507-11-11 Welcome to Hell
| Welcome to Hell | |
|---|---|
| RL Date | August 17, 2009 |
| Players | Wilhelmina Conway, Selkirk Mowbray |
| Location | Trebachas Suite - Guardian Baronial Quarters - Gateway Castle |
| Crossroads Time and Weather | |
| IC Date | November 11, 507 |
| Season | Autumn |
Trebachas Suite - Guardian Baronial Quarters - Gateway Castle
- A sparely appointed room, the Trebachan suite is a round chamber with floors, walls and vaulted ceiling of fitted stone. Thick rugs soften one's tread on the floor, while the walls are decorated with artfully wrought sconces for holding lit brands, and a tall banner of the Barony: an emerald green field, ornamented with the tall grey tower which is the emblem of the Conways. Arranged at the center of the chamber are a circle of lounges facing inward, each one an artfully carved wooden frame, softened by cushions, as well as each having a thick bearskin settled central.
- The stone hearth which warms the room in colder months has no portrait hanging on the wall above it; in place of a painting, a round shield (showing marks of battle) is mounted atop two crossed javelins. In the very center of the chamber a small table sits, with bottles, goblets, and rolled maps contained between it's legs.
Morning. Blessing and curse. It falls upon Ikol with no discrimination, sparing none from its golden glow.
Well. Fine. That's not entirely true. Make a liar out of the narrator, why don't you? It's okay. I don't mind.
It's a particularly nasty day outside, the air cool, but not cold. The unpleasantness, rather, is in the form of a light pelting of hail assaulting the capital city. A very good day for staying indoors.
Wilhelmina was going to make her way to the Harvest Festival upon the isle of Green Fields. Her trunk is packed, along with the accoutrements required for the travelling of a baroness which -- for reasons she's only just begun to grasp -- are somehow different than what she needed to travel before. Now she sits instead, knees tented up in front of her as she leans against the arm of a couch, cradling a ceramic cup of coffee which may or may not be generously spiked with a healthy dose of Crucible-distilled whiskey. It may or may not be her third cup. She may or may not be in a foul mood for her plans being sidetracked, but like hell is she getting on a ship for an unrequired social event when it's hailing outside. The hail has to go away sometime.
"Yes, yes, she'll know who I am. Old Blood and Thunder won't mind giving me a few moments, least of all with all of this fornicating hail outside," comes a loud, booming voice outside of the chamber, punctuated by the higher, more furtive interjections of a woman. Shortly thereafter, the door opens, a maid scurrying out of the way to admit a far larger, broad-shouldered, rather inconspicuously dressed man. One whose solemn, severe countenance sparks into an immediate smile at the sight of a familiar face. "Sir!" he greets, half-snapping into a salute before catching himself, and offering with an amused twinkle in his dark, almost midnight blue eyes, "Or rather, Baroness. Praefectus Selkirk Mowbray, reporting for duty. Or a comfortable chat, if you've time and inclination."
If ever there was something to turn the curmudgeon baroness's mood about in an instant, the familiar voice of Selkirk Mowbray is such a thing. His use of her general's moniker. The pound of a fist upon breast and beginning to soar into the air...
She never thought she would border upon nostalgic at 36.
Her cup is set down as she sets her bare feet to the floor. "Mowbray!" she calls across the room, the grin breaking across her face with the wrinkles at its corner that reveal its state of disuse. "Let him in, let him in," she grunts at the maid. Her arms stretch out, moving to take the soldier into a warm embrace and thump him firmly on the back. "Ye gods," her voice intones, accented in her peculiar way with vowels drawn out and rolling, gutteral consonants, the edges of it roughened by two decades of whiskey and pipe smoke. "It is good to see you, my friend." It's quick, and then she's ready to pull back and indicate inside. "Of course, you must come in. I should protest if you were to think of any other course of action."
Selkirk returns the warm embrace with a gusto that might offend more delicate ladies, but his former general is no such crystalline construct to fall to pieces. "It's good to see you, as well, Your ... Excellency," a moment required to ponder the correct title. And for a man who is not given to smiling, he's perfectly beaming, amidst a quick, visual appraisal of his former commander, wondering, perhaps, if the past eight months have changed her, made her softer ... and overjoyed to see, as he knew he would, that it has not. "I hope I'm not intruding on you, sir. But having just followed your stead into retirement, there was no one I wanted to visit so much as the commander who kicked my sorry ass for so many years. Statecraft seems to agree with you!" he commends with a glance around the well-appointed parlor. "But I wonder, do you agree with it?"
"Hate it worse than the Marches," Wilhelmina replies, her grin turning wolfish as though conveying some desperately secret and delicious betrayal. Another couple of thumps of her palm upon the man's back as she laughs. "But what can you do? We all must dance to the whims of Their Most Noble Graces, and live by their good will." Her hand juts out into the room again, emphatically accented with the bow of her head. "Inside, inside. Sit! It is the Abyss out today, but somehow fate is kind. Else you would not have found me here! I was to be on a boat to the Fields today, but you know me and boats. I am not getting on one in this weather without a damnably good reason." Stepping inside herself, she moves promptly to her sideboard and unstops a decanter of golden ambrosia. "You, of course, will join me in a drink. Fire for the blood since I have not one of wood for you."
Mowbray needs no more invitation than that, finding filling all of the idle hours in the day far more tiring than the strict schedule of life in the Legions, and slumping down in an offered chair with a ponderous creak of the furniture beneath him, legs going to knit one over the other casually before him. He'll be the last man to stand on ceremony if it isn't required. "A boat? You? Damn Their Graces and all of their ilk, but they must have your metaphorical dangly parts in a vice to get you out on the water! But then you always did have bigger balls than any man I ever knew," the rugged retiree marvels with a shake of head. A head which may have gone a touch greyer at the temples than you'd remember. "And if you ever have to ask me twice to accept a drink, Your Excellency, I'm either already drunk senseless or dead. A fire in my the belly is worth two in any hearth!" he insists with a smack of his martially muscled torso, a brief peal of laughter escaping his lips as were the trappings a little more sparse and the walls crafted from canvas, this could almost pass for a morning in the campaign tent, preparing for another long, hard slog, and many times through weather worse than the hail which pelts the streets and denizens of Gateway.
"Good man," Wilhelmina contends as she pours a generous tumbler-full for her guest and herself, and then she brings that cut crystal vessel. One of them is fluidly extended towards Selkirk, dripping casually from the steely fingers that keep the cup's rim in their vise-like grip. "Ugh. Like it is not bad enough that they make me sail back and forth between Guardians. Now there is this Harvest nonsense. I am told that it is in good political interest to attend. If the weather does not clear, they can take their dreadful farmer traditions and burn with them for all I care. They have pitchforks, and only shovel hay with them. I have no interest."
Settling herself in the chair next to Mowbray in front of the cold fireplace with a little more finesse, she rolls herself into the seat and against its back. Then she crosses her legs, ankle over knee as she draws a deep sip from her glass. It draws a pleased hiss and sigh from her lips as she pulls it through her teeth and sends it down her gullet like a flow. Oh, nothing says 'good morning' like a visitor that frees her from the need to hide her whiskey with petty and trivial masks like coffee. That cup is already forgotten. "Now. How did they coax you away from Mother Legion?"
Selkirk hoists the glass he's offered with a makeshift toast, "To your health," before taking a full-throated gulp, smiling over goblet lip as the delicious burn of good, stout whiskey warms its way from throat to stomach. "I had every intention of sticking it out for a few more years, but that pompous, effete little ass they replaced you with didn't so much coax as yank me from the ample teat of Mother Legion. The blue-blooded sybarite cared more for taking liberties with the ladies than leading our troops, and gave about as much thought to training and discipline, as well. After eight months of trying to help that cretinous dwarf, I gave up and put in for my pension. I'm getting too old and have served too long with -good- commanders," a simple nod towards his former general, but one conveying profound respect for a woman who never failed to lead by example, "to suffer fools playing toy soldiers with the lives of decent, capable, hard-working men. To hell with him."
"He will find his way, eventually," Wilhelmina assures darkly after a nod to acknowledges Selkirk's sentiment, her far more familiar frown curling her lips strongly downward. "Or he will have insurrection on his hands. I will hope, for his sake, that it is the former. Days of peace afford a man the opportunity to take a whore, but we are gods of death. 'Mother' does get jealous, and she does not bear it with grace. She will not tolerate his disrespect forever." There's a snort, and then she takes another sip. Yes, she speaks oddly of the Legions now, in the presence of the man who would know her strange theology best. The Legions breathe. They are blood and life and death, the most primal of forces crowned radiantly with honor and pride and passion more fiery and consuming than any carnal pleasure. She is reality, more present and powerful than any Providential claim by the Purists who plague the village and noble ranks.
"So what now, treasured son of Mother Legion? What are your intentions?"
Mother Legion can be a bitch, at times, and truth be told, Selkirk is going to miss the firm smack of her hand, at times. Life without that kind of structure, and the privations that go along with it, is taking some getting used to. "I'm really not sure," he concedes to that question with a nonchalant and nonplussed shrug of shoulders. "The Legion was my life for so many years. Before it, I only knew the inside of brothels, not in a good way, either, and the best means to trespass into Tel Girade's fields and orchards. I'm at a bit of a loss where to go and what to do. If you don't mind my asking," he turns a hopeful eye towards the magnate he will always think of first and foremost as a commander, his commander. "would there be any tasks a former legionnaire could attend to for you in Trebachas, or here in Gateway? Even though I know you're the last woman in the world to need protection, what of a guard, perhaps? Hell, I'd clean your stables if it meant solid, gainful employment and the satisfaction of an honest, hard day's work. I can't go on shiftless like this for much longer. It's driving me crazy," the ex-soldier divulges with a rumbling of discontent in the back of his throat, soon drowned in another deep sip of the potent, pleasurable alcohol.
"Oh, for gods' sake, Mowbray, I would never set you to my stable." A flicker of a teasing smile, a spark of amusement in her gaze. "Caerden would trounce you soon as you looked at him." Nasty, mean-spirited warbeast that he is, Wilhelmina couldn't think of a better creature to carry her anywhere. "But truthfully, you were on my staff. I would never have you muck shit like you were some useless Fielder. That is what they are good for. Minds like yours? They belong not in such slave trades." The woman uncrosses her legs, and then Wilhelmina leans forward, resting her forearms on her legs and back curling protectively over whiskey. The dark brown of her hair slides forward, ever that lion's mane, as she settles intense, hard sepia eyes upon the man in front of her, considering. "If you are serious about civilian life, I will always have a place for you. You know this. I said this before I left. There are others that I am... courting, if you will. But you? There was no courting you, you stubborn ox." Then teeth show, her smile feral. "I could use someone of your... particular stubbornness. Desperately. I am surrounded by idiots, and I need allies. I need allies close to me. If you wish to be naught but a guard, I would take that." Those eyes flare for a moment, widening with a promise. "I can offer you more. If you want it. Something far more suitable."
There's a grateful, if self-conscious smile. Selkirk isn't a man comfortable with asking for favors, even from this old and, in truth, dearest comrade. "I have to be serious about it," he concedes with a soft, surrendering sigh, though it's clear he'd prefer to be back in the known quantity of the Legions, but that page of life has turned. It's time to write a new one. Enthusiasm grows more marked and sincere at that age-old favorite topic: idiots. "I want to serve wherever I can serve best, sir," the veteran of so many campaigns under Wilhelmina lets slip that form of address once more, unable to rein in old habits so soon. "I would have slogged through hell itself on your command. Still would. If you're in need of allies," a thump of fist to chest in staunch, loyal salute, "you will have none more ready than I. If there's an ass that needs kicking, I sleep in my boots," Selkirk quips with a deep, hearty laugh. "I don't know how the fools who serve you so poorly would take to any discipline from a whoreson, though."
Wilhelmina's smile seems to soften. How could it not in the wake of such confessions of loyalty? A confession fully believed because it's been proven, time and time again on the field. At that familiar name, insult or otherwise, there's a growl. "They will take it if I tell them that compliance is required. And may their goddess have mercy on their souls should they ever call you that in my presence. I am baroness now." She sits up at last, easing once more into her chair and draping an arm over its arm with her lupine grace. "And they had best respect my chamberlain. If you find politics suit you? We might see you made nobleman yet." She drinks deeply once more from her glass before pulling it away, swirling it, and considering it. "And then you can suffer under me until you are quite dead." Her dark gaze lifts once more to consider the man in front of her. "So what say you? Are you bold enough to attempt the world political? I cannot imagine that you would be any more poorly suited for it than I am."
"I said I would follow you into hell itself. And I can think of nothing more hellish than the intrigues and pettiness of politics," Selkirk responds around a self-deprecating grin, his large, solid fists clenching at the thought of those he may yet have the pleasure of offending. "Yes, I will commit to whatever advances your needs and desires. Trebachas is my home, and service to you is also serving that homeland. In a way, it's not so very different from soldiering. The means may change, but duty never does." There's a bit of the fearless soldier in him, yet, the defiant clench of jaw and toothy, lusty smile begat more from the thought of shaking up the political establishment than anything he might serve to gain from it. "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, aye? Let's knock some heads, Your Excellency."
"Excellent," Wilhelmina croons with a slow smile that could never be considered comforting, stretching out her glass to clink against the crystal held in Selkirk's own hand. "Welcome to Hell."
