Two Go Forth

Calista had learned when being taught how to hunt by Serethiel how to be very quiet. Serethiel's elf blood had enabled her to move completely silently, but Calista was fairly quiet herself. She was careful where she stepped and walked almost completely on the tips of her toes. Out of her right eye she could see Eldarion moving too. Just then she saw him stop suddenly as he stared ahead. She looked back towards the fire and now could see the people sitting there. None of them were Arina or Lucas, but she noticed one woman wearing a cloak that only could have belonged to Arina. She looked quickly back at Eldarion, but it was too late. He was already moving out towards the large man by the fire. She already had an arrow nocked, but instead of moving out of the trees she decided to stay there and fire if necessary from some cover and where she could move without being seen.

The woman had threw a knife right off before she began to string her bow. It hit Eldarion in his arm so he shifted his sword to his offhand and met the man blade to blade. Calista could see the other two nocking arrows they were going to shoot her husband and now that he and the other man were fighting it was going to be difficult to avoid possibly shooting him because the others were on their opposite side. Precious moments ticked away as the man near the fire rose his bow to shoot.

OOC- I'm at the fair today. I will reply tonight.

ooc: Enjoy Im at work still :-/ and i have to come in tomorrow, can you believe that? :-(

OOC-That really sucks! I'm so sorry.

IC-Calista began to panic when she saw the knife hit Eldarion's right arm. As he and the large man began to fight she realized that hitting the other two was going to be difficult...however, not impossible. She needed to aim carefully. She raised her bow and aimed it at the woman first. She watched as the large man pushed Eldarion forward, giving her a window to hit the woman. She took it and struck her in the right shoulder. She immediately nocked a second arrow and aimed it at the second man. It was going to be close, but she had no other choice. If she moved to another spot the man may have already hit her husband. She held her breath and prayed as she aimed as best she could and fired. The arrow just narrowly missed Eldarion and struck the man in the chest.

Even with his offhand Eldarion bested the large, bedraggled man and sliced off his sword arm at the elbow. Eldarion followed him to the ground, he heard Calista move up behind him, as he wanted to know where they go the cloak. He was in a fury and he shook with a rage that made him want to hurt this man but somehow he managed to speak. “Where did you get that cloak!?” he said in a voice that didn’t even sound like him. Calista saw the knife still in his arm and blood dripped down onto his hand and onto the ground beside him. He held his sword to the man’s chest though and waited for an answer. The man, he was tall with a large, broad chest. He had long, greasy brown hair and brown eyes and a scraggly beard peppered with gray. He clutched his ruined arm to his chest and red stained most of his shirt already. “We...we...it fell off a lass as they rode away I swear! The lass and the lad they...he kilt Ennis Meagan when she tried ta pull er off er horse and dey jus rode off. We din get back ta see em. Karlie...she...she jus liked the cloak is all,” he said as he groaned. He had lost to much blood and his eyes fluttered and he just laid back. Eldarion wanted to find out more but a hand on his shoulder made him look up at Calista. She had a worried face and he couldn’t for the life of him understand why. He didn’t seem to notice nor care that he had about 2 inches of steel sticking into his arm. All he cared about was his sister and to hell with anything else.

“Did you hear? They didn’t get them...they...they must have rode one,” he decided.

Calista was greatly concerned for her husband as she approached him. She could see that adrenaline was still pumping through his system, but the second it stopped he was not going to be well off with that knife in his arm. She needed to get him calm and get it out...now.

"Yes, I heard," she replied gently. "Eldarion...I need to get this knife out of your arm."

She quickly went back to their horses and found some clean bandages, a large rag, and some poultice she could use to prevent infection. She hurried back over to him and instructed him to sit in a tone that would tell him that she wasn't going to have any argument. She quickly removed the knife from his arm and used the rag to try and stop the bleeding as best she could. After it had stopped enough for her to apply the poultice she did. Next, she wrapped the bandage around his arm and tied it off.

Eldarion really had no choice but to do what his wife said. He had heard that tone before and knew she would not tolerate him trying to rebut her. She had been right to take charge though, he was unsettled and had not been thinking clearly. He sat and he winced and grunted when she pulled out the knife. It had just grazed the muscle so it was definitely going to be sore for a few weeks if not longer if he couldn’t rest it. “Well this is a fine pickle,” he said. “Only out here a couple days and already I’ll...I’ll probably slow us down,” he said with a scowl. Not for her but for himself. He could ride a horse with one arm but it wasn’t as easy. When she was done working on him he tested the arm and winced deciding what his real range of motion would be. “Thank you wife...for...for making sure I don’t make a dog’s dinner out of all this!” he said self admonishing himself. Now ‘she’ was going to have to help him on ‘his’ horse. Oh how that was going to grate.

When they searched them it was abundantly clear that they were robbers. They had all sorts of knick knacks and sacks of baubles, clothes and other things, some loot but mostly not. Justice had been done today and he asked Calista to fold the cloak and take it with them so he could return it to her when they found her. After a short rest they got back up on their horses and continued forth.

OOC-Should we start a new thread? Maybe do something with Arina and Lucas before Eldarion and Calista find them? I'm also wondering if we shouldn't start a new thread on the UBM board. I really liked that last post though.

ooc-I think we are ready to move on on these. I think Arina is really the one calling the shots here though so if you dont mind starting that one? We need a plan maybe of what state we want them to be in? Where was their plan to go? Bree? Are they there and trying to make a living? Should we highlight something of that? Maybe they just now arrived and its not so inviting? I.e. he takes a job as something, a stable man or some other general labor. She might be asked to be a barmaid and the proprietor only takes her on because he thinks he'll get her into a bed at some point? I kinda want it to be an eye opening kind of experience for them.

OOC-Sure, they could be in Bree at this point. Arina is going to be pregnant. I think that maybe she was pregnant before they even left Minas Tirith. Maybe that was why they decided they needed to elope. How long do you think it would take them to get to Bree from Minas Tirith?

ooc-on horseback-its about 2000 miles following roads. At 40 miles a day? About 2 months if we want to be real about it so if you want to go with she was pregnant, say 2-3 months we could say she is 4-5 months now or just at the end of her 2nd trimester by the time Calista and Eldarion arrive.

OOC-New thread

OOC-I'm going to be running around today doing some things but I will try to post when I can.

ooc-no worries, i will need some downtime this evening. I have no day off until maybe next sunday

OOC-That's really terrible. I'm so sorry about that.