"This is buried."

"How deep, m'lord?"

"Level IV," Alain answered on the heels of Malcolm's question. The pair, Baron and knight, faced each other by a large glass window at the Cove House. It was Sainte-Ouen in the fall, and the air was crisp with saltwater and dead leaves.

The afternoon was an odd time to have a secret meeting, reserved by the popular imagination for closed offices and smoky booths late at night; so, they had picked the afternoon in the Barony's sprawling guest house.

"Sentinel?" Malcolm asked with a growing crease in his brow. While the Holy Order of Saint Aldwin took secret and sacred tasks straight from the Baron, the most confidential plans were usually the domain of SPI and no others -- close-lipped analysts, ex-soldiers, spies, and the elusive and terrifying figure that stood behind them, Shaw.

Level IV was Howe and Shade, Mab and the Architect, mere names to Malcolm, hated enemies of his lord, land and God to be destroyed.

"Everyone's involved because they must," Alain continued, "even GAME. Malcolm..." He trailed off and frowned at the rolling waves through the window.

"Sir?" Malcolm pressed gently.

"When was the last time you thought of home?"

He turned; paused. "New Brittany, m'lord?"

The Baron nodded. Malcolm sighed.

"Frankly, more often than I would like." The young knight watched the Baron move away, and his frown grew deweper and stranger with each turn the conversation took. He knew how his lord brooded, and he suspected this, whatever it was, had been driven to the surface by a guilty conscience. "But we have the Barony now... and our Baron," he added, protesting. "You take care of us."

Alain placed his scarred right hand on the window's dark wooden frame. The touch tingled strangely in the magically restored "nerves" in his palm. It drew him three years into the past, an eternity for a man his age. "Not everyone."

"M'lord?"

"How's Roland doing?" the Baron asked, and he turned to look at his knight. Malcolm began to explain, but Alain read it in his face: Recovering... but slowly. "Then we'll see about sending him later, but for now you and Seamus will go. GAME has arranged the portal at the Silver Mark, so 'Lanta's in the know... DE and Ambrosio are obscuring the budget; SPI's arranged as much of a plan as possible, and all the equipment we hope you'll need where you're going."

Going home, to bring back those among their people that they could and would; the fiercely independent yet communally loyal; peace-loving, but brave and resilient. One neighborhood, one clan, one family at a time, they would come to the Barony... But first, Sir Malcolm would have to face their ruined nation again.

"To New Brittany, m'lord?"

"To New Brittany."

She was patient while he snagged the folder and immediately stole the opportunity to peek over his shoulder so she could glimpse what symbols and words she could. "I'm sorry to hear that..." she murmured absently. Her emerald eyes were awake with curiosity.

When he sat, she watched him closely and watched his hands closer. She soaked up whatever portion of the map she could, even shifting plates around to allow more space and more knowledge. It wasn't that she planned to use this education for anything--it just excited her to know a part of their secret world that she stood on the edge of.

'Lanta took the thermos, wrinkled a nose at the condition, and then reluctantly kept from hovering. She moved off to the bar and poured out a steaming helping of coffee, leaving just enough space for milk or cream if he desired. She saw the frown as she returned to the table and felt a pang of something resembling sympathy. Poor fella--he was displaced from his home and now forced to scour it on horseback; worse still, even when he was back in the present realm, he had to spend time scanning maps of his former father land. It was enough to make her frown, as well. She worked quietly around him, until finally, she set a hand on his shoulder. An offering was held out over his work, a plate put together from the spread, packed with scrambled eggs, bacon, two pancakes, some hash browns, and sliced oranges."Eat before you go gettin' lost again, huh?"

He looked up from his work with a subtle start at her touch and her gentle question, and then smiled. Suddenly his face was young again, and he took the plate from her: "Thank ya much." Anxiety turned to a different kind of anxious warmth in Seamus' stomach; he chuckled at something he didn't give voice to and tucked in.

Three bites in, he paid mind to her curiosity. "Boss ever tell you anything about New Brittany?" He offered the maps to her.

She felt a bit of heat pass through her fingertips and recognized a flush in her cheeks. It was something about the chuckle. She took her hand away immediately, but tried to keep it from appearing as though she was recoiling. "No drama, fella," she replied with a smile as she took a seat opposite.

When he looked over again, she grinned at the use of Alain's title, then mellowed into a more quiet expression. "Just bits and pieces. I...I never really wanted to press, ya know? 'Lain...well, he carries a whole world on his shoulders. No need to prod at his weight and remind him of it." She pursed her lips and made eye contact. "If it makes you uncomfortable, too, ya don't have to..." She tapered off.

His eyes danced, little flickers as he watched her face. Either in spite of her little embarrassment or because of it, he kept good humor. Seamus would try and put thoughts about home into a different line... It would help the fear. "Nah, we can keep it light," he said with a shake of his head. Then he began, switching off between his breakfast, his words, and jabbing the back of the maps in her hand with his fingers (the light coming through darkened all the little lines for him).

"Lot of different people from different places living in New Brittany, how I remember it... and it's been that way for a long time. Centuries. The Normans and Bretons at first, then the Angles, Irish, and French." He ticked them off on his fingers, in order, and snatched up a biscuit. "They used to keep to their own neighborhoods -- now everyone's all mixed up and our languages too, but the places keep the old names. Delahoerr, that's Norman... used to be nice, all industrial now. Good club scene. La Petite Marseilles -- La-Pem -- very upscale... too upscale. My grandparents wanted to move us there when the war started, but we stayed in Eyre's Hollow. Thank God. And here's Nottingham Court, which was the city's badside back then..."

Seamus paused for a moment, then grinned. "...You know, I checked out the intell on Nottingham... I don't think the war made it look any worse than it already was. Really. My mates and I used to cross the Zimmermann Bridge down here on dares when we were kids, never stayed for more than a heartbeat. But that's where I'll be coming out... right there at the south end, near the water.

"The city's still living... not well, but still living. Tent cities squabbling for space in the buildings that've still got roofs, but there's markets still, and more than just aid coming in through the International Sector's docks. And I'll bet..." He was poised to strike, pausing thoughtfully, and then snatched a map from her, holding it out of her reach in case she tried to get it back. His brow furrowed as he scanned every detail. "...there's got to be a gift shop still standing somewhere in New Brittany." He lowered the map and grinned over at her. "So what do you want me to bring you back? Miniature bottle of chouchen? Luck-stone?"

"Were the different people from Earth? That's kinda how Tamleix got started. Did they just get thrown together?" She cocked her head when he ticked off the cultures, and suddenly, something came together. Alain was most definitely French in descent, and yet Seamus was more of an Irishman. Funny that she hadn't really noticed before, but now, her mind was busily using the maps and his words to flesh out a rich, multi-cultural landscape. Perhaps similar to how it once was.

When she looked up and over from studying each block of territory he mentioned, she smirked at the nostalgia in his voice and the look he was wearing. "Is that what this is really about, then, huh? Gettin' over childhood fears?" She was teasing, of course, trying to keep the darkness from reappearing on his face. "What was so ba--Oi!"

She crinkled her nose up at him and made the reach for the map he'd stolen, only stopping in her stretch when he spoke again. 'Lanta gave a surprised laugh and shoved his shoulder lightly. "You dag!" There was another laugh as she settled back into her chair. "How 'bout ya just bring yourself and some good stories back the first couple'a trips. Then we'll discuss prezzies." Her accent thickened as she wrinkled her nose over, again, with a grin.

RhyDin's vast Underground ultimately proved itself the key to accessing New Brittany, the 'source' for the portal that, for mere moments, tore open a crumbling brick alley wall and admitted a gaggle of cousins, brothers and sisters three years ago. Newbreton members of the Order recalled where they had come through later after the DeCourell girl with the other refugees, and it was much the same -- the portal opened somewhere in the Nottingham Court neighborhood, and they had emerged within three blocks of where six D'Mourirs and a LeClerc had.

Silas and his arcanist colleagues had connected the dots, linking it all to an edge-realm connecting the deepest, darkest depths of RhyDin to New Brittany. Every survey suggested ever more strongly that the route itself had never been used before, and why would it? Venturing that deep into narrow and dangerous tunnels, a traveler would assume he was nearing the bottom of the rabbit-hole and not the entrance to Wonderland.

The tunnels turned from crafted stone to solid rock, then moss and dirt and more stones that had been sharp-cornered centuries ago, and Seamus knew that at some point he had just passed into another world. He stepped out of the tunnel, through a curtain of vines into a steep, damp ravine awash with muted sunlight, and this too looked and felt like a dead end, this great hall of dead kings... but he knew where his feet carried him; he knew the way home.

The walls were steep, lined with tall grey statues whose faces had been washed away by a whole age of rain, floods and neglect, bordered in green, surrounded and sometimes overtaken by moss and ivy. Small dark tunnels rested between their feet, or between two statues, or a line of crumbling pedestals that stretched out in welcome like the lights on a runway. These passages for the dead were often blocked, and some had collapsed in strange ways, opening them up to the light and offering treacherous staircases of rubble out of the ravine.

There had been a stream once at the bottom of the ravine, but the source had been dammed and then drained by the long abuse of this now-dead kingdom; the streambed was filled in with giant stones that must have weighed a ton apiece when they were quarried, Seamus thought. Water still seeped in along the path, still permeated every inch, and in places its damage left little trace of the necropolitan road. Here the knight walked where the grass was shorter but greener, until he reached a mouldering obelisk at a turn in the road.

Moss was already creeping back over the fresh mark one of their surveyors had cut, and he rubbed away as much as he could with his fingers and paused. The cold, musty dampness of the place seeped in through his nose and came out as frozen fog. This whole world looked and felt dead, in every subtle way he could conceive of, but not in the way that would make a man peer suspiciously at the tunnels wondering if some rotting king would amble out with a hunger for the living. Undeath meant movement, movement meant life, and the Hall of Dead Kings was very still.

Seamus had tarried long enough. He pushed away from the obelisk and set off down a narrowing path, a road to another ruined place called Nottingham Court.

Progress through the "rabbit-hole" between the Silver Mark and Nottingham Court had been slow enough for a lone knight, and the return journey proved so much more difficult. A cross-realms indicator had gone off at SPI four hours ago, showing that Seamus (or someone with Seamus' arcane "tagging") had entered the rift from the Newbreton end. He was fully ninety minutes late based on trial runs and his first journey, and it was six o'clock in the morning according to RhyDin's Eastern Clock when there was a knock at the cellar door, which prompted a few lights strategically placed throughout the Mark to blink and emit a little buzz.

She was up two hours before the estimated time of arrival to begin preparing a small feast, so when the clock struck four thirty, she was waiting by the door with a mug of coffee in her hands, all bright eyed and bushy-tailed. By five, however, she was leaning on the wall looking anxious, and by five thirty, she had taken a seat on the stairs besides her empty cup.

"What if something happened? How long do I wait before I tell Alain? What do I tell Alain? What if he's hurt? What if..." She'd turned to face the orange tabby perched on the step above her as she posed the next question, but the cat cut her off with a mewl for food and a head-rub against her cheek. 'Lanta almost smiled. "Maybe one more hour? I should get some more coffee. Yeah..." Mimosa meowed again, and darted up towards the kitchen, leaving 'Lanta to stand and follow. She'd just about reached the top of the stairs, too, when the knock came and set the alarms off.

She half hopped/half tripped back down in her fervor, which sent her left side colliding into the door as she wrenched it open.

The reason for his delay was clear once the door was open: though Seamus was at the lead of the group, nine curious faces belonging to people of widely varying height peered eagerly over his shoulders, whispering to one another in a strange Breton- and Irish-Gaelic take on English, plus the very quiet form of the young girl he carried with one arm, her head huddled sleepily onto his shoulder.

The knight's other arm was heavily bandaged, starting around his hand and disappearing into his jacket sleeve, and still smelled bloody. His face was sooty and dirty, his eyes dangerous and alert... but almost immediately he turned cheerful when the door came open. " 'Lo, Lanta," he whispered as he edged in. "I brought guests."

"Sea--" She abruptly ended the exclamation as she caught sight of the others. She'd forgotten they were coming! Her face turned a nice shade of red as she rubbed at one of the sore spots on her ribs. "Oh...uh...g'day. I've got some breakfast upstairs? It might be a little cold..." Her gaze slipped over the little cluster as she spoke and smiled, but it avoided any one person for too long. Well, except the little girl. She was studied with a genuine fondness before 'Lanta got around to noticing the bandage on the knight's arm. While the others were around, she avoided comment, but the fretful look on her face said quite enough. Something along the lines of 'You're hurt!? What happened? Are you alright? We need to talk later...' If he didn't catch it all, there, she added a touch to his shoulder to help pass some of the message along.

"I'm okay," Seamus whispered to her look, and adjusted the sleeping girl he carried. He recognized that look, the look, from his ex-girlfriend when he had first begun the Order's intense and abusive training. "I'll explain in a bit... Looking forward to brekkie," he added, a grin flashing onto his face, adjusted the weight of the girl again and proceeded into the cellar towards the stairs.

"Eh... good morning," the oldest among the men said and offered his hand to to 'Lanta. "You must be Atalanta, the innkeeper." Even as he spoke to her, his soft brown eyes stared widely at the basement around him as if the rafters and the casks spoke to the fantastic nature of RhyDin, the next stop on his way home. His clothes and the others' weren't beggars' rags, but they weren't much better -- dirty and warn, and their tees and sweatshirts had logos in Italian, Arabic, German and Chinese, part of aid shipments from international organizations that had trickled their way through the refugee camps' barbed-wire borders into Nottingham Court. "I'm Patrick Chouan, and this eh... this my sister-in-law, Elda O'Donwal, her daughters Shannon and Michelle..." The man was gentle and sincere, nervous and earnest all at once. Whatever he had seen over the years in Nottingham Court had traumatized him, and though it left him half the man he had once been, he was still a very kind man.

"Uh huh.." she said with a crinkle of her nose, though a grin appeared shortly to rival his. That clever man had already figured out how to work her. She let him pass and turned her eyes to the small procession behind him, focusing on the gentleman offering her his hand.

"G'day, Mister Chouan. It's a right pleasure to meet you." She recognized the thread-bare state of their clothes--the items she'd brought to Rhydin looked much the same thanks to a stretched thin family budget and the exhaust of travels. The sight brought back a weird yearning in her stomach. She tugged at the green fabric of her new dress, feeling newly self-conscious in it, but smiled throughout. "And a pleasure to meet you, Elda, Shannon, Michelle." When she took Patrick's hand, she seeped out some warmth for him and bled a little charm out to the lot. It was a good soothing mechanism, she'd found, and they looked like they could use it. Sometimes bewitching had it's practical uses.

Soon after, they moved up the stairs, their curiosity about RhyDin overwhelmed by their hunger, and after he had alternated between eight more introductions and as many thanks to her hospitality, he quietly directed the children among them to the feast, letting the youngest go first. Seamus and Patrick exchanged quiet words, the knight quirked a smile over the man's shoulder to 'Lanta as he handed the girl (finally waking up) over to him, and slipped off into the kitchen alone, retreating from the little crowd.

"Urf." Jean huffed a muffled bark as his claws clicked down the stairs, but his tail was held high and wagging steadily. It was another day at the Silver Mark with new scents to discover and explore, and already nine new friends to make.

Once the whole group was up and by the food, she let Patrick finish the introductions, repeating names and welcomes. At his thanks, she only assured him a dozen times that she was glad for the company and glad to help. She meant it, too. Perhaps it was the bit of God her Grandma had managed to instill in her. While the others moved on to fix their plates, she moved over to the wall in order to check the levels of each breakfast item, in case she needed to prepare more. This vantage point allowed her to watch Seamus sneaking off with an orange kitten stowing away at his heels and to catch another bundle of fur joining the group. Truthfully, it was a wonder Jean hadn't appeared sooner. He answered the sound of dishes moving better than he responded to the call of his own name.

She let a moment of indecision inch by as Jean snuffled past her en route to the others. Once his tail was out of batting distance, she pushed off the wall and grabbed an almost empty jug of orange juice from the make-shift buffet. She carried it with two hands as she glanced back over the room before finally exiting into the kitchen after the knight. "Lookin' forward to brekkie, then?" she asked as soon as the door closed.

Seamus' troubled frown vanished soon after she entered; he was changing his bandages, and certainly it hurt, but he had suffered harsher blows. That pain wasn't what darkened his mood... "Oh, absolutely." He shot a grin over at her and scooted up onto the counter next to one of the gleaming copper brew kettles. "Two weeks of gruel, and I'm not even exaggerating. Wheat flour's pretty much all they've got, leastwise in Nottingham."

He fumbled at tying off the bandage, struggling to do it one-handed -- his other hand was fine, but the bandages ended right below the wrist -- and he frowned at his work, carefully avoiding eye contact for the time being. "Had to go with a guide through the sewers to get these families out, and he turned on us. Cut me up a good bit... but as they say, 'you should see the other guy.' " Another grin flickered, and he made another attempt at the knot. "Anyway. How are they?" Whatever it was he had seen, whatever it had done to him, continued to quietly stew.

She stood to watch what he was doing as Mimi darted over to wiggle between her feet. The cat had been two seconds away from leaping onto the unraveled strips dangling over her. 'Lanta used the excuse for movement and headed over to fill Mimosa's dish. "I don't know if my cookin' will be able to compete, fella," she answered over the sound of hard food falling into the small metal bowl. "Will you be eating in here?" She straightened up and moved to wash her hands once the cat was chowing down.

"May I?" She brandished her clean hands for inspection as she got close, taking his lead and letting her eyes fall to his wound. "Why'd he turn? What was he after?" she stopped her line of questioning when she caught herself doing it and drummed up a little smile, instead. "They're...well...they're getting there, I think. Still ain't exactly relaxed but a nice meal and some time to sit'll do them good. How were they on their way here?"

"Same reason any guide does it," Seamus answered her with a rather grim smile. "Get your clients to pay up, then find a quiet stretch to slit their throats and pick them clean. The others... did okay on the way over." His expression faltered further. "I had to kill the man, and that didn't bother me much... but I don't expect they like seeing anymore dying than they have to."

Once she was done tying the bandage, he muttered his thanks and slipped off the counter's edge, but on his way past their eyes caught. He rocked uncertainly on his feet, looked at the kitchen door, and turned back to her. "...It's just not right, the way they've had to live. Everyone who's carved up a piece of the city wants the whole thing for themselves, and no one cares a whit for the Newbretons." He kept his voice down low, barely more than a hiss. "And there's still so much for us to do... I didn't want to leave. I almost stayed."

The stormclouds rolled through his face and passed away. Something in his smile was apologetic, sorry she'd been the target of his vent: "Not even a date date, and I almost stood you up for dinner. I'm an awful human being." There went the grin again.

She didn't know what to do. She'd seen pain in a man's face before, but nothing quite like this. It was angry and hurt, almost vengeful in a way. It made her want to stay close to feed from it and that realization made her feel a little nauseous. Still, this compulsion mixed with her concern got the best of her. She raised a hand and set it on his cheek, heat trapped between her palm and his face. The deep furrows in her brow smoothed out a bit as she looked like she might say something--but the moment caught up with her faster than her words. She blinked her look away and dropped her hand. "I'm sorry, Seamus...I'm...I'm so sorry for all you've had to witness. And what they've had to see, too."

She touched her hair and half-turned from him to face the kitchen door. Just when she thought solemness was taking them over, he quipped again, and she coughed out an off-guard giggle. "Ara be whist." She used the full term on him, and despite the often rude connotations, her tone was nothing but good-natured.

The touch had been a little discombobulating for Seamus (perhaps from her cambion charm as much as his crush), but it had shaken him from his pain enough to make light of things. His grin only grew as she cussed at him in Gaelic and he shook his finger and tapped the tip of her nose.

"You should know better... and just for that, I get to pick our dinner. Sushi. And there's nothing you can do about it." He folded his arms and raised his chin defiantly. Someone opened the front door of the Mark and he glanced that way, listened for a moment to a familiar French voice among the families' inquiring tones, and turned back to 'Lanta.

She crossed her eyes to follow the finger's flight path and giggled again when it landed. She was about to bat it away when he took it off on his own, stealing some of her warmth with it.

"As long as ya don't tell on me." She smirked, about to reach out and flick the point of his chin. She refrained, however, realizing where this little game could ultimately lead. "And I happen to like sushi," she retorted with a 'so there!' sort of tone. Granted, she'd only had it once, a long time ago--and it was sort of beat up--but she'd enjoyed it! A bit of time given to that memory as Seamus turned to look at the door, but she let it fall away when she saw him twist back to face her. She'd missed the voice. "Huh. Things alright out there, still?"

"Yeah... it's Armand," Seamus answered, and then cocked a slanted grin at her. "If that bastard can't make them feel good about the Barony, I dunno who can." He still seemed cheerful, but there was work to be done and a very long day ahead of him before sushi that night; his lips set to a thoughtful little frown as he considered his plan of attack...

"Oh, I love Armand!" It was true. He reminded her of her Uncle that always used to dress as Santa around Christmas time. She clapped her hands together and grinned over them at Seamus.

"Hey, 'Lanta?" he said as he reached for the kitchen door and took another look back at her. "Thanks." He grinned a little, enough to dimple, and stepped out into the common room for breakfast and a stolen conversation with Armand.

At his parting words, her expression broadened into a more sweet smile, and she let him exit without following. They needed a bit more distance for the time being. She remained in the kitchen to prepare a bit more food (just in case!) and to feed herself something. Her hello's for the tavern keeper would just have to wait until the guests were nice and settled.