Rastellion wakes the next morning to a dwarven miner's pickaxe thumping inside his skull. At least it feels that way. He stares at the unfamiliar ceiling for a long moment, wondering where he is and why it's wavering as if underwater. His mouth tastes ... unfortunate. Oh yes, the drinking game. What was he thinking? He's not a big drinker and ... He frowns, as the memory of the previous evening pieces itself together -- Immalaine's bizarre behavior. He shakes his head, then wishes he hadn't, particularly as it leaves him squinting into the sunlight streaming painfully through his window ... Sunlight? He mouths a curse, realizing how late it must be and springs out of bed... Half a minute later, having recovered from that first attempt, Rastellion gets carefully out of the bed he fell back in to, and starts to pull his clothing on. It's well past dawn. The guards knew that he was planning an early start. Why didn't one of them wake him? He shuffles toward the door, opens it, and heads carefully down the narrow staircase. There had better be coffee downstairs.
The sheets are a tangled mess wrapped around Immalaine's legs the next morning as she awakens to the light shining through the window. Turning, still half asleep, she reaches instinctively for Rastellion to hug him and lets out a little muffled sound as she doesn't find him there. Sitting up, she looks around, the slow realization that he wasn't there filtering through her groggy brain - a realization which leads to memories of the night before and her failed attempts to talk to him about her past. 'Damn,' she thought to herself, 'I made a right muddle of things.' Rubbing her eyes, she remembers how she had left him to go upstairs to bed after seeing his reaction to Lily, the serving maid. Half the night she'd spent crying, unable to sleep. When she finally had fallen asleep, her mind had conjured up nightmares of her begging Rastellion not to leave, only to have him look at her with disdain and say in a cold voice, "Don't see why any man would want to consort with a girl like you," before tuning to walk away. Wishing she could just turn over and forget the whole night had happened, she sighed and got up instead; quickly getting dressed before picking up her brush and stopping in front of the mirror to brush her hair and braid it. 'Don't think about it,' she thought to herself as she packed her bag up, before heading out of the room to go downstairs. But, as she turned the corner, she saw Rastellion headed that way too and, of course, she did think about it.
Rastellion doesn't register the light step on the stairs behind him - doesn't even hear it over the pounding in his head. When he reaches the main room he looks about and sees the two guards at a corner table. They wave him over, grinning in a way he finds completely inappropriate. He strides - well, attempts to stride - over. "You knew we needed an early start," he says, frustrated as he accepts the coffee Haldrik passes him with a knowing grin. "Why'd you not wake me?" He takes a long sip of the dark brew and, remembering his manners, adds, "Thanks."
Haldrik grins wider. "Thought you might be needing that. And I did wake you. Knocked on your door before dawn for a full minute before you finally told me - an' this is word for word - 'Git th'eff away ya bleedin' rock-pounder.'" He grins.
"Rock pounder?!" Rastellion winces. "That's somethin' my pa used t' say when I was up b'fore him." He starts to shake his head, catches himself. "I must've been answering in my sleep." His shoulders slump.
"Don't worry 'bout it, boss," says Thagurd, the other guard. "'Ere, want some breakfast?" He holds up a plate of over-easy eggs, sliced potatoes and thick bacon, all shiny with grease. The scent hits Rastellion like a bundle of rotting hemp sacks; he winces, face puckering in disgust, and turns away, to see Immalaine picking her way across the room toward their table.
Still thinking about the night before, Immalaine makes her way to the table just in time to see Rastellion look over at her with a darkened scowl on her face. Unaware of his activities after she'd gone upstairs, she pauses and flinches. 'He's angry with me now,' she thinks to herself, thankful that she hadn't gotten a chance to say anything about her past that night. She could only imagine what his look would be if she had told him. Shaking her head to clear the bleak thought from her mind, and realizing her chances for regaining the farm were growing slimmer by the hour, she lifted her chin up and made her way to one of the seats, turning to the guards with a greeting and a murmured thanks as one of them pulls out the chair for her to sit. Turning, she glances over at Rastellion with a cautious expression. "'Morning Rastellion."
Rastellion smiles weakly at her. "Morning," he says, with equal caution, and quietly. He takes a long sip of coffee. "We're off to a late start," he says, pushing the plate of food toward her, untouched. "Here. I'm going to gather my things and settle the bill with Tilly." The guards, he realizes, already have their possessions bundled and waiting under the table. He drinks up the rest of his coffee, not meeting Immalaine's eyes, feeling wretched for having let them oversleep. His head is still pounding. "We should get ourselves to the notary right away. I'll be back, quick as I can," he promises, and heads back across the main room.
With a sigh, Immalaine turns to watch Rastellion make his way across the room, shaking her head as she turns to look down at the plate of food he'd pushed in front of her. She stares at it for a long moment, picking up the fork to push the eggs around on the plate, the yellows breaking as they began to leak all over the rest of the eggs and the nearby bacon. Cutting a piece of the bacon, she takes a bite and chews carefully without tasting the food in her mouth. Without an appetite, she pushes the rest of the food away and turns to watch Rastellion head across the room.
Rastellion finds Tilly at her counter and settles up the bill for the three rooms. She gives the young man a sympathetic look, recognizing the signs of a night of too much drinking, though she doesn't know the reason for it. "If you're hopin' to get Letty Pierson's signature, like you said th' other night" says Tilly, in a thoughtfully quiet voice, "you'll find her in the market, like as not, at this hour, an' that's just down the street from the notary."
"Thank you!" Rastellion smiles at her and hands the money over, then hurries up the stairs to gather his possessions, trying to think past the fog in his brain to calculate if there's any way they'll be able to get back to Bree tonight before the mayor's office closes. He has some contacts in the merchant and trading community of Bree who would have some pull with the mayor ... but, he thinks, not to the extent of dragging that worthy out of his home and bed to attend to Immalaine's property late at night. His possessions gathered, he hurries back down the stairs, returns his room's key to Tilly, and goes to join the guards, who are already out in the yard, readying the horses.
At a loss, Immalaine gets up while Rastellion goes upstairs to collect his belongings, and goes over to say good-bye to Tilly. The woman comes from around the counter to give Immalaine a hug. "You take good care o' yourself, and that fellow of yours," Tilly says, "We're lookin' forward to seein' th' two of you come back again soon." Immalaine murmurs her thanks to the woman, before following the guards out the door. Watching as they prepared the horses, she looks around and half listens as they talk about some poor fellow who'd apparently come in after she'd gone to bed and gotten drunk. She shakes her head sadly, the image bringing to mind her late guardian who had spent much of his last days falling into his cups. Hearing Rastellion hurry up to the group, she turns and attempts to smile at him. "Almost ready t' go," she said to him, brushing a stray hair from her face.
Rastellion gives her a weak smile, his head still throbbing. "Good. If we hurry, we might still make it back to Bree in time."
For a change, luck seems to be with them that morning. Not only is the notary available, he is deeply apologetic for his mistake. "I should've known that'd be a problem if both husband an' wife signed," he admits. Meanwhile, Immalaine finds Letty Pierson almost immediately in the market, and she willingly comes to the notary's office. "Daughter-in-law in place of wife?" the notary asks. "Aye, that'll meet your requirements." He quickly draws up an addendum to their previous affidavit; Letty signs it where he indicates, and he places his seal on the parchment, all in under an hour.
Gratefully - but tersely - Rastellion thanks them both, and the small party is soon on the road again, hurrying back to Bree.
But an hour or two after noon, when they stop at a small stream to water the horses, Rastellion is glancing dubiously at the sun's position, thinking it's unlikely they'll make it back in time. He grits his teeth, realizing that, if he'd gotten up as early as he'd intended, it wouldn't even be noon yet, and they'd have had plenty of time. He kicks at a rotten pine cone in frustration, sending a nearby squirrel scampering away in alarm.
Glad for the pause, Immalaine slides off her horse and looks around. Afraid that they will make it back on time, the grey eyed man's words echoing in her head, she turns to Rastellion. "This'll be a good place t' stop for lunch," she said, looking at him. "I'm not feelin' too well. My stomach's hurtin' a fair piece. Besides, th' horses are gone go lame if we keep workin' them like this." She frowns as she watches the small squirrel run away, and looks over to the tree it scampers up.
Rastellion turns to her, the throbbing - reduced, but not completely gone yet - in his head adding unintended sharpness to his tone. "Pause? A rest? We're hard-pressed to make it back as it is. I know you're not feeling well, but you'll feel worse if we lose your property by a matter of minutes because we delayed. And the horses should be fine; it's only a few more hours they need to go, and they only need to make it to Bree; they won't be ridden tomorrow... We need to push on."
Immalaine stares back at Rastellion, her eyes lighting up with a hint of defiance. "We can stop an' rest here. I've got stomach pains an' I'll not be lookin' forward to tryin' t' scramble off a horse an' find a bush in a short while, when it's almost already too late!" She leaves him to think what he will, turning to go dig through her saddlebags for the rations she'd bought from Barliman for the trip. Her stomach did hurt, but it was more from lack of eating than anything, as she'd not had more than two bites since the night before they left. She began passing the food to the two guards who both nodded in thanks, the younger of the two winking at her, before they headed off to find a place to sit. With that done, she turned and brought the remaining rations over to Rastellion, handing him his share, before she began looking for a place to settle herself.
Rastellion opens his mouth to protest as she turns away, but hesitates, not wanting to draw attention. The guards have probably already noticed the tensions on this trip; the gossip will be bad enough without a genuine argument added to the mix. Before he's done debating with himself, Immalaine has handed out the food and the guards are settling down to eat. Rastellion purses his lips. There might be time for a short break, he rationalizes, especially if the horses can pick up the pace afterward. He accepts the food she hands him but doesn't sit himself, instead pacing nervously around the horses, who flick their ears at him in irritation. It must be his imagination, but he could swear he can actually see the sun sinking toward the west. "I wish I could remember how many hours it was back from here," he mutters to himself, then turns to go sit with Immalaine. As long as they're stopped, and the guards far enough away that they'd not hear a quiet conversation, maybe he can try again to talk to her, to say some of the things he'd hoped to say the previous night.
As he sits down next to her, she turns to look at him, her scarcely eaten rations in her lap. 'Maybe ... I can try again to talk to him,' she thinks to herself, but a sudden stomach cramp has her shoving her food into his lap. "Sorry!" she calls out, racing for the nearby bushes as fast as she can, stumbling over a rock in her rush to get there. For several minutes she's hidden from view as her small lie, in fact, becomes reality. Finally, the bushes rustle and she stands up, looking abashedly at the men, who seem to be looking anywhere but in the direction of where she'd run off.
Rastellion is just opening his mouth, still unsure what to say, when Immalaine races away from him into the bushes. He stares after her. 'She really is avoiding me,' he thinks. 'If she'd actually had to go when we stopped - like she said - she'd already have used those bushes, not wait to run off until I came near.' He waits for a minute or two, but she remains out of sight. With a sigh, he stands up and goes to rouse the guards and to repack Immalaine's uneaten food in the saddlebags. This break has already lasted too long, anyway. By the time she rejoins them, they're already nearly ready to resume their journey, and Rastellion doesn't give her any chance to demure, leading her mare over to her as soon as she emerges from the bushes. "Time to go," he says, tersely, and turns back to his own mount. The whole situation - this inexplicable tension, Immalaine's strange distance - is reminding him far too much of those last days with his soon-to-be-ex affianced, when it became clear that Rastellion's father would be selling away the family farm. He winces inwardly, trying to pull his mind way from those painful memories as he mounts.
She stares at the back of his head, sighing as she looks up at the horse and pats its muzzle. Her stomach feeling slightly better, she ponders the tone in Rastellion's voice, her spirits sinking further as he strides away without even looking back to see if she was alright. ""What'd I do?" she asked the horse quietly, before mounting it to rejoin the group.
Rastellion urges them ever faster all afternoon, but the road seems interminable, one wind after another, with Bree nothing but a rumor. His fears are confirmed as they're approaching the town; it's already past dark, and as they crest the final rise, the bell-tower tolls out the hour - six o' clock. The mayor's office is closing now. They're too late. He lets his reigns go slack and slumps in the saddle, then, wordlessly, nudges his horse to the left, toward their neighborhood, rather than straight on toward the town square, letting the horses choose their own speed. The group rides in silence until they approach their residential neighborhood. "I'll see you safely to Zandrianna's house," Rastellion says, turning to Immalaine. "I'm sorry... If I'd just gotten up an hour earlier, even half an hour!..." His voice trails off.
Turning her head, Immalaine offers him a strained smile. "We tried," she said, looking at his downcast face, thinking to herself that she'd no longer have to worry about the mysterious man or his threats ever again. As they near Zandrianna's house, she spurs the horse forward, seemingly eager to make it home, though she continues to scan the roads and the occasional person they pass on the roads, as though seeking someone. Finally the group stops at the gates leading into the well kept yards, the chickens clucking quietly as they settle down to roost for the night. With few wasted movements, Immalaine jumps down from her horse and goes around the side to grab her bag. "I'd best get inside and see about Zandrianna," she says, "before I head to sleep myself!"
Rastellion nods and swings his leg over his own mount to slide down. "I'll come in with you, and see how Zandrianna is feeling," he offers.
Looking back as she opens the door, she shakes her head. "Best ye don't," she said. "Zandrianna might be sleepin' already, least she should be," Immalaine replied, motioning him away. "I'm sure ye can come see her tomorrow." She watches him pause and frown, inwardly sighing again, before she darts into the house without asking for her usual kiss and hug.
Rastellion stares after her, then swings his leg back over onto his horse. "What'd I do?" he murmurs to the animal. Its responding wuffle gives no insight, but he nods anyway. "Missed the deadline, that's what I did," he agrees. No wonder Immalaine is upset with him. Her property lost because he went and got drunk. He sighs and turns back to the waiting guards. "To my house, then," he says. "I'll pay you there."
He muses on the past two days, and Immalaine's distance, as he leads the way back up the lane. His fist clench on the reigns. "It's not over," he whispers. "I'm going to fix this somehow." His back straightens and he urges his horse forward a little faster. He make up for it - he'll save Immalaine's property, and she'll forgive him, and then everything will go back to the way it was - to better than the way it was. Yes.
(Credits and love go to Rastellion, who provided the voice of the male characters in this story. *Blows kisses to Rastellion and grins widely*)
