Of Kinship in Uncommon Places
Twenty-First Day of the First Month 293 AC
Rather than following the odd little mushroom down into the depths of the ruined Flesh Forge, you find yourself once again standing beneath the walnut tree calling up. "I made a better perch for you," you jest. The rustle of leaves is your only answer. Perhaps Shara had been affected harder than you assumed. It is only a tree, after all, however large... and magical.
Perhaps my sense of scale is slightly skewered after all, you admit in the silence of your own thoughts. "It's perfectly safe to come down, the danger has been dealt with," you try again.
This time you spot her head though the branches. "Safe..." she seems short of breath. "Everyone sober enough to hear thunder and see lightning is going to want to investigate that, and I'm betting half of them will bring torches."
"Well then, we shall just have to disappoint them," Dany hisses as she snakes into the branches. "The tree has a far greater worth for us and for this
city."
The words seem to strike a nerve as your sister had no doubt intended. "What's the tree do?" the sellsword asks as she begins to make her way down far more cautiously than the first time she had simply dropped in your midst.
"It feeds the hungry, heals the sick, and protect the defenseless," you explain, intentionally framing the reply in provocative terms. Few things are a better remedy for fear of the unknown and the fantastical than drawing out someone's curiosity, and a hard-to-swallow boast should at least incline her in that direction.
"Is that all?" Shara snorts. "You forgot to give water the thirsty."
It takes quite a bit longer than you might have hoped but you do manage to persuade Shara of your good intentions towards her at least as well as the benevolence of the Heart Tree and the many mushroom men who had begin to gather at its base, climbing through a hollow in the tree itself.
She seems hesitant to guide Malarys and Ser Richard to the current rulers of the spicers faction and Lys, House Artaris, though further mention of a generous reward in coin and magic sees her resolve waver. Then you make a seemingly idle statement that is anything but: "Should there be any other Houses which can help solve the current difficulties I would be glad for their aid..."
"When I was young I remember hearing a tale about a lady of Lys who wed a king of the Sunset Kingdoms. Their tale did not end well," Shara said slowly.
"I have no intention to wed any lady of Lys," you say instantly, perhaps a tad too forcefully, but after all the times you had to dance around the issue...
"That's not what I meant," comes the reply, paired with a smile that seems a touch relived, for some reason. "You see that lady was kin on my father's side." To your surprise she reaches out to her left eye out of which she picks a tiny hemisphere of smoky glass, to reveal eyes of Valyrian purple. "Damn these things itch... useful, though. A wizard can't just see straight through them."
"Lady Rogare," you reply, gathering your scattered thoughts. "To what do I owe the honor of your company here..."
"That's a fine way to ask 'what the hells were you doing up a tree in the middle of these ruins?'" she congratulates you in jest. "To answer your question, there's all of three of us left: me, my sister who is nine, and my brother lord Rogare at all of six namedays. That does little to help the family fortunes as you can imagine, but I was in the right place at the right time one time and well I met someone with a knack for sorcery, helped them out of a bind and... things
changed. There's a lot to be gained from the changing world, though it seems you and yours have... stolen quite the march on just about everyone."
"Do you have any particular cause to stay out of the Archon's sight?" Waymar asks, concerned.
"No, just the concern of one with little power in drawing the attention of those with too much of it, but if you need me to play messenger,
cousin, well then a messenger I'll be." She might have said the word as an imposition, instead it is a jest, partly at her own expense and partly at the vagaries of fate.
What do you do next?
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OOC: Congratulations are in order for @Crake I did not think anyone would guess Shara's identity from just the possibility that she might be a noble.
