This post has the following content warnings:
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
An idyllic scene:
The beautiful woodlands stretch off into the distance in all directions, a small muddy cart-track meandering off to join the Trods.
A selection of surprisingly calm Spring-touched individuals, sitting or crouching by a sparkling stream, panning the water for something - not gold, something more precious than gold, something more magic...
A few Briar children running here and there, fetching and carrying and dancing and playing. Some simply a little green-veined, some with scabs of bark from inevitable childhood accidents.
In general, a peaceful and Prosperous place, if a little light on infrastructure and facilities; some wooden structures cling to the forest above the brook, haphazard shelters built with love and energy and not very much in the way of skill and patience.
"I expect she's still at the wagon. Shall we?"
The breakfast party is still ongoing; the egregore starts to introduce the dhomiro to the wonders of desalinisation boxes; Yasmina is dictating a letter of introduction to a scribe with enormous ram's horns.
Lenora hands her a rugged, hand sized plastic box with a red button under a safety cover to prevent accidental pressing.
"This is a standard UN distress beacon. If you press the button and I am close enough, I will know."
"Thanks! I'm assuming I should use this for, like, emergencies, rather than just because I'm bored?"
"Yeah. I just... The forest guys didn't seem to really need it, but you live next to slavers. It might not punch through magic, or mountains. But it's pretty decent. Has to punch through jamming, back home."
"I'd generally expect to have a decent amount of warning, but thank you. Letter's almost ready."
At about this point, the Dhomiro turns to them with a huge grin on his face.
"Yasmina! I have a task for you. I didn't want to split the caravan, but this," he gestures at the desalinator that the egregore is still holding, "really wants to get to Siroc as soon as it can. I don't suppose I can prevail on you to take a single wagon..."
"I'm assuming it's too heavy for our experimental letter-courier?" says Yasmina. "Letters are almost ready."
"I'm sure our Dhomiro will be happy to pay you extra for the inconvenience," she replies, somewhat pointedly at the Dhomiro.
"Certainly, certainly! I could throw in - two crowns for taking this on top of the letter packet, to the same place? That's assuming it's not too much more of an inconvenience?"
"That'll be more than enough as long as I have clear delivery instructions! 'Siroc' isn't specific enough! I don't suppose you do bills of lading or shipment receipts here? I dunno how much paperwork you want to throw at this."
"Oh, you'll take the whole thing to the Ezmara enclave, I'll - hmm, it's going to be inefficient for you to pay for directions, isn't it? If we copied the coastline of the harbour map off a sea chart, you could use a position on that, as you don't care where the streets are?"
"I can get to Siroc from here once I get high up enough, I saw the big map earlier. Just need to know where in Siroc the enclave is. I can ask people if I can't find it." She shrugs.
"Marilla, you can copy maps tolerably, yes?"
With some additional faff, Lenora is eventually issued with a bundle of papers wrapped in a sturdy waxed cloth, a letter of introduction also setting out what she is to be paid on arrival which is signed by the Dhomiro in some unsettling ruddy brown ink from a small vial which does in fact contain blood, a quickly sketched coast / harbour map with a red dot at the delivery point, and the desalinator back.