Addhor Raxëlilta and Ilisys Azrubêl
‘Wood Works’ store, in the Marketplace. At dusk.
Some time before Midsummer
“Ilisys”
“I am Ilisys,” she smiled.
Addhor nodded slightly, glad at least that they were both in agreement of that much. “Can I fetch you some tea. Perhaps some coffee ?” he wondered, even as she shook her head mutely. “While you are waiting ..” he concluded, apparently without cause. Of course what the lady was waiting for exactly was anybody’s guess. She had arrived near an hour ago, by his reckoning, and despite having glanced around with a not exactly bored, but more ‘idle’ disinterest in anything the shop had to offer, she had elected to remain. Occasionally she toured around the extent of the small interior and offered the carpenter a smile. Not one for forcing conversation, he had turned back at least most of his attention to his work. If his cousin needed something from him, she would tell him one way or another. But she did not reply.
His late mother had once spoken of a near catatonic state that the lady had fallen unto, after watching her father and his ship, the bulk of the remaining party-goers taken all to their end. Isys had only been a child then and although the alarming vacancy had subsided with time after the trauma, the now woman seemed at times to recall. If not the trigger itself for such a reaction, then at least the way that people did not seem to expect any response from her, when she even now resorted to a slight of the symptom. Sometimes, the Lady Eressild was prone to speaking as though her strange daughter could neither hear nor properly register what was said to her, which was likely preferential to the mother, than some notion that she was being ignored on purpose. It had been frequently observed, regardless, that the lady would invariably ‘come back to them’ of her own accord, now as then.
For no reason that was apparent then, Isys eventually rose up from where she was engaged, walking two fingers wordlessly across a shelf. Approaching the former Ranger, she picked up a wooden puppet from a box of the same. Their collective boasted a diversity of expressions and features, though their eyes were all the same fetching shade of green. The Lady lowered the piece back into it’s bed, as though it were a baby come to sleep. Turning, she observed the project that the man was currently engaged with, and walked around him entirely. A slight flicker of the man’s brown eyes indicated that he’d noticed, and at length he paused, lowering the small ball of bundled equisetum in one hand, so that she could better inspect what it was polishing.
“I prefer the puppets,” the Belfalasian decided after a swift scrutiny of the wooden shape. “They are for the fayre,” she supposed, and supposed that he would correct her if she had assumed incorrectly. People did so like to correct women, particularly men. Particularly men who believed women were belittling their trade ..
“Narradir had an inkling that puppets might entertain the children,” Addhor responded, patiently. “At the fayre,” he allowed, and she smiled, apparently triumphant. But when she did not remark further, or ask after his more curious errand, he added, “The puppets should bring joy. But this,” he raised the wooden sculpture of a hand, anatomically as perfect as he had managed to create, thus far .. “This is for hope,” he explained. Laying it out on the counter, the man shifted where he sat, and watched to see if she were really at all interested. As if to prove that she were not, Ilisys returned to the shelf, though spent her time now shuffling things slightly to a new angle, and then back again. It was alike to having Unalmis come and be bothersome about the place, save that at least half a dozen things would have by now been almost broken. The lady was gentle in her impertinence at least.
“Pele seemed to think that it was an avenue worth exploring,” the carpenter put in, quietly annoyed at having been apparently induced to speak without even a prompt. But maybe if he bored her at least she might leave. His was rarely a craft that invited onlookers or interaction, for which he was grateful. “The Houses of Healing might apparently want to offer such a ..”
“I spoke to Narradir” Isys interrupted. “Once,” she persevered, even as Addhor’s brow furrowed with confusion of why she was rounding back to that conversation. “It was while you were in Rohan, with Unalmis and Duinion.” The Ehtyar turned the sign at the shop door from open, to closed, back to open, and then back to closed again. As though she was debating which side of the painted sign she preferred. She left it to display as closed however, and the shopkeeper rose up, only to have her remain determinedly before him. “He told me that you had asked him to keep an eye for Pele while you could not,” Isys mentioned. And as Addhor endeavoured to glance around her, or make a move to so step, she moved too, as though they were to now dance. Rather than argue, or display due anger toward the annoyance, her cousin (by marriage) walked back past his seat and took the scenic route around the work bench, to reach the door. Once he had fingers about the door sign, he paused, turned back and found an expectant noblewoman waiting for him to catch up, where she stood still. The silence asked on her behalf, for the matter to be elaborated upon, and the carpenter sighed, unwilling to discuss other people’s business and already rueing the decision to have involved Narradir with even the most vague of suggestions.
“I spoke with Pele by chance before I left,” he admitted. If only to put the noble's mind at rest with the utter absence of drama. “She was concerned about my riding so far from home. She advised of the region and we also spoke about the ..” he indicated his work, not the puppets. Ilisys did not withdraw her grey eyes. “We had been collaborating upon the project, for prospective patients. She seemed .. lonely,” he concluded, after a moment’s search for the right word to justify his interest. “Unhappy,” he added, more quietly and half to himself. Was this the means by which he could learn what was troubling the Healer ? "I thought Narradir might be able to make her laugh, is all."
“Does she not frequently have her kinswoman’s company ?” Isys pressed then, out of the blue. Addhor released then any thought of displaying the ‘open’ side of the door sign, and calmly returned to his seat at the work bench.
“I could not claim to be aware of all the MasterHealer’s comings and goings,” he was not sure where this was going, but brakes were now subtlely applied. “Her friends, her family ..” he spoke, carefully but collected. And raised brown eyes to meet grey, where each struggled some to hold against the other’s probing gaze. “She is surely very busy,” he concluded, carefully.
“I saw them together, upon the Anduin Cruise, Pele and .. ” Isys paused, tilting her head. “You are acquainted with her cousin. Nell I believe she is called ..”
“I am .. I would .. hope that they both had a good time,” her ‘informant’ proved no such thing, as he remained coy, and raised his chin ever so slightly. “As well as yourself. ” He threw questions back her own way, with no want to discuss how well acquainted or often he knew Pele or her alluring cousin. He might easily blush. Addhor had known the Belfalasian herself for a fair amount of time. He knew by this point that she was not asking nothing, though he was not sure quite what she was asking. She it was, that had agreed to teach him to dance, in a very early and extremely closeted attempt to prepare for .. any such needs that may one day come about. And perhaps the lady now thought she knew the truth of it all. Somehow though, it seemed .. else ..
“It was more pleasurable than the previous time that you and I trod the same boards a ship,” Isys shrugged, as if on cue, shifting the matter of their exchange once again. The man’s focus narrowed, as he picked up and then put his project down again.
“Well, ‘that’ was an exceptional circumstance,” the veteran wanted to be very clear upon that subject. “One I have no wish to repeat,” he made very clear, not sure quite what she was leading up to here, but certain that he had too much these days to care for at home, to risk any further foolishness abroad. Everything he cared about now was within his grasp.
“The lengths we will go to, for sake of those we love,” Ilisys ducked her chin though, demurely, accepting the man’s commitment to home and hearth. “Unalmis is due to take dinner here this eve, is he not ?”
“That remains to be seen,” the more reckless Ranger’s father sighed, despite himself. “He is a law unto himself. But you know so. For you have been taking him under your wing, or so he tells me ..”
“He is a far cry from his cousin,” the Ehtyar spoke honestly. “But he is his own self. And we are learning much from one another. Of course it does not hurt to be prepared for anything. He shall be, I promise you.”
Addhor inclined his head, at peace with the assessment, and aware that they had now come some distance again from what they had been speaking of, but moments before. Random was one thing. But random, in some cases, was born out of reason. “If there be any cause for concern,” the man spoke up, suddenly all at sea as he paused to puzzle over all the pieces that the lady had dropped in his mind. “You would tell me,” he hoped. "He is all that I have.” Brown eyes delivered up the sentiment with greater strength than such mere words could convey.
“Not all,” Isys reminded the carpenter gently. “I have learnt ever more of late that friends as well as family must be equally treasured.” She had of course left her family and home behind, to take up in the Rangers. Her remark might simply suggest that she was fitting in. Somehow, knowing what he knew of her though, there remained some doubt. Had she friends here, besides he and his family ? Abrazimir undoubtedly. And perhaps Pele ..
“Are you going to Erulaitale ?” Addhor asked now curious for his own sake.”i expect that both friends and family will be there.” He was privately hoping so, and with all this talk perhaps more than even he’d realised.
“I shall not cramp your company,” the lady promised, before he would ever have imagined such a thing. “Although I am keen to see the puppets at their play.” Isys mused, half turning to smile back at the readied box.
“I thank you,” the man was sincere, and rose up suddenly. “For your interest,” he gave up what he could, and she knew then, that she had given just enough. Perhaps though even more than she had expected, as it turned. “And for the watch you dedicate each eve,” he glanced past her, and gestured with his chin out beyond the window, to her own premises across the street.
The Ehtyar curled her fingers around the door handle. So. He had seen the watch from that window opposite. She should have assumed as much, and would have to warn his brother to remember that they both had once been Ranger trained.
“This world is such an unpredictable arena,” grey eyes whirled without the rest of her, about the expanse of the shop, before the lady stepped out into the wider scene of the street. “I can scarce close my eyes for all I might know better.” she smiled, and almost collided with a fast approaching Unalmis as he skidded to a halt and glanced between his trainer, and his father, for what reason he could not know.
“Am I in trouble ?” was the obvious assumption as the apparent collaborators exchanged their farewells.
“You are trouble,” was the only diagnosis then, as Addhor checked the sign, and locked the door, before herding his offspring upstairs.
Ilisys permitted herself a moment of relief. The seeds had been planted, in the parent as well as the student. And no doubt the former was already gauging much more than the latter knew that he was sharing, when they spoke of how they each had spent their day. She cared only that they would be careful, and trusted that she had sunk that ambition in the pair. She already knew that they had extra attention, if uncalled for. A subtle nod of her head, in acknowledgement of the watcher from her own upstairs shop window, and the Ehtyar shook her head and started back to the Barracks. She would take Iole dress shopping on the morrow, for the impending festival. She could not now fail to attend. For there would be puppets !
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