3:3
Lotte was quite aware that Naja was not perhaps the model of pious humility. In fact, there were things about her that Lotte would go so far as to call distinctly immoral, and others that anyone could see were annoying. Aisling, meanwhile, seemed more amused than anything both by Naja's behavior and by Lotte herself.
But as they ate up the ground, and she struggled to ride on a horse that was no doubt worth more than she was, she couldn't help but like them. Aisling was graceful, and kind in this odd, dry way, like a shelter before a storm. Naja was the storm herself, yet there was something very attractive about someone attracted to you, and something… fancy about Naja. Her style of dressing, like a man's and yet certainly not, fascinated Lotte. She herself already dressed in very practical sorts of ways, but Naja von Siebert dressed how she did for that most impractical of reasons: she liked it that way.
Lotte liked that. So, as Naja teased her about how sore she was at riding a horse, she felt something like fondness for her. The oddest thing is that it didn't feel like something that could become love. There was attraction, a desire to run her fingers through Naja's short hair, and kiss those thin, aristocratic lips, but it wasn't tied to anything stronger than fond regard. Lotte had never… she'd never been the type of person who'd kiss someone unless she truly meant it.
The only problem, truly, with their journey along the roads was the horse. It didn't seem to like her, and Lotte did her best to like him in turn, but in truth she failed. He was an ornery creature, made more for knights in battle than to carry rangers on patrol. She left it behind every time she wished to scout ahead, and luckily enough, Naja was willing to slow down for those moments, and Aisling willing to hold her steed.
Stories spoke of the man on horseback, but they never spoke of saddle sores, or having to stop each night to bathe in a river if there was one, trying to be gentle and kind to her body, which for all its usual strength seemed unable to stand up to days in the saddle. It was humiliating, and Naja's concern, the way she pressed ointments and soaps upon Lotte, didn't help. Lotte didn't know what she wanted to do with Naja, but it made her sick, to think of Naja, knowing that she was that weak. It made her feel fleshy, in the worst way possible, and she was drawing so close to her monthlies. A day, or maybe two, more. Her stomach churned and at moments threatened to empty itself where she sat upon the swaying, strange beast.
Her nights were haunted, or at least she had dreams she didn't remember, but which left her in a cold sweat.
And, yet.
Naja didn't seem to begrudge her her weaknesses, and Aisling respected her efforts. Luckily, there were no bandits waiting on the roads as they wound their way northwards. Lotte would have had to do something about them.
As it was, Lotte enjoyed the weather, which seemed to drag on in perfect balance. The few times clouds gathered for it to rain, it was behind them, or ahead of them, and they could either press on faster or not and still remain unsoaked.
Amidst all of that, of course, more happened than a simple journey.
******
"Your village, what was it like?" Naja asked on the first day, humming to herself, in a fine mood.
"Small, isolated. Valweld was at the last link of the chain," Lotte explained, deciding to tell the truth. It wasn't as if even the most polite lies would make Naja think it was anything other than a doghole. "But the forest was beautiful, and my family… I know that we are not nobles, but my family was not poor, by the standards of peasants."
"Ah, middling farmers?" Aisling asked, knowingly.
"Yes. They occasionally hired out in busy moments, but they mostly dealt with their own labor, and sent around animals as studs," Lotte said.
"Ah," Naja said, sounding as if she were stepping into a pool of water only to realize it was deeper than expected. "Well, were you popular?"
"My mother was a pious adventurer with skill in priestly arms, though she was not a priest, and my father the son of a very diligent peasant close to the village headman," Lotte said. "I did what I could to help the village, hunting and lending a hand."
"And… did you have any sweethearts?" Naja asked, as casually as a cat sidling up to a mouse. Which was to say, far less subtly than she thought she was being.
"You really don't have to answer," Aisling said, from a little bit up ahead on the road.
Lotte waited for a long moment, glancing down at her stallion, who at least was paying none of this any mind. "The daughter of the village headman, Hildegard often looked at me the way a starving man would a stray cattle, and it made me feel uncomfortably like… like so."
"Oh," Naja said, and then by some miracle realized, "Oh. I'm, I'm very sorry, I didn't mean to, I… you're a brave adventurer, and there wasn't meant to be pressure--"
"It is okay," Lotte said, though this was only partially true. "There was also Arndt. He went out to be an adventurer, and returned with a wound in his stomach. He blamed me, perhaps with cause, for not having been there to fight alongside him."
Sometimes she wished she'd kissed him when he was sixteen, and they were both far brighter people, less burdened by duties and pain. Instead he'd become someone different.
"Ah," Naja said. "First loves… they do so struggle. I loved a maid, and a noble boy of a nearby family, and both of those came to ruin and wreck." She smirked, "So I content myself not with love but with pleasure and affection. It has stood me in good stead."
"I still wish for more," Lotte said.
"It is admirable that you do, I suppose," Naja said, though she sounded disappointed. "What do you imagine?"
"Marriage, and perhaps kids one day."
"To a man, then?" Aisling asked, proving she had been listening the whole time.
"Not necessarily. I could adopt, as my parents adopted me."
"Adopted?" Naja asked. "Do you know from who?"
"No, I was left on a doorstep," Lotte admitted. "But as a suckling babe, and so none questioned that we were family."
"The milk of the mother is stronger than blood," Naja muttered, repeating the saying quite common in the Central Lands. Of course, Lote was surprised to hear a noble say it, since so many of them quite unnaturally had nursemaids, but the meaning was still clear.
Lineage was far more than simply from whose body birthed you.
"Yes," Lotte said, nodding. "So I suppose I was nursed on adventure."
"Ahh," Naja said, shaking her head, looking very thoughtful. "The offer stands, Lotte."
"The offer?" Lotte asked.
"I know that as a highly educated and beautiful noble, I intimidate you, but--"
Aisling snorted.
"Quiet, you," Naja said, pouting in a rather silly way, eyes bulging a little bit with her glare. "I meant, that's not how I, you know."
Lotte didn't, not really, but she had the vaguest idea of what Naja might meant. It was enough to make her blush. But it also made her a little sick to her stomach, to imagine, whether like a noble or not, Naja looking over her hideous body, soon to enter into her monthlies and, what?
Recoiling, perhaps, in horror.
Or worse, not recoiling, because she thinks it looks fine, which besides meaning Naja had no taste, meant that there might be something wrong with Lotte.
Best for everyone if it didn't get that far, or--
(Lotte pressed down visions of kissing Naja, doing anything to keep herself and her body out of it.)
"You don't, do you? Well, if you ever do know, the offer's there."
Lotte smiled, "I really am… grateful for your offer." It was a lie, it wasn't a lie. The trees nearby were beautiful, there was birdsong fluttering its way through the air, and if she could truly believe them she'd be grateful for the implication of her words.
But she couldn't.
******
"So, do you want to learn Sepult?" Naja asked. "You really should. I'm a skilled teacher, if I do say so myself, and it would benefit you."
They were at a table at an inn, on the first night of their journey. Lotte would have been fine camping out, but Naja had loudly refused that idea.
"Alright."
"Well, then, let's start with something simple. There's a few basic words, and then I should talk to you about how to conjugate verbs, and the past, present, and future tenses and how to--"
Lotte didn't know what conjugation was, but she had a feeling it hurt.
"So, Hello is Avita, and when you're saying hello to a good friend it's Avitahara! To, as in, 'going to the ruins' is Eta, but went to is Veta, and--"
Lotte opened her mouth to ask questions, but Naja kept on going, spewing knowledge as if she were sick with it and needed to get it out or die.
The words flowed on.
******
She woke on the second day to the start of her monthlies, and had to squirm out of her bed. She hadn't used rags out of…
She didn't know. (She did know - denial. As if she could just pretend it wouldn't happen and that'd solve anything.)
Either way, she had to pull off the sheets, and affix the rags, and do it all while tearing up a little. It wasn't that her mood swung much, because to swing implies to move back and forth. No, Lotte's mood plummeted, and only recovered when it was all past. She moved carefully, the pains in her stomach and lower back constant, and adding to the pain of the saddle sores. She felt swollen, and her chest was so tender that, when she dressed some time later, she had to be careful not to brush against her… chest. Because her chest was tender.
If the other two noticed her odd behavior, they didn't ask, and Lotte was glad of that. She hated it, and she hated that it shouldn't be so bad. Monthlies, after all, were proof that she was becoming a woman, growing up. Her mother had gone to another town, and come back with apples to bake into a pie, to celebrate the day.
How could she tell her mother she didn't like it? She hated the feeling of not being in control, she'd trained her body to do many things, but she couldn't train it not to bleed. But how selfish a viewpoint was that, and how arrogant? Neither body nor soul was in the control of a person, that was to fate, chance, and the Gods. Her monthlies were inconsistent, with her exercise and her life, sometimes skipping months. Many women had it far worse than her.
She talked to herself a lot, when she was having her monthlies, explaining to herself how silly she was, how impious her arrogant desire for command of her body was, and it never seemed to solve anything.
She just had to endure it, as she endured so many things. She didn't complain, then, she saddled up and if she was smiling a little less, if she nodded a little vaguely at the jokes being told, they didn't seem to react.
(Lotte's arrogance, she knew, began with how rarely she got sick. She could only remember one time, when she was fourteen, just two months after her first monthly. She'd never gotten sick before, and then all at once it had hit.
She'd groaned and writhed, sweating until every sheet was soaked, lost in some strange daydream. She didn't remember the details, and when she tried they'd shift, like muddy ground, beneath her feet. She was fighting someone, she was talking to… something? A flash of scarlet, a little bit of blood on the ground, a hand reaching out, making a fist, to come crashing down, a flutter of wings, but also a rabbit the color of the sky. None of it made sense, and the images didn't just appear. No, they came with smells, of vomit and flowers, of dead, rotting bodies and the perfume of nobles, of sweat and the feeling of coarse hair beneath her fingers.
The taste of ashes.
The sound of a breaking dream.
Her parents had crowded around her, had panicked, had been afraid, and she babbled nonsense, until at last five days later all at once the fever broke, long after the priests had come, frowning, to declare that there was nothing they could do, that she was in the hands' of the Gods now.
If she was, then they let her go, let her drop to the earth, and groan, and stir. They let her drop down and rise up, changed. Once she knew she could die, once she'd been faced with it, the world seemed less terrifying, as if she had faced enough. She grew stronger and bolder, working harder to make up for the wrack and waste of her body, and she pushed herself further and faster, until at sixteen she felt ready.
But she wasn't, she was still in the grips of the fever, in her parents' fears for her life, of their memories of those lonely, hopeless nights.
She'd always liked the idea that she could control her body, discipline it, but afterwards it'd seemed even more important.
She wondered, sometimes, whether she should have been more scared of her fever than she was.)
No, they continued onwards, and it was only at midday that Aisling slowed down her mount, this big brown mare, and asked, "Do you need any of my medicine?"
"Medicine?"
"For… womanly cramps," Aisling said.
Lotte had not known such herbal medication existed, or at least she'd never quite brought herself to ask about it.
She nodded, and while the green powder wasn't the end of her monthlies, or even her pain, it did help just a little.
******
"So, do you wanna learn Elvish?" Aisling asked, looking around at another clear blue sky. They were stopped in a clearing. "It will take her a while."
Naja was off dealing with personal business, which was to say finding a bush. "It will?"
"Oh, be sure of it. We have quite a few minutes, if you'd like to know how to get by when you meet someone who doesn't speak her tongue."
Lotte hesitated, thinking of the hundreds of rules Naja just expected her to know already, after a few sessions, and the… perhaps twenty words she'd actually been introduced to, none of which she could currently remember. "I… suppose."
"Well, alright, so. Help is Cabru, while Greetings is Beanacti, please is Le Do Thi, and food is Bi, so Greetings Food Please would be Beanacti Le-Do Thi-Bi," she said, very slowly, sounding out each of the words.
"What about tenses?" Lotte asked.
"Why'd I teach you tenses? This is about communicating. If you're in the situation, then being able to say anything at all matters more than saying nothing correctly," Aisling said, with an annoyed twist of her ears. "So, as I was saying, Water is uisco, and piss is the same. So if you had to go pee, it'd be Pas Uisco, while wanting water would be Uisco Le Do Thi."
Lotte blinked a little, but nodded, trying to commit the words to her memory. Aisling's ears were twitching now in something that felt like it might be excitement, as if she'd longed to teach someone words from her people. This seemed more practical than Naja's efforts, but Lotte could barely remember half the words even a minute later, and the phrases confused her as Aisling had her repeat them back… they both stopped the moment Naja came into view, as if they were both doing something shameful.
*****
On the fourth day, they reached the forest south of her 'home forest.' It looked so similar, truly, since it eventually met up with it after a short gap, but an even more isolated village, right in the middle, through a thin route. The trees were gratifyingly green, and there was nothing of the tension that the trip through the Red Forest had brought. No, she could enjoy the breeze against her skin, and try to relax despite her body's discomforts. As they stepped deeper into the forest, they'd had to dismount and lead the animals.
Lotte guided all of them ahead, stopping every so often to scout ahead, her movements light and careful. She hadn't strung her bow before she entered the forest, but now that she was here, she was going to be ready for anything.
On her way there, she came across a tree so large and ancient she stopped the whole party to step closer and ran her hands along its length. It stretched up to the very edge of the canopy, drinking in all the sunlight it could get. She stared for a long moment, wondering what its story was. It was unlike any of the other trees, its body seeming to spiral together, its form vast compared to the thinner trees around it.
Someone had planted this. "What is it? Is this a secret tree? This isn't where we're supposed to do the ritual, but what if it's--"
"It's a tree," Lotte said, quietly, looking up at it.
"And what's so special about that?"
"Everything," Aisling said. "This is a tree to memorialize something. I can tell it," Aisling.
"But what?" Naja demanded, pouting, and looking around at the two of them.
"I don't know, but I know the species. We call them the Memento Trees, which can survive everywhere. Anything, almost. There's no magic to them… except where there is, but in a forest like this, it was not a Fae that planted it." Aisling hesitated for a moment and said, "Probably."
"But it was an elf, then?" Naja asked.
"Possibly. I suppose we cannot know," Aisling admitted. "But what we can know, or what Lotte can know, is what comes next."
"I need you to kill five squirrels, four blackbirds, three deer, two fox, a wolf, and we also need a Mocker's feather. And magic cannot be used to acquire any of them," Naja said.
"A Mocker?" Lotte asked.
"It's this strange bird, made from magic itself. Black, like a raven, but with dozens of eyes, and when someone attacks it, bad luck follows them," Aisling said. "Some pulp up their eyes for brews that will give the drinker bad luck and make misfortune follow them."
"Really?" Lotte asked, looking from Aisling to Naja.
"Yes. It is a strange monster, though not as dangerous as it seems. The misfortune is only sometimes fatal, and it is said that these beings have a sense of humor, far preferring a stumble, or… someone like Naja being humiliated to actual death," Aisling explained.
"Someone like me?"
"Proud, arrogant, vain, beautiful. Watch out for dung heaps to be flung face-first into," Aisling said.
"I'll be fine. In fact, I should at least work to locate where a nest of theirs is," Naja said. "So that Lotte can get a feather. It doesn't have to involve killing them, and really we shouldn't. That's incredibly bad luck, and when they're dying they often…"
"They're cornered animals," Lotte said. "They bite and fight without any regards for what comes next." Which, Lotte thought, would be terrifying if it involved fate itself turning against someone.
"Well, yes," Naja said. "In the meantime, while I'm looking, you should use that horse to transport any bodies you find to, say, here? They need to be prepared before we move to the ritual site."
"If I had a sledge, I could drag the deer myself," Lotte said.
Naja swayed for a moment, and Lotte stepped forward. Was Naja ill? "Are you okay?!"
Naja looked at her with wide eyes.
"She was swooning," Aisling said. "Rather dramatically."
"She just admitted she can carry a deer. A deer!"
"On a sledge," Lotte added, though she could also carry it the normal way for shorter periods. Nobody seemed to be listening.
"I admit, it is very impressive, especially to Naja, who doesn't have the strength to lift more than a book," Aisling said, her ears flicking in obvious amusement.
"Hey," Naja said, a frown twisting on her lips. "That's rude."
"It's true, as well," Aisling said.
"Is not!"
"Well, then why don't you prove it, by--"
"Please, stop your flirting, you two," Lotte said. Then she realized what she said and her eyes widened, her face going as red as a robin's breast.
"Oh, wow, she recognized it," Aisling said, while Naja looked at her with stunned awe. "She's learning and growing even now."
"I suppose I am," Lotte said, her voice small and choked, "You flirt with each other all the time."
"And you have, quiet piously, ignored it until now," Aisling said, tilting her head thoughtfully. "Now you aren't. Would you be adverse to kisses? Really, I just ask, because you don't have to marry everyone you kiss."
Lotte looked away. "I'll think about it." She meant it, because she was attracted to both of them, and yet at the same time it felt cheap to go further, when she didn't intend to go all the way and wanted, eventually, matrimony of some type. She also didn't want to have to mention the monthlies, and how miserable and undesirable they made her feel. "So, the animals…"
"Well, gather them here, mighty hunter, and we'll move them to the ritual site by noon tomorrow, when the ritual has to be completed," Naja said, with a smile.
"I understand," Lotte said.
******
The hunting wasn't all that difficult, for all that it was dreadfully specific. The squirrel hunting was the worst, because she didn't have the right sort of bow. Squirrels were small, and she'd rarely bothered to hunt them, and so she'd brought the kind of bow you used to take down deer and larger animals.
Still, she persisted, putting the smaller animals in a bag she'd brought, and using her horse, ornery though it was, to drag the deer. It was hard, bloody work. By late afternoon, she had to stop to wash in a nearby stream, or else she feared her scent would knock Naja out. Naja, for her part, kept on checking on Lotte, curious as to her progress, but not speaking of her own search.
The sun was just starting to sink when Lotte returned to the tree, with the final fox. The wolf had seemed as if it would be a hard task, and in other circumstances it might have been, except she found a wounded wolf an hour into his search. Lotte didn't know what to think of that, and neither did she know how to feel after having killed so many animals without even eating them. It felt wasteful.
"I've found the Mocker," Naja said. "Well, a cluster of them, near this grove."
It was quite a walk, and by then it was starting to get late. They'd have to find everything soon, or else they'd be desperately searching come morning, or even waiting an extra day for the ritual. Considering the animals themselves, this would be a disaster, since they'd be rotting by then.
The grave was huge, and more open than it should be, as if a fire had cleared it out. The trees hung down over it, blocking out at least a little of the sky, and they seemed to droop and bend towards the center of the grove. In all that space, it took more than a few moments to see the Mocker. Then, alighting on a branch, was… quite the animal. It really did look like a raven, but all of its yellow eyes swiveled at once to look at Lotte. She felt as if she were under the glare of the summer sun. It stood there, looking at Lotte, and Lotte stood oddly transfixed, strangely afraid, as if it was peering deep into her soul.
"C'mon, go get it!" Naja demanded, with a stamp of her foot, her hands clenched into fists, passion in her eyes.
"How?" Lotte finally managed to ask. If she chased after that, what good would it--
"Fine, I'll do it," Naja said, walking over to the tree and starting to climb, slowly but surely. She was terrible at climbing, and kept on almost slipping. The Mocker just sat on the branch, apparently entirely unworried.
"Naja, are you sure--" Lotte began. This seemed like a terrible idea, and yet Naja was the employer, wasn't she? Lotte didn't want to be yelled at, or disliked. Not by Naja.
"Of course I am!"
There was buzzing, and then down came a beehive.
Naja shouted and tried to twist out of the way, but it smacked her in the head and broke, at least enough to leave a smear of honey across her now-mussed hair.
The bees buzzed angrily as she tumbled down a few feet and hit the ground, before rolling with a groan and beginning to stand up.
Lotte had already begun moving to help her when she saw the bear. It was a big, black bear, a female at Lotte's guess, and it sniffed the air as it headed over towards the hive.
"Ahhh! Oh no, I, don't--" Naja screamed, loud enough to set anyone on edge.
"Quiet," Lotte said. Her voice wasn't loud, but it was firmer than she was used to being, and Naja just stopped. "Do not move."
"Y-yes ma'am," Naja said, which were words that didn't quite feel right, but she didn't have time to think about it.
"The bear isn't after you." The bees might be, but it was best not to say that. "Now, stay still. Yes, the bees are…"
The bees were buzzing, but not attacking, because the hive had fallen some ways away, blown by the wind. The bear ambled past her, nuzzling at her hair, and then giving it a thoughtful lick before moving past Naja entirely.
"Now, walk over to me," Lotte said.
"I can't…" Naja whined, sounding almost like a child.
"I believe you can," Lotte said. "Do it for me."
Naja moved, slowly but surely, until she was standing, unsteadily, next to Lotte, clinging to her.
"You… you saved me," Naja said.
"You weren't in danger," Lotte said.
"Do you know how… how…" Naja stuttered over her words, blushing so hard that Lotte… realized what Naja meant.
"Really?" Lotte asked, startled. She didn't really think of herself as someone who could be that forceful, let alone apparently… attractively so. Nor did she know what to do with that information. It pooled in her belly, warm and strange, but…
She shook her head, and Naja must have picked up on her feelings.
"I'm sorry," Naja whined, and then gaped at the Mocker, which flew overhead. "Oh no…" Her shoulders sagged in resigned defeat, as the Mocker winged back around and… landed on Lotte's shoulder.
One of its feathers looked like it was almost falling out, and Lotte reached out, hesitantly, and plucked it. The Mocker cawed, relieved itself on her shoulder, and flew off.
"...what?" Naja asked, looking at her with something like bafflement.
"I suppose…" Lotte began, but in truth, she couldn't make sense of it. She could easily make sense of the bear ignoring Naja, because what would be the point, particularly? But… just how intelligent was the Mocker? "I suppose… we have our feather."
After Lotte got Naja back to the camp, Aisling laughed herself silly at the whole story. Naja pouted for the whole night. Lotte didn't tell her it was cute, even though it was.
That night, Lotte dreamed of the Mocker, but remembered nothing more than those many eyes, at the end of it.
******
The sun beat down upon them as Naja chanted, circling around and around the ritual site.
The wolf was in the center of the clearing, her throat slashed, her head staring up at the son, while a diamond of four blackbirds surrounded it, one above, one to the left, one just below, one to the right, with the foxes laid out, nose to nose, like a great bit comma just above the upper blackbird. Then, down at the bottom of the ritual site, a line of squirrels, stretching across the middle, their tails, bizarrely, cut off. Then finally a triangle of the deer, anchoring to the left and right of the squirrel line, and--
It all felt so clinical, when eventually she tried to describe it. But it wasn't. It was visceral and it felt wrong, and worst of all it stank. The carcacsses were starting to rot, and Naja stood there, feather in her cap, dancing around and around the bodies, chanting in some tongue that seemed vaguely like the Sepult she'd learned, but no more than that. Lotte watched, not sure how it was that any such ritual could do anything worthwhile.
Finally, the chanting slowed down, and when the last word of Naja's strange babble stopped, the world was transformed.
The trees seemed to groan and shift out of the way, and in the space of a single heartbeat, there it was. It was a vast castle of dark, molten looking stone, stretching almost to the edges of Lotte's sight, despite the fact that it was hundreds of feet from where she stood to the great, blood-red wooden gate, which was open just a crack. Above the parapets, there was a tower in the far distance, and before it a rising of stone that Lotte guessed might be the center of the castle itself. The castle stretched from east to west, and seemed to crackle with a strange power. Even the sky above seemed changed, darker as if it was nearing nightfall.
"Well," Aisling said. "You did it."
"I… I did," Naja said, her voice breathy, as an arrogant grin slowly stole over her face. "I really did it!"
Lotte was still gaping, still taking in the details of this strange building. How was this even possible? How could magic do so much? Suddenly what little she understood of history seemed transformed in the light of… this. Where else were such pockets, such places? What had she missed? It could take days to explore all of it, and Lotte knew that Naja wouldn't stop until she'd done so.
It was with entirely understandable foreboding that Lotte followed the two of them towards the great gate, and then into the strange forgotten (or was it?) Palace.
When exploring, where does Lotte position herself?
[] Nearby Naja, to both protect her and talk about what they're seeing.
[] Up ahead, in order to be about to scout and hear trouble coming, though it will make things awkward in a fight.
[] Behind. She is, after all, the archer, though this will leave her the last to see things, and a bit excluded in general.
[] Write-in.
Where do they go first?
[] The castle soon opens into a choice between a long east, and a long west wing. Each seems empty and barren, at least at first glance, but this makes up a large chunk of the whole palace. Choice: East.
[] The castle soon opens into a choice between a long east, and a long west wing. Each seems empty and barren, at least at first glance, but this makes up a large chunk of the whole palace. Choice: West.
[] There seems to be a way down towards the dungeon, and as unnerving as that seems, Naja suspects that there might be objects of value hidden down there, in the depths of the palace.
[] It takes time and effort, but there's clearly something waiting in the tower, and at the very least it'd give them a good view of the rest of the palace.
[] The center of the keep is, in these modern times at least, the heart of the castle. What is in there, and what might it tell them about the purpose of this palace?
*****
A/N: This was a long one, by the standards of Seasons. I hope it all works out.
