by Nahala » Wed Aug 28, 2013 1:52 am
She came back a few days later even though she had only left for food supplies to begin with, but that was ohh maybe 3 or 4 days ago? A week? Lost count again. oops. That was one her idiosyncracies. She got distracted, but not the usual "oh I was looking for those keys and got distracted for a moment when I saw this letter instead." Oh, no, no. Her distractions led her into trance like states at night before bed sometimes, and other times just led her down the road as it were. Sometimes for an hour, sometimes days. Very often and very much so.
However the distractions usually proved fortunate. She returned to the shop this time with food and water and juice drinks, a few jewelry trinkets (probably not worth much but an old man asked her to try to locate some matching pairs to surprise a wife of 60-something years so she couldn't refuse, probably wouldn't even charge him in the end, the story was just too sweet) and another map of one of the last known and possibly still usable passes over the Eastern Mountains. That was a great stumbled-upon find. Hopefully the young knight she won the map from in a card game didn't go hire someone else to come take it back. Should probably hide that before sunset today.
The box on the counter fell into sight immediately and cut off her thoughts about the map, in her mind she was kept reminded to hide the map while she started to open the box. An arm band and 2 rings with a note. Recognizing the arm band first her breath caught and she stuffed the note in her shirt pocket, grabbed all three pieces, stepped across to the door, reached outside and turned the sign on the wall by the door to "closed, see you next time!" then kicked the door shut, locking it behind, setting a second and third metal bar similiar to the push on the outside of the door into place across the doorway. Really did not need any hunters coming here looking for a runaway slave, well, if who wore this was still kept by...holy...wow.
Didn't even care about the rings or the note for a moment, didn't recognize the rings quick enough so into her front pants-pocket they went and to the back room she went, attention completely fixed on the band in her hand. Fingers roaming over the name carved in the smooth black surface. The note she'd read later right now she needed to see she was right and for that she needed her parents old dusty sidhe and elemental journals.
She'd come to spend hours looking through the boxes marked with her mother's meticulous labels of plain block script human-speak. The woman had been able to make such beautiful flowing letters in many different languages, a talent that was taught to herself, but for labeling their journal boxes and such, mother kept it simple. And it was just what she thought it was. There in the, 50th box?, 70th-something?...she'd lost count how many by then, she found a journal wrapped in sheepskin and tied up with short palm fronds from the islands. One of the middle pages there it was. Drawn by what she knew to have been her father's hands, she laid the band next to the picture and smiled. Exact copy, my goodness how he could draw, even the inscriptions matched perfectly and he'd made notes in the margin explaining where one would see the slave's "Faithful given name" and there it was on this band. In the old sidhe-speak, letters whose first four were B-R-E-N when translated to the human, she knew that right off, the rest she'd have to look up in another book.
She sat down in the candle lit room among the boxes and things, on a pile of blankets and took out rings, matched to a picture on the next page about how they went together and how to use them to find "a dear desire". All-right then. She settled back against the wall and read the note, then went back to the journal and wanted to read the few passages about the arm bands and the ones who made them, and had the sidhe wear them.
"Wait, damnit, the map first girl!" That was dad's voice in her head. She gave a little laugh out loud and nodded, replying aloud "you're right dad, thanks!" then got up, put the map and other things away, made sure the front door and windows were still locked and barred and back to the note and journals, should have the ring-thing settled shortly. She'd set out in the morning, with any luck this Bren person wouldn't mind a little trip over the pass, it was, afterall where he wanted to go, if he knew it yet or not.
Tonan Archeology and Antiquities
Home base: Istan - Ryada and Silverdell
"Digging up the past, one grungy bone and flute at a time."