Eryn Laegol: Manor of the Lord of Edhellond
The main hall of Eryn Laegol, manor of the Lord Girithlin of Edhellond, is a gracious mixture of the sublime and the rustic, of Elvish and Dunadan. Built as it is on the cusp of the sacred forests of Edhellond, the manor and its surrounding estate subtly blends into the countryside. Windows line the great hall, giving residents and guests alike a beautiful view of rolling pasture and lush, deep forest; everywhere is the sound of babbling brooks and whispering leaves.
The floor and accoutrements of the hall are of silver-white marble, trimmed with richly-appointed fixtures of burnished oak, dark mahogany and leather. Simplicity is favoured over opulence, though the details of the manor attest to its lord's wealth and taste, and its lady's grace and elegance. Hawk's lures, hart's antlers and the furs of foxes evince the lord's love of hunting; a saddle and bridle in a corner speak of his horsemanship as well. But there is a feminine touch in the lace, the satin, the thoughtful mementos throughout the rooms.
Carpets bearing the starry arms of Edhellond quartered with crimson and gold of House Girithlin provide a soft texture to the environs; these arms are repeated throughout the manor. Plush settees, deep-cushioned chairs and tables of polished wood and marble bring comfort and stability, as does the crackling fire beneath a mantel of grey stone. Here are all the necessities for a home and a refuge; an altogether inviting and restful place.
Greenish-golden light streams through the windows, dappling all it touches with the bright livery of the forest glens.
Clouds without... clouds within. Though the fire burns warmly, its light brings no comfort, no cheer - not these days. The lady of the manor comes through the room on some errand or other, and stops near the fireplace - as if her feet have forgotten how to carry her further. She looks blankly into the flames, watching without seeing, and her fine, beautiful face is drawn and old despite the lack of silver in her hair.
Lominzil enters, quiet and soberly erect, child's beauty a grim shadow of his mother's. He takes up a poker and sets to tending the fire wordlessly; he has said naught since returning from Dol Amroth, still clad in travelling gear.
Nelbrethil turns her head as he enters, her youngest son. Hesitating, she says at last, "Lominzil..." and reaches to touch his shoulder. "My son - will you not speak? Tell - tell me of yourself, these days. I have missed you so."
The young man gives the fire a few good prods, considers it with a tilt of his head, then returns the poker to its gilded rack. "Mother," he murmurs in a dry, unpracticed voice, taking her hand. "If you are well, then I am well."
The lady's face moves. "I am not," she says, her voice anguished. "How can I be well? Eruiglas slain, Farielle... " She stops, bows her head a moment, and then lifts it with a kind of desolate pride. "I will not give way," she says, almost to herself. "I must not... and I have you yet, and Gwaithmir when he returns, to comfort me." By some inner strength, she summons a smile, steadying her voice, and draws Lominzil to one of the chairs, sitting down beside him.
"Your father said he had asked you to speak with some of the Families, to find a way to send a message south...?"
Doubt flickers over Lominzil's face, and he sits stiff and straight in his chair. Still holding her hand, he answers, "I have failed, Mother. I spoke with Telpekhor and Bragollach, but they could offer naught but sympathy."
Nelbrethil's eyes shut a moment, her fingers clenching around Lominzil's. Then she opens them. "Then we will simply have to find another way. There was the Eagle that spoke with Gwaithmir. Perhaps he yet will return to our aid."
Booted footsteps sound in the corridor, and a man comes in, shaking off a damp cloak. "My dear," he says, "it is as well that you chose not to ride out today; the weather grows ever worse. I am told there is fever in Forman's house - " Caronnen's stern gaze moves to his son. "Lominzil." He sighs heavily, coming to set his hand briefly on the squire's shoulder. "What news?"
"The eyes of the Eagles are commanded far and wide," says Lominzil with a bitter smile. "What is Edhellond to Sulimo but a glittering speck on the Hither Shore?" Then, news of the rain. Caronnen's son turns to him, repeating levelly, "I can bring no help from the Families. We must wait, and not let the Southrons' designs of fear and despair conquer us."
"But he said he would aid us if he might," Nelbrethil says, stubbornly. "I will not believe such an one would speak only to forget his words." She looks up as her husband enters. "I will make up a bundle to be sent them - there are herbals enough and to spare for that trouble, at least."
The lord's shoulders sag. "Wait," he says bitterly. "It is not their daughter!" He pinches his lips together and takes a breath, letting it out slowly. "Thank you for going to them, son. We had to try." He turns his head to the south, frowning, as if he could see through the stone walls and across the water. "If I must, I will go to Harad myself," he says at last.
"We must wait, Father," Lominzil echoes calmly. "In this we are alone." A frown, then: "If Gwaithmir brings back the Prince Imrahil, he shall require your counsel. You cannot endeavor on such a task."
Caronnen's head turns towards his son, and he frowns at the boy from hooded, hawk-like eyes - as if he has heard some alien word from familiar lips. "You to counsel patience?" he asks, disbelieving. "Lominzil, what are you...?" The words cut off and the man glances at his wife. "Yes, thank you," he says to her, suddenly calm. "They will need our aid in this."
Nelbrethil looks back and forth between the two, a small, perplexed frown of her own creasing her forehead. But Caronnen's declaration overshadows her worry for her son's most unusual behavior. "Caronn! You cannot!"
"It is your duty, is it not?" says Lomin, poised deathly still upon his chair as for a blow, though a blue fire lurks in his eyes uplifted to his father. "Believe me, father, I know your heart. If I had a ship and permission to sail it, I would! But behind me there would be the rest of my family, waiting once again."
Those fierce eyes turn from wife to son, and Caronnen bends to take Nelbrethil's hand, lifting it to his lips. "I know my duty," he says quietly, looking beyond the woman to the young man. "Lominzil, I would speak with you further e're you return to Dol Amroth. I am sure the leave you were granted is not unending."
"I have been given a fortnight," answers Lominzil quietly.
Nelberthil squeezes the boy's hand tightly. "You must tell me all that you have learned," she says, putting aside her grief with an effort. "It has been a while since you were home last. I must go collect the medicaments - but this evening, perhaps?"
Caronnen nods. "Come with me to the stables," he invites his son. It is an equal effort for him to make his voice light and casual, and his eyes stray to his wife once more.
"There is a new colt I would like your opinion on."
Lominzil smiles. 'I shall,' he tells his mother, and then more softly, only to himself, "When it has been done."
Leaning forward to brush Nelbrethil's cheek with cold lips, the boy rises and follows his father. "Is it a child of Barahun?"
The stables of House Girithlin are tall and clean-swept, housing swift and elegant horses for hunting, riding, and war. Two damp figures walk slowly between the stalls, greeted by friendly velvet noses that hope for apples and carrots. But Lominzil does not see them; his eyes are fixed steadily upon his father in the low lamp-light.
Caronnen glances at the young man, then away, fixing his attention on the horses. He pats noses and necks, hands out carrots from a pocket, and is quiet. "Here," he says finally, as they come to a wide box stall with a mare and her new foal. "Not from Barahun, but one of his sons; I am hoping to breed a smoother gait into that line."
He leans his elbows on the stall door, and, still looking at the horse, says, "I have known you for twenty years now, Lominzil. Ever you have been a fiery boy; you cannot persuade me that in three days, you have suddenly learnt to be placid and calm." A pause. "I do not wish to speak anything before your mother. She has enough to weigh her down and darken her days. Nor will I ask anything of you - if you could speak, you would have done so." He dares a sideways glance, his mouth twisted in a half-smile. "Nor have you ever been wont to hold your peace, no matter how we schooled you."
Lominzil smiles back, his fingers tucked indolently into his belt as he observes the foal and its mother. "It is a fine child," he replies. "I hope it will be like to its father."
Caronnen's eyes rest on the boy's face for a while, and he nods, glancing back to the colt. "As do I," he says quietly, and perhaps he speaks not only of the foal. "And better... Take care, Lominzil. There are many dangerous paths in this world, and one cannot avoid them all." He sets his hand on his son's shoulder and grips it tightly. "I am proud of you, son. Do not throw your life away rashly, or in grief. If you must.." His throat sounds tight, as if he must force the words out. "Spend it well."
Lominzil's composure wavers, threatening to collapse at the slightest touch. He stares up at his father, expression wavering on disbelief, or ridicule, then returning to grief as a child would wear it, simply and utterly unconcealed. "I know it," he answers. After a moment's musing: "Have I been foolish, Father?"
"Young men are always foolish," Caronnen says, clearing his throat. "It is a hazard of youth... I cannot say, for I do not know what you are doing. I will ask you only this - " And now he turns to look Lominzil full in the face. "Swear to me on your name that in what you do, you do not break faith with the oaths you have sworn to the Knights of the Swan, and to your Prince."
"As surely as I am Lominzil Girithlin, your son," replies the younger man, his eyes a calm, eerie blue, "I will cleave to my Oath and duty as I have sworn before. If I act against this, father, think upon the honor of our family and do as you see fit with my life."
For a long moment, the older man holds the younger's eyes. Then he nods, satisfied, and turns back to the horses. "Remember," he says softly, "Your mother and I love you very much."
"I have always known it," answers Lominzil in a whisper, and then he, too, watches the horses.
...
"Please, Lady, I must get fish for the bird, Amestris said it needs it."
Farielle remembered her words, and flushed a little, suddenly glad for the veiling cloth that hid her fair skin (and every blush) from those around. She had sounded like a begging child! But for whatever reason, the Lady had nodded, and granted her permission to leave the tower again. And now, she walked into the marketplace, surrounded by guards and trailed by the tall, black heron. At the last moment, she had decided to make the words spoken to Amestris true - the bird could come, and pick out its own fish.
The heron strutted along, staring around it with beady, black eyes, and cocking its head at various people who get too near. It follows the Gondorian girl as if she has a leash on it.
"Lady," Khaan, one of the guards, exasperated looking, says, sighing. "If the sun bothers you so, then find a straw hat? Surely you must sweat in that wrap? And I'll not suffer punishment for you falling ill in the heat from foolishness."
Farielle glances over her shoulder at him. She is hot... the sun beats down unmercifully, and no air at all can make it inside the cloth she has wound about her face, no matter how loosely it is wrapped. "All right," she says at last. "Where do I find a hat? And - " She looks down at the black heron. "Where are the fish sellers?"
"Fish sellers...this way..." Khaan points in one direction. "Hats...uh...surely, there's a hat seller or basket seller here somewhere.." he looks around the market rather lost. "Do I -look- like I spend my time buying ladies' hats?" he snaps at the girl, finally.
Beneath a nearby awning, another watches this curious procession from a shady vantage, though the lack of fabric swathed about her burnished shoulders suggests a certain comfort with the heat. Soon Niakhti steps from beneath her shady cover with a slender hand to shield her brow from the sun's glare, her gown of amber silk very close to the color of her skin.
"I cannot speak for fish mongers, but for hats... I think I saw a woman with suitable wares aways ahead," she calls to the girl and the one she speaks with, even so simple a statement somehow suggesting amusement in its timbre, an idea that her smile is quick to confirm. "Shall I take you?"
"Do I look like I grew up knowing where to find things in this horrible place?" Farielle snaps back. She turns in the direction he has indicated for the fish, and says over her shoulder, peevishly, "Send one of /them/ to find it - they might as well do something useful besides follow me around... Oh." She looks uncertainly at the other woman, frowning a little, then apparently decides that there can be nothing sinister about leading the way to a hat stall. "Well - thank you."
"Well, get used to it because you -will- have to know these things. That is, if you remain free at all, which I doubt," Khaan says with a loud snort. He then puts a meaty hand out to try to grab Farielle back from following the local woman-the guard insisting on walking in front of Farielle, while two others flank her and the rest fall behind.
Noone goes for fish.
"Oh for pity's sake!" Farielle hisses indignantly as she is pulled back. She glares at Khaan - or the back of his neck - but follows perforce. It would be difficult not to, what with all those guards. The heron struts along beside her, croaking once in a harsh voice.
Niakhti's smile only widens at the bickersome exchange between guard and charge. "My my, it seems you are half a Lady already," she muses, not altogether loudly enough for the whole of Farielle's escort to hear, but with voice enough for Khaan. "And such good company to bring out the other half."
The guardsman's insistance is noticed, and remarked upon then with a certain playfulness. "I promise not to bite her," Niakhti assures in a honey-drenched alto. "I daresay if I did, that bird would have my eyes." A wary glance is cast for the girl's avian companion, and little more. "But would you prefer to walk between us?" Here she places herself in the path of the procession, a brow raised for Khaan, though the smile that accompanies it is not unkind.
"You can stand on my right," Khaan answers Niakhti gruffly, gesturing. "And someone get that bird some fish!" he barks at the other guards-two go running off to obey, though not the two on either side of Farielle. "And it is not your bite that I worry about," he adds with a grin to Niakhti.
Farielle gives Niakhti a swift look - should she be insulted by that, or not? But she doesn't say anything, only glances down at the bird; and her expression isn't much different as she regards it for a few minutes. The heron stretches its neck and half-raises its wings, then folds them primly against its back. And Farielle favors Khaan (or the back of his neck) with another scowl.
Laughter is Niakhti's answer, along with a charming smile for the guardsman as she falls into step at his ordered side. "Honestly, what other weapons do I have against blades and armor?" she asks with dark, smiling eyes that suggest full knowledge of more subtle kinds of weaponry. "I wouldn't lift a finger." Here Niakhti casts a smile to Farielle across Khaan's chest as she begins a leisurely stroll down the row of shop stands. "Any upstanding woman of Umbar would strive to set an example for our pale transplanted flower of the north, if she is indeed to remain." The lack of emphasis upon the last added thought is an emphasis in itself, surely. But it is not left to linger long between them. "I cannot say I know what fashions the Northron women choose for themselves. Kindly explain, if you will?"
"Fashions? I hear the Stonelander women wrap themselves from head to toe in a rough cloth sack, the better to avoid the attention of men and of their husbands. Certainly their pale skin is indication of that enough!" Khaan laughs, then looks with interest to Niakhti. "You could show her how to dress properly? Or is it that this Lord Alphros wants a stone cold northener too? Who are you, in any case?" He says, suddenly remembering he's supposed to be guarding Farielle.
"Only something that will shade my face," Farielle explains to the other woman. "I burn in the sun." Then, purely femininely, she adds, "Blue." She glares at Khaan again, sniffs and lifts her chin, refusing to respond to his (entirely false!) accusations.
Though she does not laugh with Khaan, Niakhti's eyes retain their sparkle of amusement as she appraises Farielle's dress from head to toe, unapologetic of any sense of modesty the girl may have retained. "I am Niakhti of Desert, good sir, and I am worried today only for what goes upon her head. We should let Alphros worry about the rest, yes?"
As they draw even with a shop displaying an array of elaborate scarves and headdresses in bright embroidered silks, the woman looks again to Farielle. "There is enough here to keep your face fair and modest, Lady Farielle, if that is what you wish," she says, the words 'fair' and 'modest' spoken with a certain distaste that she does not seem entirely bent on concealing. "Blue, you say? I should think Eruphel would appreciate the gesture."
"Niakhti of Desert...I am Sergeant Khaan of Seaward... a pleasure, yes...and uh...blue...sure,..." Khaan says, not even paying attention to Farielle. Two soldiers come running up with a sack full of fish just as they reach the hat shop. "Over there," Khaan says, gesturing for the men to hand the sack to Farielle.
Farielle's face suddenly becomes hard, and she glances at the Seaward guards' uniforms, then at the multitudinous shades available. "It is not to keep my face fair," she says, her voice clipped. "It is to keep myself from dying of sunburn." A sack of slimy, smelly fish is thrust into her hands and she grimaces at it, almost dropping it. The heron shows no such hesitation, pushing up to her and thrusting its beak into the sack's mouth. With a twisting motion, it flips the fish, catches it head-first, and swallows.
"You needn't worry for that," Niakhti answers, echoing words uttered not long ago. "If you are going to die, Farielle, I shan't think anyone would have that would be the way." Her words are offered with a cruel levity and a smile that shows traces of neither shame nor portent - perhaps in a carefully-practiced fashion - before her nose wrinkles anew at the smell of fish.
"How came you into the company of this bird, anyway? Lord Alphros wished less lonely a cage for his future queen? Or another gift from Seaward?" This she asks looking between the girl and her Seaward guard, though her next words are more for the latter where he stands between the women. "With a marriage awaiting and Farside's claim to the stone land being readied, surely her watch will be eased soon enough? Or are there yet doubts for her safety?"
Khaan does his best to hide his amusement as the sack of fish is given to Farielle, but he speaks to Niakhti in reply. "Lady Seaward found her. I wasn't involved in that. But not until she is the property of Farside..one way or another, can we drop our guard. Alphros's Queen or else I escort her to the slave blocks, that is. Or maybe the Lady will take her as a slave. Still, there are many in Umbar who would just as soon slice her throat."
Farielle looks up from the sack she is holding extremely gingerly. She seems about to jerk away every time the heron snatches a fish - but never does. "Why thank you," she says with sweet, false sincerity. "And that is not the shade of blue I meant." Anger flashes into her eyes at Niakhti's next words, and she looks away, refusing to answer. Concentrating on the bird, perhaps she isn't listening to what Khaan says - but under the fury, there is a strange determination; even though a faint tremor runs through her slight body at the mention of slave blocks.
Niakhti blinks, considering Farielle for a moment as a cat might regard a mouse struggling beneath it's claws. "Then by all means, do choose what you will," the woman purrs, exchanging a few words with the shopkeeper, a sunworn older woman who brings forth a hat large enough to be an awning, and adorned with enough embroidery and bangles to blind a man in the sun. "Since you will not say what you wish, beyond not to burn to a crisp, perhaps I ought to leave the choice to your noble guard. Surely he would be an apt tutor in dressing to keep the attention of your husband, as he so doubted your kind to do on their own." She looks to Khaan as if for confirmation, still with every pretense of the utmost decorum despite the cutting edge that the words themselves lend. "Pity," she adds to Khaan in afterthought, to no favor given to either option he names of the girl's life or death.
"Me?" Khaan laughs, shaking his head. "It's a woman thing. You fuss with it...and buy one for yourself, Niakhti," he says, fllipping a coin to the Desert Tower woman. He seems bored...and irritated...by the shopping expedition, and goes to stand guard on the pair with a distant look on his face now.
"No," Farielle says after considering the first offering for a few minutes. She looks past the woman into the shop, her eyes running over the different things available to wear on your head. Then they stop on one in particular. "I would like to try that one, please," she tells the shopkeeper, nodding towards a brilliant sapphire-turquoise blue hat with a sheer bit of fabric hanging from the brim an inch or two. There are no bangles, no embroidery; nothing save a twisted cord of a slightly darker shade about the crown.
"Or perhaps two for you," Niakhti offers to Farielle, though barely loud enough for the girl to hear as she glances sidelong with narrowed eyes at the back of Khaan's head, perhaps not knowing what to make of the man's gesture. "We have gotten off on the wrong foot, haven't we?" the woman of Desert concedes to the Gondorian through a sigh. "As many people as your -guard- say may wish to slit your throat, Farielle, I am hardly among them." Genuine though her smile may be for the girl, there is still little apology in her timbre or mien for the repeated mention of Farielle's theoretical death.
The elderly shopkeeper, though watching Farielle with eyes warier than afforded to most of the market, makes a grand smiling display of offering the chosen hat. In two upturned hands, with a good-natured bow.
Farielle glances down at the fish-bag she is still holding, makes a face, and fastidiously wipes her hands on the outside of it. They were hardly dirty to start with; she had been being so careful not to touch the fish, or any part of the bag that might be slimy. Then she unwinds the cloth about her head, and puts the hat on. It fits. "How much is it?" she asks, opening a small pouch of coins. "Have we?" she asks Niakhti, her voice mild. And then, most politely, with a smile of her own, "I am sure you would not."
Before the shop woman can answer for the hat's cost, Niakhti leans forward to place Khaan's coin upon the modest counter. The sunworn woman looks calculatingly between her two patrons and says nothing, as if wondering to herself whether an answer withheld would lead Farielle to pay for the hat a second time over.
Niakhti pays no mind to the woman's conflict, however, affording an appraising stare to Farielle. "It seemed plain enough to me before that you need not hide it now," she murmurs low between them, amused. "Tell me how I may correct the impression of the future Queen?" Her smile remains genuine, though somehow the question still suggests a reversal of apologizer and apologizee.
"I can pay for it," Farielle protests, while the heron, having satisfied his desire for fish, takes to preening his wings. They glisten a glossy black in the sunlight. The girl turns her gaze on Niakhti, frowning just a little. "I do not think that you intend to slit my throat," she says. "I do not think that you particularly care if someone else does either."
"Perhaps not," Niakhti returns with a shrug of slender, bronzed shoulders, truly indifferent to the notion by every testament her manner can offer. "I know aught of Farielle - of Girithlin, was it? - beyond that she is the daughter of my presumed enemy, brought south against her will as a spoil of a war that I have no part in. Would you have a care for my neck, if I were you?" Pragmatic and plain, perhaps, but not unkindly spoken. "Have you ever spent time outside of your city of stone, Lady Farielle? Before you were wrested from it, of course."
The shopkeeper nods to Farielle at her expressed desire to purchase her own wares, but as Niakhti makes no move to take back the coin, the woman merely looks to Farielle with a wary but expectant glance.
"But I can't correct my impression of you if I am not wrong," Farielle answers, holding out a coin of her own to the woman, and nudging Niakhti's back towards her. She doesn't seem offended. "I wouldn't want to see you killed, no." She looks up then, the frown remaining, though for a different reason. "I never lived in a city, before Dol Amroth, a year ago," she says. "Do you mean Minas Tirith? I haven't been there, though I hear it is indeed made of white stone throughout."
Niakhti listens to Farielle's account with full interest, though its import remains veiled behind amber-sparked eyes. "But it is very different in the ways of law and justice, yes?" she asks, though clearly with expectation of an answer that is perhaps already known, for she continues readily. "Have you ever seen another killed?" She muses, perhaps echoing the Gondorian woman's words in a more literal manner than they were meant.
The shopkeeper, meanwhile, squirrels away the coins Farielle offers into a dusty, faded pouch at her waist, leaving Niakhti's refused wealth where is rests, but holding it in the corner of her eye as she sees to another peruser of her wares.
"I do not know your laws of justice," Farielle answers. She sounds as if she doubts there are any. A hesitation, "I have not. Not be killed - I have seen people die." For a second, she sounds very young; it hadn't been pleasant, watching those men die and being able to do nothing to help them.
"And what was their crime?" the Desert woman presses further, her own voice more hushed with a mind for Farielle's hesitation. But as with most things that Niakhti speaks of, it is offered without the apparent sentimentality and emotion for the subject.
"Their crime?" Farielle sounds completely bewildered. "They had committed no crime. They died... " She hesitates then says, "For following other men's orders. In war."
"All men have a crime," is Niakhti's matter-of-fact answer, spoken back over her shoulder as she begins an idle stroll along to the next stall along the market way - a pair of men pushing an array of many varieties of dried fruits and nuts upon the passers-by. "And though you may have seen little of war in your city before now, it shall be seen again before your throne is secured."
Once Niakhti is safely three steps from her counter, the hat saleswoman snatches the coin into her purse, resuming every attempt at nonchalance in the moments that follow.
"No, they don't," Farielle says indignantly. "Do you mean /everyone/ here goes about committing evil deeds?" She looks around at the throngs of suddenly entirely incomprehensible people. "I don't want a throne," she says finally, quietly. "Though I am told that people think it means I am stupid when I say that." About war, she says nothing. War is never-ending; just because she has not seen it herself, doesn't mean it hasn't existed, for all the years of her life, and before.
"Evil!" Niakhti echoes in merry disbelief, the very word spoken akin to a laugh. "That is a bold judgment to make in their company, don't you think? Crimes may be wrought of many things. Of evil, yes, but also of loyalty, lust, and countless other sentiments. Have you no guilts of these sort yourself? No sordid deed, no closeted passion?" In a passing pause the slender, silk-clad woman appears to consider something for a moment, all the while ignoring the fervent, near-shouted pleas of the fruit peddlars. "I do not believe you are stupid for wishing the throne to another. But surely you must know why others would think so."
"I am supposed to be ambitious and think only of what will further those ambitions the most, and how I can use such a position for myself," Farielle says, as if reciting something. "I don't care. I know ambitious people and they are hard and cold, and will do anything for power, and I will not be like them!" She sounds suddenly, perhaps unexpectedly, fierce; for all that she looks so delicate. But the edge to her voice is short-lived, swept away by puzzlement. Dark things in her past? "You mean..." she asks uncertainly, "Like the time I stole Cook's apple tarts and ate them all myself in the barn and got dreadfully sick? I was 6, I think..."
Niakhti laughs more outright at this. "If that is all you would claim, then you are as rare a flower as Lord Alphros could hope for, I am certain! Indeed, like faulting bird for its wings!" The last thought trickles into quieter laughter before the Desert advisor remembers their own avian company, sniffing idly in the direction of Farielle's bird before the mirth in her voice is once more a quiet amusement. "You may not want power. Indeed, you may not wish to further your purpose above other worthier people. But surely you see what awaits you if you do not play the part." She pauses, a slender brow quirked. "Though I cannot say I envy either the alternative."
"I do not lie," Farielle says simply, looking as if she is unsure if she should be offended or not. "I have done nothing I know of..." Her voice trails off, and she swallows. "I don't know what will become of me." Her voice is quiet, hopeless. "If I do not marry him..." She does shiver now, the shadow of fear that is always in her eyes - though sometimes hidden deep - coming to the surface. But it is still underlain by the same determination.
"Then you will be enslaved, or put to death," comes the end of Farielle's thought in a less affected voice than the Gondorian girl herself would be likely to grant this truth. "And you, Lady Farielle, do not strike me as one prepared to die."
"And yet..." Niakhti murmurs more quietly, perhaps taking advantage of Khaan's retreat to the rear of the guard, coupled with the shouts of vendors in a desperate effort to sell their wares. "...If you come to terms with your fate and stand at Lord Alphros' side as his Lady, then you will watch many more of your Northron kinsmen die." It is not a question, true, yet Niakhti remains in careful study of the girl's face, as if waiting for some answer to become apparent there.
Farielle lifts her head proudly, but doesn't answer - not directly. There are other guards, all nearby, all listening - if with but half an ear. She dare not speak. "I do not wish to die," she says in apparent agreement; there is a tiny emphasis on 'wish'. "But if I do not marry him, it will not end his plans, nor stop that war. He will only find himself another woman." Blue-grey eyes flash with some remembered anger or bitterness. Bitterness comes to the forefront. "He, after all, is the one who will choose and not I."
"And if choose you could?" Niakhti presses the girl quietly. She does not deny anything that Farielle has said, but dark eyes unashamedly seeking the cracks between the facades of her pride and conviction. Neither does she seem to fear any attention from the northern woman's guard on the matter.
"What think you? I would go home." There is no need to hide this; surely anyone would know it. Farielle reaches up to adjust her hat, making sure it shades all her face and neck - and hiding her expression. "But I do not have that choice; though my father would pay for my safe return, none listen."
Niakhti scoffs somewhat, though her honeyed voice does not falter in its wake. "Oh, you have been heard, I assure you. Money speaks quite loudly, and I need not know the names of those you have pled with to know that they have listened. But just as well do you know that Alphros does not want for the wealth of your father and his House of Girithlin," Niakhti answers, the Gondorian name strange upon her lips.
Another pause for consideration comes with a few meandering steps taken to another stand, this one bearing swathes of fine woven fabrics that slip easily beneath Niakhti's slender fingers. "Were it me... perhaps I would let you return to him. Or perhaps I would kill you, and your kinsmen me. I find it best to avoid such musings entirely when circumstances do not permit them ever to come to pass."
Again her voice quiets here, however, and an almost conspiratory smile is wrought upon her lips. "But perhaps you are braver than I. In your choice between a throne and a tomb, you look to a third. I have heard that about you, and would not doubt it now that we have spoken."
Farielle glances at the cloth with a faint interest. "But I do not have that choice," she points out. Behind her, the heron struts along. One of the guardsmen has picked up the half-full sack of fish.
They kept saying this. That there would be war. Farielle didn't understand how that would be different - they were always at war. But an unease crept into her thoughts. If Lord Alphros were truly the King returned... would he need to take his throne by force of arms? By the death of the people he claimed would be his own?
She was silent as they returned to the tower.