Topic: The Great-City (Open)

Isa Soran

Date: 2008-02-18 20:06 EST
After she had left the boy sleeping, she had barely slept. Thoughts kept turning to the thousands of books and scrolls. There was need to know others beyond the walls of the infamous Red Dragon Inn.

Frustration at not being able to sleep, she threw back the covers and sat on the edge of the bed. Her hand passed over her bare, mottled head before she stood. Leathers still worn whispered when she moved.

She slipped her boots on and belted the sway-leather belt sashed across her torso. A belt with several pouches on them was chinched about her waist before she moved for the door, but not before taking her cloak from its hook. Another look to Tomas where he slept, she closed the door.

Word was left with the seemingly ever-present Guido who stood in sentry near the door that she would return no later than the middle of the next day -- if the boy were to inquire. With that done, the scribe left the three-storied establishment behind and ventured out into the ancient great-city again with steep hopes that she would meet some that she had seen within the inn, and those yet unseen and unheard of.

Isa Soran

Date: 2008-02-18 20:33 EST
Not far, she paused before the Inn's stables and pulled out a scrolled map of hide from her pack. The leather ties were undone to unfurl it. Boots steps brougth her beneath a lamp, bringing enough light in the early hours of the morning to see it by.

A lone rider moved by and behind her a cart and horse. A glance towards them told her that neither wished to be about at that very late, or very early hour.

Isa glanced back down to the painted map purchased by a local cartographer and frowned. There was simply too much to see. But what first without drawing attention of the great-city's guard as some prowler, or else?

The two bridges on the map caught her attention and she looked in that direction, though certainly she could not see them from where she was. Too many buidlings stood at close-quarters about her. If there was a chance, at some point, to buy passage on a ship she would travel that way beyond the immediate boundaries, but for now, she dismissed the idea of her horse and went on foot in the direction of the bridge that lay southernmost and to the east.

Isa Soran

Date: 2008-03-07 15:41 EST
Isa had gone no further than the other end of the southernmost bridge when the sounds of footsteps were somewhere behind her and in haste to catch up. She turned about to see that Tomas was at a trot with something clutched in his small fist. Schooling a frown from her mouth and brow, she remained where she was. Her hand closed about the strap of the pack she carried and readjusted it about her shoulders.

Tomas came to a stop before her, barely out of breath but his face was pink with the cold. He dragged the scrap of blanked about his shoulders; one that Isa recalled had been part of the bedding she had set up for him to sleep on. ?A messenger came. He said to give you these.?

It was unmistakable that what the boy held in his hand was a missive, but she saw that it was not one but two of them. She reached to take both of them from him, ?Thank you,? and continue on along the road she had been travelling.

?Where are you going? And who?re those from? Has to be important. One of?em has a crest in the wax.?

Isa glanced at Tomas and gave him a patient smile. ?One is from a friend of mine ? Porslin. And the other is from the one I serve.?

?Serve? Are ye a slave or somethin??? Tomas grabbed the ends of the blanket about his shoulders and pulled it tight against the chill of the day.

?No. I am in her service, not beneath her feet. Though she might think these are one in the same.? Her smile held, but it seemed to miss the patience that was there a moment ago.

?She doesn?t sound nice.? Tomas made a face and stretched his pace to keep up with Isa?s.

?I do not think she is. No.? Soran glanced down at him before snapping the wax seal on Porslin?s letter first. Seagreen colored eyes glinted with a smile and shook her cap-covered head. When it was read, she tucked it into the pack she carried at her right. The second seal on the Sovran?s letter was broken reluctantly. It was evident after a brief moment that it was nowhere as pleasant as the first missive.

Blue fingers barely contained the urge to rip it into small pieces. Her expression was dark and her gaze had grown clouded. After a few moments she realized that she had stopped walking and Tomas was watching her curiously.

?It would seem that my Sovran wishes me to have some company while I am here, though she does not say when he will arrive.? She attempted a smile and patted his shoulder before she stuffed the letter into the pack without care of wrinkle or tear to it.


?Yeah. I don?t think she?s nice.? Tomas sounded off and echoed his earlier sentiment as he watched Soran?s expression darken again.

Isa Soran

Date: 2008-04-07 10:12 EST
Anger bled away the more time she spent with the Human child.

Though he had a way of irritating her with numerous questions that were none of his conscern, she found it equally curious of him - like a Theosian child in his third twelve-cycle.

The walk through the area was welcome and quiet as apposed to the great, sprawling city. She adjusted the back of maps, papers, inks and quills as they finally too rest beneath one of the ancient trees. As she settled with him to the ground to sit, she rummaged through the sturdy leather bag and offered him some cloth-wrapped bread and a few pieces of dried meat.

For the first time in an hour, the child was quiet but looked about curious and at her at times. She offered him a smile, pensive as it was. It would not be a lonely wandering through the lands while she collected the information she sought to send back to the Sovran.