Flashback at the pyre:
Oliver eyebrows quirk and he rakes a shaking hand through his thin hair. He nods,
"Yeah. That's explains it, Fendric." He opens his mouth. Shuts it. Opens it again. He looks into the leaping flames of the pyre.
Smoke and fire, hand and arm. Keep this child far from harm. His jaw clenches and his eyes rake back to Fendric.
Bushy brows furrow,
"It has been a long time since first we met. In the Arena barracks." He rubs his sinister tattoo absently.
"Decades. Practically a whole lifetime." His mouth twists,
"For a human. My daughter would have been twenty-seven today. Tiamena. You remind me of her. Sometimes." He hangs his head, swallowing a couple times before he speaks again.
"When you walked into the 'Horde after all those years, I felt in my bones something was going to happen. It wouldn't have been the first time you heralded change in my life." Oliver's hand reflexively reaches to the tinkling silver charms at his throat. Charms that seem terribly out of place. He looks tired. Very tired. And old. He scratches his cheek with a gnarled and tattooed hand, squinting at the clean-jawed cleric,
"Thank you for the first time. For 'Rin and Tiamena." He looks down to stomp out a vigorously burning ember that escaped the pyre. He doesn't look up as he turns on his heel to see to the animals and his gear.
Flashback - Niccolo and a sweet, sweet bottle of bourbon:
Oliver smiles at Niccolo's account of his grandfather's deeds.
"You can't know everything about a person. Would you believe that my lute is haunted an that I'm heir to a throne? By marriage, of course." He doesn't look the part, all knobby elbows and scraggly scruff. He puffs out his thin chest.
"No? Well, I don't blame you I wouldn't either."
He grins at the offer of bourbon,
"'Here's to tall tales and taller deeds. Flow'rs in the wild are not always weeds.'" He wipes the neck of the bottle and takes a good swallow.
"Thanks," he wipes the neck of the bottle carefully and hands it back.
"Hadn't had a drop since I left Hedrogura." His eyes shadow,
"If you can ride and play, we should sing today." He grins, that rhyme unintentional.
"I feel the mood coming on." He gives Alexander a parting scratch and nods at Niccolo in thanks and leave-taking.
Flashback - On the hunt:
Raven said:
"Sure, if you think you're up to it." Raven looks him up and down, noticing the armor. "Hmm, nice outfit" he says with a grin.
Oliver gives as good as he gets, giving Raven his own once-over. He plucks at a fold of the gleaming armor,
"What? This old thing? Just something I had thrown together for me." He chuckles,
"It's probably older than you." At a closer glance, the armor is well-worn and well-cared for.
Raven said:
Reaching into his pocket he takes out a metal flask. Oliver notices a notch in it. "Here, this will put some hair on your chest. Swallow quickly, or it will melt your teeth."
Oliver takes a sniff of the fumes coming off the flask and can't help but grimace, nose twinging from the vapors,
"This'll melt more than my teeth."
He takes a brave pull and his eyes bulge as he struggles to swallow. He coughs, eyes tearing,
"Agh. Hair on my chest? Hair on my liver's more like it." He smiles lop-sided as warmth blooms in his belly. He cocks his head admiringly and makes to hand the flask back back fingering the notch.
Raven said:
As he sees Oliver fingering the notch in the flask, he explains."Yeah, it belonged to a friend of mine, allways wore it over his heart. Claimed it was lucky. Then , when we were ambushed, it stopped an arrow aimed right at his heart. Amazing, that was." He stops , thinking back at the old days when he was still in the clan highlands. "Aaah, well, too bad the other five were aimed elsewhere, but hey, you can't win 'em all, can you." A merry twinkle in his eyes shows his satisfaction at fooling Oliver for a moment.
"In my experience, you can't even win most of 'em." He shakes his head wryly,
"You and Nurthk fight like lions. I haven't seen the like in a long time. I feel lucky to be alive." When Raven urges them on after game he nods and casts about the forest, looking, by and large, at all the wrong things and in all the wrong places.
When Raven chases off to gather in the goose, Oliver gathers some brush and leaves and vines. Oliver grins at the woodsman when he returns,
"Nice shot." His deft hands fly over twigs and shreded vines,
"Show me where the game is and we can set up these snares."
Craft - Trapmaking: 10 + 11 =
21
Caught up:
After making sure that Orbril took good care of Winkle, Oliver feeds the young owl some of one of the hares he and Raven caught.
I sure hope he can eat all this meat.. When it looks like it may be a while before the group moves out he carefully removes the worn and polished case which holds the now-cleaned-up lute he'd played at Caval's Horde. He spends a few moments tuning it up and strumming. When a steady breeze blows through the camp he holds the lute out, sounding board up, smiling vaguely as the wind softly sounds the strings. He fishes a strap out of the case, a woven afair decorated with beads and trinkets. He plays, singing quietly, coughing and spitting from time to time. Sounds like his illness has moved into his chest.
He pauses, intent, as Shavah returns from her prayers. He snorts and strums a discordant jangling chord on the lute,
"Weal and woe. What an insight." He shakes his head at Nurthk and bends over the guitar once again,
"Perhaps you'll get some more vagaries upon which we can hang our fate tomorrow, Fendric." His hands falter on the lute strings and a mask of regret flashes across his face, but he does not look up, nor pause again in his playing.
OOC: Sorry for these long flashbacks, I keep a pbp document that I add to over a period of days and post when I'm done. If anybody would prefer I try to get these in in a more timely fashion please let me know.
