A Great Many Pieces
Log Info
- Title: A Great Many Pieces
- Emitter: Delilah, Donna
- Characters: Delilah, Donna, Ashes, Elyanna
- Place: Wilderness several days north of Alexandria
- Time: Monday, March 01, 2021, 7:56 PM
- Summary: The Valethor Gang continues the discussion of who might have murdered Bethany in Mahuikaa's home. Delilah is grateful at being rescued, and finding out many of the facts for the first time. Donna is grateful and apologetic for involving the hobgoblins. Mahuikaa advises them to consider all the things they know, determine what was kept from them, and to return to Alexandria to investigate further. Ashes is dismissive of the idea, suggesting that Alexandrian law is just as corrupt as Blar or Bludgun's, and simply puts a better face on it. She opines they will be arrested on sight and unable to investigate anything from a jail cell. Elyanna is more open to returning, but echoes similar opinions as the Mourner. Donna encourages them to consider that because something is hard doesn't mean it isn't worth doing, and that the people of Alexandria were on their side. She assures Alexandrian law will forgive them of their crimes once they prove it was for a good reason. Ashes goes outside to brush the horses, Elyanna follows, and while she attempts further conversation it is limited to grooming techniques and that one shouldn't wrestle Ogres.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Appearing, in Order -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Donna 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A black-haired human girl in black robes. Delilah 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A golden haired human girl in white robes. Ashes 5'11" 177 Lb Hobgoblin Female A somber arvec in grey clothes with a skull face Elyanna 5'11" 153 Lb Half-Orc Female A grim, Arvek-blooded woman in raven feathers. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= NPCs of Note =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Mahuikaa Friendly Sith'Makar Female An elderly greenscale with grey tips matron -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= As the GMs -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Delilah 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A golden haired human girl in white robes. Donna 5'4" 106 Lb Human Female A black-haired human girl in black robes. -=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=
--Previously--
"I win money at dice, too," Delilah points out. "And it's not *my* fault if when I'm playing against the boys they're not paying attention to their cards 'cause they're too busy... staring... y'know." She puts a carrot next to the pile she's been creating, and selects the next one, lopping off the top and bottom before going to work on peeling. "I mean, I don't know what Bethany's problem with me was in particular, it's not like I'm the only person to ever beat her at cards."
Mahuikaa has a little nibble off the side of a mushroom she apparently couldn't decide on, and puts it in the apparent 'eat' pile. "So," She muses, "You should start a list of questions that need to be answered, then. Who had the money in Bethany's family seems certainly to be one of them, yes? And if it was Bethany who either had it or stood to inherit it, it would seem strange that she'd get that upset about losing a little bit of it to Delilah. So." She settls back in her chair, after putting the 'to eat' mushrooms back in the bowl. "What else? You don't have the answer yet; start by working out what you've overlooked?"
"Lady Bethany was not a boy." Elyanna replies absently. There's a soft sigh through her nose, "The scene was cleaned to an extent. The methods of the killer were too out of joint. The trial was hastened, and the original magistrate replaced." A shrug, "The Madame knew Ella had been put under duress, before she met Delilah."
Ash nods to each of the questions Mahuikaa raises, staring at her. She can't stare as well as a Sith'makar, but makes a good attempt. Her ears dip a little. "I don't know. We asked the guards, they said these questions were fully investigated. There wasn't time before the trial. After we were prevented from asking; it would be harassing the family."
The Mourner stares a bit more, "The family didn't like my testimony. They didn't want to see us. Silverguard Seldan may have looked into it. We couldn't."
"Ella bein' a night-girl D spent some time with, before Bethany turned up dead. We were s'posed to be goin' before the Magistrate, cos Bethany got Norrington to serve us a summons, accusin' us of bein' threatenin' an' taking money we didn't have a right to. Norrington... Iunno why, but, he's been convinced we never shoulda set foot in Alexandria from day one."
Shaking her head, she tosses another embaldened potato onto the pile. "We *thought* he just had it out for D because he lost to her at cards, but... Unno. It's weird. It was always D he tried to get into trouble, was one point he tried to *hire* me to be a Guard. Said it was the only way I'd ever see D, after he shut her up in jail forever."
"Norrington delivered the writ to set Delilah's court date with Bethany for the money owed. She was killed the night before. He moved up her trial date." Ashes adds, "he has a vendetta. He seemed to dislike Bethany, I'm not sure about her sister. I am not sure he is behind it though. He seems idiot enough he may be played also."
Ashes is nearly convinced she should never have set foot in Alexandria as well. She left Blar for a bunch of reasons, largely the militaristic attitude and the insistance that everyone follow the rules, all the time. Despite her naturally regimented mind, she's not all that organized and prefers to come up with her own methods. The Vardama Temple in Blar suggested she might enjoy the more 'relaxed' attitude of the Alexandrian branch.
"The family's magistrate was a Mul'niessa and throwing a lot of magic around at Delilah's execution. Godswin seemed off the hook as well. The two of them could have done it. The wounds suggested two attackers. Perhaps they're using Norrington as a patsy. He was adamant his Knight Lieutenants brought the crime to him, and he signed off their inadequate investigation."
--Now--
"A Mul'niessan retainer. Hmm." Elyanna muses, leaning forward to rest her elbows on the table, fingers an interlaced pedestal for her chin as her eyes drift partway shut, "A scry for the trollop showed what was believed to be Charn."
The red woman crosses her feet at the ankle and goes into the rabbit hole a mite further, "The Mul was, apparantly, as in the dark about her 'discovery' by the Guard as we were. Interesting, if not feigned for our benefit. I am... ignorant enough of Alexandrian law, I cannot be certain how much suscpicion I should place on the occurance."
"Maybe I'm just cursed," Delilah mutters. "I mean, Mom and Dad did something absolutely attrocious before we were born, and... I mean, I don't know, we've gone off adventuring, maybe someone's done something to just make people want me dead or... *something*, I don't know." The sorceress slips with her knife and hacks a carrot in two; she goes about peeling the two halves seperately, while Mahuikaa pretends not to notice. "So, wait, Ella's kid was abducted *before* I spent the night with her? I didn't know that."
Delilah pauses for a moment. "Come to think of it, I don't know much of anything, except I was supposed to get my head chopped off for a murder I didn't commit."
"You are not cursed," comes Mahuikaa's tart reply, "Two people who dislike you is not a curse, Delilah. Now." The Sith finishes sorting her mushrooms, and scoops the 'don't eat' pile into a bowl, that she takes with her as she stands and wanders off into a side room for a moment, continuing to talk as she goes. "Losing at cards seems like an exceptionally poor reason for either party to have behaved the way they did, yes? Most people just lose, and if they felt hard done by might raise a stink, but that would be all." She returns to the table long enough th collect the other batch of mushrooms and whisk them away into the kitchen. "You have a great many pieces," she observes, "But haven't yet fit any of them together, I think. What is it that joins one thing to another?"
"Don't... please don't call her that," Delilah murmurs. "Ella. She did what she had to do in the trial, not what she wanted to do, I'm certain of it. She didn't ask for this any more than I did and... and it's not her fault."
"You also weren't in no place to *learn* anything, D," Donna says, skinning the last of the potatoes and chunking it up, ruminating on Mahuikaa's final question with a deep, dark frown.
"I was mistaken. The halfling court scribe was throwing lightning at the execution." Ashes says, watching the carrots and mushrooms, how they are peeled and moved around to various bowls. A lot of peels, a lot of pieces, and all the king's horses and all the king's men can't put them back together again. A pair of hobgoblins are perhaps the worst to bet on, not a great hand considering how lucky Delilah is at cards.
The ashen Arvec continues to stare across the table. She ponders the various names for Ella, and their accuracy.
"Bethany was convinced to get a writ, to fight the money she owed to Delilah. She dragged Norrington into serving it. Alvin was kidnapped the night before the trial, to ensure Ella slept with you, so she could lie. Norrington's men investigated. Norrington signed off. Norrington moved up the trial. Magistrate Ironside got sick so an ignorant one would take his place."
She shrugs, "Bethany, Norrington, Money, Cards, Nobles, her pregnant sister, her sister's husband. Ella. The Black Diamond. Alexandria. Alexandria joins it all together."
The hobkin's eyes flit to Delilah on the protest over her choice of phrasing and she lifts her chin from it's nest, perhaps about to frame a retort when she catches herself. Instead, she stands and starts to pace a little, "The madame of the Black Diamond was rather forthcoming. Her priority was on Ella and her offspring. To her information, the Guard was not aware of the kidnapping."
She looks over her shoulder at Delilah, "The night you spent with her. Did you have any... sudden urges that may, in hindsight, have gone against your grain?" she's refining her information as Ashe starts connecting dots, and her eyes turn that way the while, and at the end, "The sister would probably not want Bethany dead, but what about her mate? Would he not also gain if the sister became the only heiress? Perhaps there is a link to the Magistrate as well. To hasten a trial should be beyond the grasp of a mere Guardsman, no matter how upjumped."
Delilah shoots an appreciative smile at Elyanna, as her request goes unchallenged, and finishes up with the carrots, and stands up to remove the bucket of peelings, to add them to the heap of like detritus outside. "Uhm," she pauses on the way, "Well, no... I mean Ella isn't the usual sort of girl I'd spend a night with but she was there and she's sweet, so I just... I didn't see any reason not to."
"Alexandria doesn't tie things together, I think, except that everything happened there," Mahuikaa points out. "Except for things that... may have happened in Charn." She tsks. "Hideous place. Still." She quirks her head to one side, as she snaps her fingers and more or less... summons a rather prime looking piece of pork, that she goes about cutting into cookable pieces. "Who stands to gain from killing Bethany and framing Delilah for it sounds like the right question to be asking. Who stands to gain from it? What do they stand to gain? I imagine that'll get you a lot closer to finding who actually did it."
"Anyone who'd inherit the family's stuff instead of Bethany'd do it," Donna says with a shrug. "So yeah, first thought is the sister an' her husband, maybe they wanted to make sure the inheritance went to the baby on the way?"
"I don't know." The ashen Arvec says, watching the red-skinned, noble hobgoblin pace back and forth. She asked that at the trial, had a venn diagram and everything. Her Ex told her to focus on the defense. She taps at her breastplate, grabbing the sides and wiggling it. This encourages a rather large house centipede to crawl out of the neck and into her hair. Her left ear flicks as he brushes past it.
"The Silverguard was going to look into the family. The guards said it would be harassment if we did. I don't know their finances or who benefits if she was wasting them and was stopped."
The table gets very interesting, a lot of stories in that old wood. She looks across at Mahuikaa, "Who really did it didn't matter to Bethany's family. I couldn't ask Bethany. I don't see how it matters to me, I'm guilty of the crime I committed, interrupting an execution. It doesn't matter to Alexandrian law that the trial and verdict was flawed."
There is silence from Elyanna for some time, though her pacing doesn't abate as such. She probably needs a pet, too. Bereft, as it is, the red woman continues to wear on the floor some more. "We also only have the word of that guard that the family forbade deeper study of the corpse. Nor do we knoe which member of the House made the decree. That could be the culprit, acting seperate from the rest of the family."
Delilah is not long in returning with an empty bucket, and promptly finds herself assisting Mahuikaa in the kitchen. Which, naturally, is just fine; and before long the Sith has a stew in progress, spiced to what smells like perfection. She leaves Delilah to tend to it over the fire, and returns to resume her seat at the table.
"Interupting an execution might be a crime," she points out, "But saving an innocent person is not, which is what you shall have to prove that you did. So." She leans back in her seat, and taps her lips with one finger. "You have a lot of maybes. Maybe Bethany's sister or her husband are responsible. Maybe someone in the guard had a hand in it. Maybe someone in Charn is involved. You are going to have to find your way back to Alexandria to do some more legwork, I am thinking."
"Sounds like," Donna sighs. "Gotta say, ain't lookin' forward to goin' back..." Her eyes turn to the hobkin across the table, and her mouth twists. "...Need to get you two back an' cleared too. One o' the two ain't bad, though..."
"The evidence was ignored. The process was corrupt. The paladin said the verdict had to be upheld. The law must be followed." Ashes states, staring across the table at Mahuikaa. She can do this almost as well as any reptilian, and her skull-markings help. "Ella's testimony will be dismissed. She was lying then, or lying now, not relevant. Prosecutors and judges do not like their decisions reversed. They will fight it. They were unwilling to delay the trial to hear new evidence."
"The truth is not important in Alexandria."
Her voice takes on a hint of tone, a forcefulness, quite unlike her typical bland diction, "The fix was in. We can't investigate from cells. If the murderer appeared in court with a full signed confession, they would say 'Delilah's convinction fulfilled legal requirements and stands.' That she's guilty of 'something', it's good enough. Norrington would argue so."
She turns and stares off at the wall, Chippen tap-dances on her head. "I'd rather go to Charn. Or home."
The Hobkin's footfalls come to a slow stop. She doesn't turn to look at the others.
"She is right. We were not even permitted to examine all of what evidence there was." She turns then, to regard Delilah, "You, in particular, have another problem. They have your possessions, yes? If you are important enough for a trial and execution this...." she pauses to fish for Trade words, "resource expensive, they will scry for you. You must keep moving."
Mahuikaa leans back in her seat, and steeples her fingers. "This place is guarded against scrying," she muses, "But they may have seen you on the way in. Stay here for now, dears, and we'll see if we can work out what is best." She taps her lips with her fingertips once more, keeping her fingers steepled. "It sounds as though critical pieces of the puzzle were kept from you, deliberately, and you need to know these things. You said that the original magistrate took ill? See that he gets better. You were kept from examing important evidence? You must endeavour to get hold of it." She sighs softly, and shakes her head. "There is no great purpose in going to Charn unless there is something there that you can accomplish. What would you go there for? Is there information or material there that you can use?"
Donna nods along with the Sith's words, chewing on her lower lip. Looking across the table for a moment, she tilts her head, and leans forward to rest her elbows on the table. "Look... I'm sorry I got y'all swept up in this, an' I'm'a be apologizin' for the rest of my life. But I want you both t'know somethin', okay? Y'all did the right thing. Sometimes that sucks, an' sometimes it seems like everyone's out to f-- screw you for it," she says, glancing at Mahuikaa as she makes her less-than-perfect pivot.
"But just because it's hard don't mean it didn't need doin'. D an' I... that's what matters; doin' the right thing. Sometimes that means a fight, an' sometimes it looks like there ain't no point. But if the world sucks too much to make it easy to do right... Then y'gotta fight the world, because if it's wrong, then it's gotta be made to stop."
Looking down, the brawler shrugs, blowing a lock of hair out of her face. "There's parts o' Alexandria that suck, yeah. But that riot out there? More'n half of that was people who thought savin' my sister was doin' the right thing, an' the best they could do was throw rotten veg an' tie up guards. Cos that's how they could help you help her."
Ashes is a mismash of contrast. She sits straight, both arms resting on her satchel on her lap, rigid and unmoving. Her eyes are dark and the skull on her face smoothes her expression. She's almost a statue, a grey caryatid, fixed. She listens to Donna, a long stare but no movement, not even a single nod. Perhaps she leaves that to her Ex. On her head, her familiar Chippen is frantically running around her crown, legs flowing in waves, tiny-tiny feet punching down through the threads of her hair to touch her scalp. He is zigging and zagging. Tremendous energy devoted to distraction. One does not nomarlly think of a hairy, many-legged bug, as 'cute'. He does not have big expressive eyes, just dark buttons. Yet the frenzied familiar seems more relatable, worried, active. More 'cute' than his Mistress is now.
And that Mistress seems dead. Even when she stands, Ash moves more like a maniken than a person. "There's nothing in Charn either."
She walks over to the door without looking at anyone. She stops with her hand on the frame. She's never seen the point, but her Vardamite Pamphlet emphasises that one important thing is saying goodbye. In monotone she states simply, "The horses need brushing."
She steps outside.
"I expect the Magistrate is hale and hearty, now. There would be no point to have his be a lasting sickness unless you wish to remove him completely." Elyanna replies as casually as her stilted Trade allows, "Removing him might throw suspicion on the whole affair, I doubt they would risk it. Perhaps the humans have managed to track down the hand behind kidnapping the child. Do we have a way to contact them?" A glance to Ashes, Delilah, "Do we put Ser Pedaryn at odds with his oaths?"
Her eyes turn, then to Donna, and, from the subtle shift of shadows in her face, she is chewing on possible responses before settling on saying nothing. She's made those noises, before, and there's no point in airing out her personal foibles again. Her attention does turn to the antics of the arthropod, and her eyes narrow slightly before they widen with the Mourner's sudden urge for grooming the horses. A look to the closing door, back to the family, then, "A moment?"
Mahuikaa watches as Ashes makes her exit, followed by a nod to Elyanna with an incline of her chin towards where Ashes went. "Best give her some help," she acknowledges, "Wiping down horses is a two Arvek job, this I know for a fact. I'll call you when dinner is ready, don't worry."
The Sith stands up, and stretches with what one would swear to be an audible creak of old bones. "I'm proud of you," she adds, patting Donna on the shoulder. "And Delilah. And your friends, too. Taking this on hasn't been easy, and I'm certain it seems like there isn't any light at the end of the tunnel, but, there is. There always is. You just have to be ready to fight for it, for just a bit longer than you think you can manage."
Mahuikaa wanders into the kitchen, and jabs Delilah in the ribs with one finger, "And I don't want to hear one word of 'all my fault' out of you, young lady, I know how you operate. You don't have shoulders broad enough to soak up all the world's woes and blame, and none of this is your fault anyway. Also, make sure you stir the bottom of that stew, not just the top four inches where it's easy."
"No, but he's got full control what he cares about," Donna says to Elyanna. "A multiple-murder plot an' assassins seems a lot bigger than jail escapees." Nodding as she asks for a moment, Donna turns to watch the door, her frown easing slightly as Mahuikaa's reassurances. "Thanks, Ma. Sorry to dump this on you even still..."
Outside, Ashes has taken off her armour and dumped it on the ground. It's nice and expensive armour and deserves better treatment. It may come later, or she may not care much about her own things. More care has been taken to remove the saddle from her loaned horse.
An Alexandrian guard's saddle, for an Alexandrian guard's horse. She carries it over to a sawhorse and sets it down. Elyanna receives a long and silent stare when she emerges, and then Ash hands over a brush.
"Like this." She starts at her horse's ears, working back, curry comb sliding along the neck. Ash works silently, occasionally coming over to Elyanna's horse to demonstrate something, then returning to hers. Chippen has moved off her head, down her arm, to run along the horse's spine. Something the equine isn't sure about.
After the curry comb comes the Dandy Brush, and Ash's second and only other comment. "They'll need someone to take them back to Alexandria."
Which could be an offer to do so. It's not the horses' fault they were sucked into this. They're also not her horses. It's not her problem to return them, and she's probably a horse-thief now. Inexcuseable no matter who was being falsely executed. Tangled thoughts work behind her blank eyes as the brush slides along, freeing them in the steed's hide. She doesn't look at Elyanna, barely looks her horse in her eyes, and Chippen never stops watching her.
The red woman is a half pace toward the door when Mahuikaa's words reach her and she pauses, looking across her shoulder at the Sith, a moment perhaps trying to figure out if that's a dig or not, then she nods, "My thanks."
Donna's rebuttal holds her fast for the duration, and Elyanna thinks on that a spell, "Perhaps.... Pardon." and with that, she steps outside to see to Ashlee.
Outside, what greets her eyes doesn't fill her with confidence. She approaches the fullblood, eyes flitting to the armor along the way, but she accepts the brush with a Goblin, "Thanks." The twice(thrice) expatriate noble follow's her friend's lead, humming soothing bars of a melody she picked up in the city she's struggled so hard to make a difference in. The bars break on the statement about returning, a nodded, "Yeah." The brush stops, being passed to her gauntleted hand, and the carmine fingers curl over the ashen Mourner's shoulder, open concern in her eyes.
Ashes stops moving when Elyanna touches her shoulder. She's stiff, her muscles tense beneath the touch. She won't look to meet Elyanna's eyes, instead stares off across her horses back. Then there is the briefest of glances, her eyes are hard, and not improved by the skull colouration around them. She looks away quickly.
"The Soft Brush is last one. It aligns the hair." The ashen Arvec seems determined to avoid talking about anything else, except brushing horses. Even that, she's being close lipped about.
Elyanna's fingers curl a little more, feeling the tension and she spares the home a look before she edges a little closer, "I'll clean your armor." she says softly in Goblin. She looks to the brush in her hand, then her friend, and seems caught between two mutually exclusive acts and isn't sure which to lean into. Option three, the brush employed in slow strokes along the horse's fur, while she looks to Ashes anew and, very softly, awkwardly, "Can I help?" with the hand still on her shoulder.
"Brush the horse." Ashes says, her words lacking malice, anger, even any hint of a command. Simply flat. She brushes one side, along the flanks then down the hind leg, carefully following the lay of the fur. For a while there's only the sound of the soft bristles and the occasional horse noise.
"They aren't listening." She says finally, talking to the horse's hindquarters. "We're lowlife hobgoblins who will be arrested on sight. No one talks to me. No one talks to you without your whip."
She stops brushing, resting both hands on the horse, staring at the bone tattoos on the back of her fingers. She repeats some very common, and very good Arvek Nar advice, "Don't wrestle Ogres. There's hard, and there's impossible. Those nobles have wrapped their affairs up so nicely we won't be able to do anything."
Elyanna takes that as that and her hand comes away from Ashes's shoulder without a word and the hobkin sets to work. There is no music this time, and her eyes are thoughtful as she listens to her friend's words.
Several more brush strokes pass, and then she answers, "Maybe the Seer's found someone to squeeze by now."
Several more, "They'll call us when dinner's done."
<OOC> Delilah admits, she isn't quite certain where to go next with this scene, unless anyone else has anything they need to address?
<OOC> Donna doesn't really know what else to do now either.
<OOC> Ashes says, "Elyanna's pose wants a response so I can do one for that. If it's late and you've run out of the things you wanted to do then mine or hers could be the last if Elyanna wants to do something else."
<OOC> Donna can't really go much farther without things to respond to, is all.
<OOC> Delilah is in the same boat, but if you want to respond to Elyanna, go for it!
<OOC> Donna says, "It's okay! I'm not upset, just stuck. XD"
<OOC> Donna says, "I mean, thank you Elyanna for posing response, but Ashes, I... I would literally have to have been inside *your* head to find things about that pause to respond to."