At the Bar [locked to The Party, after session of 25 Mar 08]

[lol_parasol]

(OOC: There is probably a lot of plot we need to work through, so here's an opportunity to get a bit of it in before session this week. I know Choline needs to tell some people some things before session...)

Choline is probably the only one that notices Geralt coming back down the stairs.

He actually went and did it. She's dead

Comments

[jaxte_the_seer]

Jaxte looks deathly white. Barely even noticing Choline's gaze, Jaxte descends the stairs, hovers at the bottom briefly, then darts for the bar. The barkeep, noticing her pallor, pours her a glass of the ale she drank the night before. Jaxte begins to grab for her gold pouch mechanically, but the barkeep waves the silver pieces away in a silent motion that seems to say "it's on the house". She grabs her ale, and finds a spot to sit that is still near her companions, but distant enough to collect her thoughts.

The scene played through her mind with every gulp of ale. Jaxte had wanted to wake up her new companion in order to celebrate her return. She had tried to awake her, but noticed no response.

Hey, wake up! You and I need to have a drink or two just like the--

Pulling Ariane's already-cooling body over to where Jaxte could fully see her, she saw the wound. She then saw the blood. She saw the wound, and the blood, the wound, the blood, and for a minute, she became completely overwhelmed.

She's dead.This became her

[lol_parasol]

Choline's knee-jerk reaction is to say something to the tune of 'How the hell do you know?', but she manages to keep that in check and arrange her face in such a manner that she appears to go from mirth to puzzlement to mild surprise in the space of a few seconds.

This is not good. This is not good.

And all Choline can manage at this point is to grip her mug to the point where one can almost hear the stone giving way, and to lift her head at Jaxte and appear distraught.

She's a good actress. And the ring will take care of the rest.

"Really."

[jaxte_the_seer]

With Choline's reaction, she saw the wound and the blood again. Could Choline have done such a thing? Ariane had mentioned that she wanted to kill Choline. She never explicitly told her why, just that Choline and her had a romantic relationship of some kind (which was not surprising to hear) and that it ended poorly. But murder...was that really in Choline to do?

She turned her head and spoke softly, almost detached. "Yeah. She's upstairs. Lots of blood."

[lol_parasol]

Choline takes another swig of ale and shudders, although this time even she's not sure that it's part of the act.

She's glad Ariane is dead. But what she isn't glad of is the fallout of her death. If she had known, to any degree, that taking Geralt up on his offer to get rid of Ariane would have resulted in this... well, she's not certain what she would have done.

"Oh..." She puts her hand to her mouth and shakes her head. "That solves a lot of my problems, but... I always thought 'Ane was too stubborn to die. She always liked to spar, and I'd indulge her and she'd always beat me into the ground. She'd beat everyone into the ground. Especially when the more frivolous adventurers came by her inn."

That's when she stops talking. Mostly because the act is no longer an act.

[keirofthesilver]

Keir and some locals are at a table, absorbed in a game of 3 Dragon Ante. Though Keir is tempted to turn and give Choline his attention, he resists the urge. The notion of Choline being candid in front of half the party and a room full of strangers amuses him, but he doesn't much care what she has to say. The simple fact that Ariane is dead is enough to make their history a moot point, and the manner in which Choline took off has left him uninterested in what she was up to while gone

[lol_parasol]

If Choline was in a mood before hearing that tidbit of news, now she was just plain angry. Although Keir's cold mood didn't exactly surprise her, his nonchalant tone of voice concerning the old man certainly did. She whirls around and stares daggers into his back while fighting the urge to grab her own and make it a third death tonight. It would certainly be convenient to kill him before she fully decided the depth and breadth of her feelings toward him.

Is this what you wanted me to do for the rest of my life, Tuomas? Really? To go through a cycle of lies and misdirected feelings?

The oath was one spoken to her long-dead, long-term lover. They had never been married, in the sense of any sort of formalized ceremony, but their relationship had persisted for close to forty years. But he was human, and humans die faster than elves. It was something she had never told anybody about: not Ariane, not Keir, not the multitude of lovers she had had since then. It was her version of a deep, dark secret, and possibly the reason for

[keirofthesilver]

"Well..." Keir begins without looking up from his cards, "we were riding into Phoenix Feathers' tribe's town... and suddenly the old man falls off his horse... just... falls... flat on his face." Keir places a card on the table and then spins his chair halfway around so as to look at Jaxte and Choline

[lol_parasol]

"Perhaps his old age caught up with him," Choline says carefully, an ironic grin playing across her face, after listening to Keir's words.

As the people he's playing with speak up, she reflects briefly on the fact that so many of her fellow party members seem to have more names than fingers. First the gnome, then Gregor or Finneus or whoever-the-hell-he'd-been. It was starting to wear on her nerves - and she almost pulls a face when she hears the pseudonym.

"So something must have happened to Gregor - to Finneus - after we lost him in the desert." Choline folds her arms and leans back against the bar, still staring at Keir.

I can't believe I'm setting myself up for this....

"Avar," she says loudly, playing right into the apparent ruse (she was adaptable like that), "when you are done... may I speak with you?"

She omits the privately, lest it be taken the wrong way. Which, given their personal history, it probably would have