he doesn't startle her. When he thinks she might see him, he smiles a little and lifts his hand in a wave hello.

[sai_delgado]

Susan smiles back, bright and shining, and pauses in her work to wave in answer to him. "Goodeven, sai, and may yer days be long upon the earth," she tells him.

He's not familiar to her, for all that he seems friendly, and she's fairly certain she'd have remembered seeing him before, what with the patch he's wearing on his eye like a corsair from a story. "Are ye new-come, then?"

[hears_no_evil]

Nick's glance follows the shapes her lips make, and a small frown tracks across his brow. Drifting through the south and west as he has been, he's come across plenty of difficult to parse accents, but the cadence of the girl's speech is new to him, and hard to follow.

He nods in answer to her question, then exaggerates a mystified glance around the room they're in before turning back to her and lifting his hands palm-up in the universal (as far as he knows) sign for I don't know. He finishes by lifting his eyebrows quizzically at her.

This place is full of people. He hasn't seen this many people in a week. And all of them healthy, as far as he can tell. But first things first; he needs to figure out where he is... if it isn't a dream.

[sai_delgado]

Her eyebrows rise a little as he gestures at her, then narrow in concentration as she pays close attention, trying to be sure what he's conveying. It may be he's shy only, but if so he'd not have approached her, she thinks, so it's far more likely he's unable to speak for some reason.

"We're well-met, then, I'd hope," she says, when he grows still and raises his eyebrows in question. "For ye've found yerself to a waystation on the side of the Tower, a place where many worlds touch, do'ee ken?"

Susan touches her fingers to her collarbone as she continues, "I'm Susan Delgado, late of Hambry in Mejis. Might I ask yer name, sai?" If he can tell her, that is, she realizes a second too late.

[hears_no_evil]

Nick frowns again. He understands the words, but none of them make any sense to him in that particular order. Waystation? What tower?

He shakes his head and holds up a finger to her: wait. A quick rustle in his pockets, and he comes up with a pad of paper and a Bic pen. Clicking the pen, he writes quickly, then tears off the page and offers it to her.

I'm Nick Andros. I'm deaf-mute. Sorry about that. I can read lips. It's nice to meet you. What's this about a tower?

[sai_delgado]

Susan takes the paper and looks at it, and oh, but the clear gray gaze she turns back on him is rueful indeed.

"Say sorry, I do, but I can't read yer writing, sai. I've seen the like of it before, but I'm not able to read aught but the Great Letters. But hold a moment, an'ye would--"

She sets her workbasket aside entirely and climbs easily to her feet, paper in hand, then holds her other hand out to him.