Unwelcome Tidings
Twenty-Fourth Day of the First Month 293 AC
Ysilla Royce does not flinch from recounting her deeds, but nor does she seem particularly apologetic in her account. Though she does not quite manage the quiet dignity she is playing for, you have to give her credit for speaking without a hind of shrillness of childish resentment. If you were to make a guess on the matter, you would say she has practiced speaking these very words many times over, and to his credit Lord Royce listens stony-faced, placing a hand on his wife's shoulder when she is about to speak up
"... so having struck my bargain I called Waymar and a little while later he showed up in my dreams by magic, not his magic, the princesses' that is, to check on me."
The first words out of Bronze Yohn's mouth are not quite what you expected. "At what hour precisely did you sneak out of the keep and by what path did you go?"
"Er... that does that mater?" the girl asks, a lot less sure now that she is no longer reciting from a script.
"Because I would like to know who needs to be striped of my colors and put in the stocks for good measure," the old lord announces gravely. "To have failed to spot your coming
and going bespeaks of more than failure to do their duty. Contempt might be closer."
"They were probably... er nursing a sore head," Ysilla tries faintly to help, obviously uncomfortable with having lost some of the men-at-arms their livelyhood.
"Well if they were drunk that's perfectly reasonable then." Yohn looks about ready to spit fire, and looking everywhere but at his daughter, perhaps for fear of venting his anger on her.
"The oath will not be anything too onerous or dishonorable, father. We took care of it," Waymar interjects.
"Oath? What oath?!" Lady Royce exclaims. "How could a child be expected to make deals with those... savages? They know no more honor than a rabid dog."
You clear your throat before explaining, "She swore it beneath the gaze of the Old Gods, and they care little for the age of the who gives an oath beneath the branches of a godswood, for seven to seventy all mortals seem just as young for ones as ancient as they."
Bronze Yohn flinches at the words and sits down heavily, giving a long look to the wine pitcher before thinking the better of it. "What's to be done, then? Find and kill this witch before she can tall her due?" The words are spoken with no small measure of disdain, but with resolve also. No less than you might expect from the man who wrote to Waymar time and time again though some might count it treason.
"When Ysilla shared her predicament with us we worked to ensure that nothing too onerous would be asked of her," you try to reassure the lord.
"And I'm going to be able to protect myself better anyway. Waymar promised to teach me magic, and I bet he knows a lot more then some wildling witch," the girl pipes in, rather unhelpfully you would judge.
Now the old lord pours his drink hands trembling ever so slightly, in anger, fear, or perhaps both. Rather than addressing what his daughter had said, he turns to you again and asks, "How can you know my daughter will not be harmed or shamed by the oath she gave to the wildlings?"
What do you reply?
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OOC: Well that could have gone better... but also considerably worse.
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