RP:An Offer, A Debt

Part of the Questionable Honor Arc

Background

Having realized that having a stock of herbs on hand for both injuries and for injuring others could save her life, Thistle went to the Milous Plains to gather what she knew best.

She'd met Eboric before, and hadn't expected to meet him again. Eboric was out checking up on things, and he hadn't particularly expected to meet her again, either.

Milous Plains

Eboric rides along the road, sitting atop a massive white horse. His men follow at a distance, in part because their small, shaggy horses cannot keep pace with Eboric's mount, and in part because they truly have no desire to be near that horse. It does give off a somewhat otherworldly aura, and despite having ridden at this brisk pace all the way from the fort overlooking the gorge, it shows no sign of weariness. Eboric shows none of the reservations of his men, however, and seems to be enjoying the ride.

Thistle was out with a satchel, its strap crossing her body diagonally, and a knife. The satchel rode low, so as to not disturb her bow and quiver, and every step it took bumped her right leg either in front or in back around her knee, giving her an odd gait whenever she took more than a few steps. She was absorbed in the plants, her typically sullen mien almost vanished entirely, replaced with concentration for her task at hand. She straightened up out of the brush, a bunch of flowers in her gloved hand. She'd been down there awhile, mulling over her cut flowers and their properties, and hadn't been aware of the horses' approach. They were still a distance away, and she stood to watch which way they went. She thought she might recognize that rider in front, but. . .maybe not.

Eboric might have been able to see the small figure in the brush, had he been looking. But, the warlord is lost in a sort of inner dialogue, and unless something overtly threatening appears, he is unlikely to take notice. His path, however, looks to be headed right for Thistle, or near enough anyway.

Thistle opened her satchel and began by bundling like flowers with twine. Once done she stuck them carefully inside, the knife for a moment left on the ground as she did so. A few leaves from different plants were likewise bundled, stuck away. Appearing dangerous was something Thistle was never particularly good at, so she kept at her business, her attention wavering between the vegetation she hunted through and the approaching riders. She picked up the knife, moved a little further in, having spotted the bright flowers of bitterweed. She started to cut promising pieces off the bush.

Eboric , at last, notices Thistle as she moves, and without any visible direction from the rider, the white horse turns slightly and slows, until they are near enough to the woman for Eboric to speak, without having to shout. "Another chance meeting," he says with a somewhat forced grin. "What brings you out of Cenril, Dei?"

Like that, the pleasantness of the day was leeched from Thistle. A similar smile took up the corners of her lips as she stared up, and further still, as the horse approached. Well aware of the dangers that came from horses warriors tended to ride -- without anything extra from supernatural sources -- Thistle was keen not to get too near the beast. Her eyes did soften, somewhat, as they traced the shape of his, and then his riders', before they returned to Eboric himself. "Lots of useful plants out here," she said, reaching her left hand up to push hair from her face. She used the wrist; the fingers were caught within the glove and she'd no wish to let that stained leather anywhere near her skin. "Yourself?"

Eboric pats the horse's neck, and slides from the saddle, so that Thistle will only have to crane her neck half as far up to see him. He glances at the satchel of herbs, and nods to himself. "I do not suppose I could get away with the same excuse. I know little of herbs, aside from a few that are edible, and a few that will kill. No, I am here for the same reason that I was in Cenril. I like to keep informed."

Thistle blinked a few times, couldn't help herself for the looking away from him and over the plains. They were empty besides Eboric, his men, and herself. "Is there something you're expecting?" She looked back to him, eyebrows lowered a slight bit.

Eboric barks out a short laugh. "This is merely a road to get to another place, Dei. I have no interest in conquering an empty field. There is Gualon to the southwest, which is mine by rights, and the Shattered City next to it, which I might as well own. There is a desert to the southeast, wherein, I am told, lies a magnificent castle that I might want, if there is some value to it."

Away from Cenril and the problems that plagued her there, Eboric's laugh provoked a more natural smile from her lips, if a little droll. The words that followed made her look away from him, another sweep over the empty expanse. "I have never been there," she said, the statement baldly factual. "I have never been fond of deserts. Is it empty?" She remembered his words, had thought over them once he'd been gone, during quiet moments by herself. There was something of that memory in her eyes as she looked back at him. His effort of dismounting had been noticed, but he was still rutting tall.

Eboric shrugs his shoulders. "My reports say that it is, for the most part. I have never explored it myself. Like you, I am not fond of deserts. Heat, and sand. I am built for cooler lands, I think. But if there is value in owning a place, then I will own it...so I go to find that out."

Thistle frowned then as she looked back at his men's horses. "Now?"

Eboric raises an eyebrow. "Not just now, no. Gualon first." He smiles to himself, glancing toward that city, although it cannot be seen from here. "The last time I was there," he says, with something akin to sorrow in his voice. "I cast down the oathbreaker Hadrian, and drew the blood eagle upon his back." He shakes his head, and reaches out to pat his horse again.

Thistle looked away from his horses, and muttered, "Good, they do not deserve sand and heat." But that slipped from her mind as he mentioned Hadrian, curiosity pricked. It could be on the plains, without the prickle of fear between her shoulder-blades. The plains were as close as she could get to home. It freed her, a little, from her recent past. Her attention returned, again, to Eboric. "What oath did this man break?"

Eboric 's men at last catch up to their leader, but they remain a distance away, allowing their horses a rest. "Why, his oath to me, of course," the Aethling says, almost casually. "He swore himself to me, as his lord, and then broke that oath to serve Vuryal, in return for the mutations and power offered by the Time Lord. Power that proved to be of little worth, I suppose, when he bled out in the dirt of his homeland."

Thistle didn't know a Vuryal, and certainly had no idea what a Time Lord was, or what mutations had been offered. She did know a thing or two about betrayal, however, and the oaths that came before them. It reminded her something of her own life, but more than personal experiences; the camaraderie that came from telling stories around a fire, bowls of kumis in hand. His sounded like a proper story, albeit one that would break free of him in bits and pieces. Thistle's gaze turned speculative as she picked him for information. "Why'd he do it? For power only?"

Eboric doesn't seem to mind the questions; he seems to be in a mood to talk, regardless of whether or not anyone is listening. "I did not take the time to ask, but I can assume it was for power, and glory. He thought to earn more of that under Vuryal than alongside me. I would have made him a king in his own right, if he would have had the patience. But he was impatient, and headstrong, and he broke his oath to me." The big man frowns, pensively. "His woman did as well, and she has yet eluded me. I have one of her children, and even that threat hasn't lured her in."

Thistle nodded along to the things Eboric said. She was not disturbed by this, since it was not any of hers in danger. This was something she defined as normal, and it showed in the way she stood. She'd relaxed some from the initial stance she'd taken at his approach, and she even looked away from him to sheath her knife. She carefully put it back into the satchel, the few sprigs of bitterweed bunched and put in there too. The process of removing her gloves was something that took a little more care, and as she pulled them delicately free of her hands she said, "More fool they, then. The khans of my people would have kept the child as slave, and worked it hard in labor. Aie, a mother who would not return for her baby. They sound incapable of honor, and those should always be left for the crows. Did you go on raids against her people?" Such a thing would have meant blood feud to her own. Unthinkable.

Eboric 's eyebrows shoot up, and he gives the woman a curious glance. "I do not harbor oathbreakers' children, even as slaves. The child is a tool, and if the tool does not work, I will have to dispose of it." He frowns again, wondering at the lack of disgust at the thought of butchering the child, a feeling so familiar since his adventure with Tenebrae. "She has no people for me to raid, otherwise they'd all be dead by now." He smiles, faintly. "Your people, you said. What people are these, that have such a like mind to my own? Not Cenril, surely."

Thistle could only shrug at the mention of butchering the child. Less useful dead, but she understood the sentiment. One glove was mostly peeled free, but she kept it on her hand as she began to tug at the other. "Much further north. Inland. Not to the mountains, but the steppes. Wider even than these." She nodded to the wider reach of plains. "Distant from the water. I hadn't even seen the ocean until I came here." It was easy to talk about home. There hadn't been anyone to talk about it with, to -feel- its presence with, since Iron had taken her sisters. She paused mid motion, staring into a memory of endless, rolling land with mountains to the north forming a distant, distant border. Open sky -- "No trees." Disgust was evident in her voice at that, her lips twisting into something vaguely scowl-like as she resumed her tugging.

Eboric frowns. "I have not been there, I suppose, though it sounds like a sight to see. Perhaps I will get to see it someday." He glances north, somewhat absently. "And your people...are they good warriors? They must be, if their raids are to be successful."

Thistle pulled one of her hands mostly free and began to carefully roll the glove inside out, over the other. "It is the best there is. And the horses, aie, you have never seen better. And the food!" She was smiling down at her gloves as she got both hands free and the gloves themselves rolled into a little inside-out ball. She looked up and grinned at him, "You should go. So long as you are not enemy, all Tribesmen welcome guests. It is honored tradition that a guest be given the best place within the yurt, a feast spread in his honor. Not like here. Nothing like here." Her smile faded, and she sighed. She shook her head and continued, "On horseback my people are unrivaled. The spear, the sword, there is much skill there, but some of you are . . .large." The smile went away entirely, her expression a little more pensive. "I do not know. But for archery, yes, the warriors of my people have better craftsmanship and capability than any of the things I've seen here. Most of the draw strength of these is pitiful, and the construction more so." She tucked her gloves into her sash and tapped at the bow sheathed on her back. "Even this is no good. If I still had strength to me, it would be like a toy. A sad little toy." She shook her head, disgust evident in the purse of her lips.

Eboric grins and, apparently finding this conversation more interesting than what he might find in Gualon, takes a seat on the grass. His men dismount as well, and let their horses graze. The white stallion does not move. "Among my people, the guest is treated much the same. A stranger needs kindness, and the honor of the host increases the more hospitable he is to his guests." He glances at the bow, and shrugs his shoulders. "I have no skill with such weapons, although I know well the merits of them. You say that you used to have the strength for a stronger bow...what happened?"

It would have been rude to stand. Thistle moved a little closer to Eboric, around plants that would have taken her from his sight entirely, so that they might talk. She took a seat, ignoring his men as he seemed to ignore them; even if she watched them with the closeness of a mother to her toddling child she would not escape them if they chose to harm her. They had horses. She did not. It was easy to see which way that match would go. The easiness of word she'd given while standing, however, changed as she sat. She chose to look away from him at the ground as she replied. "Things have been difficult since I came here." Her mouth closed after that sentence, and though there were other things that could have been said, she didn't want to say them. Instead, she minced over the heart of the matter. "I could not bring our herds. Our horses were stolen. My weapons, my bow, stolen. Most of anything valuable was stolen over that long walk. The forest is --" she made a face, "I decided our best option would be to live in one of the filthy cities, and that --" She closed her mouth again, licked at her lips. "We barter where I come from. Here, it is money. Always money. It is only recently I have begun to do more than rot. Now I seek to regain what I've lost." In more ways than one. She chose to change the subject. "What of you? If our people are so similar, where did you come from? As you said, not from around here, surely."

Eboric frowns, and tugs absently at his beard. "That is a shame, to be sure. I, myself, have never lacked for gold, but that is because, since coming here, I have been able to earn by war." He shifts, settling himself more comfortably. "I was born on the island of Rynvale, north of Gamorg, where the ogres dwell. My people came there long, long ago, and have lived there ever since. When I come into my own, I will bring them from there, though, to live with those of the same bloodline that I have found across these lands." He cocks his head to one side, giving Thistle a speculative look. "You said 'we'...others of your people came with you?"

Thistle was staring at Eboric at that particular moment, realization of his importance -- the extent of it -- coming into the forefront of her mind. His question to her was put aside as she seized on that, surprise causing her eyes to widen a small amount. "You are a khan -- a leader, I mean, a leader of your people?"

Eboric smiles, albeit somewhat humorlessly. "I suppose I am. I am an Aethling, born to noble blood. My father, Penda, who rules my people in Rynvale, is a direct descendant from Aethelred, who led us there so long ago. Aethelred was the son of Wihtlaeg, who was the last Cyning, or king, of the Kuronii tribe. His sons split it into three parts, of course, but that has already begun to be reversed."

Thistle had not been raised with poor manners. Her face flushed at his words, one of her hands found its way towards her mouth, where it hovered there. The all-too-recent memory of how she'd treated him in Cenril, the things she'd said. . .she would have squirmed, if that was not also inappropriate. She had no clue what Aethling meant, couldn't repeat it without several embarrassing repetitions she was unwilling to go through. There might have been a small wince, even, as she thought towards what her mother would have said. True, his people was not her own, but some small measure of politeness was, or would have been, in keeping with manners. And there she was, bragging of her people, when she'd . . . to a foreign leader. . . there was definitely a wince. She dropped her hand, leaned forward in a small bow, the sort of thing one might offer to a shaman. A politeness. She didn't hold it very long, straightening back to where she'd been before in her seated posturing. "I have been rude," she muttered, "I hope you will not hold my personal failings against the honor of my people." She wiped at her mouth. Nervous habit. "Your name. What was your name, again?" Maybe another wince at that, a small tightening of the skin around her left eye.

Eboric laughs, and puts out his hands in a calming gesture. "I have not heard any rudeness, nor have I seen failings. I do not go about shouting my position to all the world, so it is reasonable that you did not know. All will know, soon enough, but until then..." he trails off with a shrug. "My name is Eboric. I have titles aplenty to go along with it, but I do not much feel like shouting those about, either."

Thistle was still flushing, mired in her self-incrimination. She did hear the 'all will know' part, which was something to think over another time. In the present, she was looking at him with extreme doubt. "To speak to a khan of a major tribe in such a fashion would have seen my head freed from my neck," she said, blunt as you please. But, then, "No title? Just. . .your name. Your name." Which would have been something like a paramount cause of offense, to her people. She was staring at him, somewhat numbed to that small breach of etiquette, too.

Eboric shrugs again. "I cannot go around taking everyone's heads from their necks for every minor thing...my arm would grow tired from all the butchery." He laughs once more. "I am the Aethling Eboric, son of Penda, Titan of Winter, Titan of War, slayer of the monster Ymheshphilun, bane of the beast hunter, scourge of oathbreakers, true Cyning of the Kuronii, warlord of the Aethlinga Gedriht. You may call me Eboric, because to speak all the rest would make for a long and boring conversation."

Thistle couldn't follow all the rest. Her mouth had formed a piteous little line. Maybe she cringed, just a little, at some errant thought about titles and punishments. "Eboric," she said. Even that felt mildly sacrilegious. He was not one of her people, she reminded herself with severity. Not that it helped. "Pardon me, please, for saying so, but you are very strange to me." It wasn't like she could get any worse at that point. Souls save her from herself.

Eboric finds himself laughing again. "Because I do not mind speaking on friendly terms to non-nobility? My people are somewhat more...relaxed about such things than others. My father taught me that a cyning must be loved as well as feared by his people. They know that to break their oath to me will mean their death, no matter how strong they think they are. Hadrian proved that well enough. But they also know that I am a friend to them, with their best interests solely guiding my decisions. I know that, without them, I am simply a man with a skill for killing, and nothing more, and they know that as well. I only have what power they grant me, and it is in my best interest not to abuse that." He winks at Thistle, and grins. "Also, nobles are, on the whole, a boring lot, and naturally, their conversations are as dull as they are."

Thistle shook her head with some bafflement, but she was listening to Eboric, had given him her full attention. The wink was received with her face twisted up in bemusement, her body stiffening with uncertainty at how to handle the situation. She knew what nobles were to the people locally, and she also knew how they'd measure up to what passed for nobility among her own. She would not ever dare to call them dull, would not have supposed that they were. Her mouth was open to protest, but she shut it. Stared a little more. Looked down. "I should have been drunk for this," she muttered at the ground. She looked up, though her face was still tilted groundwards. Her expression was a little unfortunate. "Do you always converse with . . .folk of the commons? So freely?" She blinked. "Friendly. . .so strange," that last was definitely in an undertone, more to herself than to him.

Eboric glances up to where his horse stands, just behind. Reaching up, he unhooks a skin from the saddle which, when he pulls the stopper free, gives off the distinct odor of honey. "I have mead," he says, "if you would like to be drunk." He offers it to her. "And yes, I do. My people are numerous, to be sure, but not numerous enough for the goals I have set for myself, and so I must recruit followers from other tribes. Hadrian was from Gualon, and though he broke his oath, I gained a small army of people from that city. The Murum Mors. Other thegns are from other groups, other places. And to win them to my cause, I must show them that I am worthy of being followed."

Thistle continued to be caught off guard by the man. At the close of his words she did hold up her hand, though she did not reach for it. "That is understandable, yes. I can understand better for it. Your offer is well thought but I would not drink in your presence if you were not also drinking. That would be rude in any circumstance." She was a little stilted as she spoke, still adjusting to the idea that the man she'd pegged as some minor mercenary captain, some man made important by his ability to kill, was a leader of a tribe, or more. Unsettling. That he sat and was sharing his drink with her was something that should have been impossible. To say that she was uncomfortable would have been an understatement of the extreme. Given this instability of ground upon which to stand, she found herself drawing upon far distant memories, a tattered cloak of dignity for sure to pull around her bony shoulders. She did the best she could.

Eboric shrugs his shoulders, and takes a long drink of mead, before holding the skin out once more. "There, now I am also drinking. It is late, and I am usually a horn or two in by this time anyway." He keeps the drink where it is, waiting for her to take it. "So tell me, how good were you with a bow, before that disastrous trip of yours?"

Thistle took the skin, but before she could put it to her lips the smell of it hit her. She pulled it back, looking at it with a strange expression. She pulled it close, and took a deliberate sniff. "Better than most of the men. I'm. . .small. Had to be good at that. Souls know I wasn't much for wrestling. My old master told me I'd never beat a bigger man at anything close up. So I went for distance. In my day, my best mark was near five hundred meters." She mimed drawing a bow, skin held in her left hand to mimic the bow, fingers of her right hand closing in a different grip than what people in local areas tended to use on their arrows. "Not the best, but near enough to it. One hundred forty pounds of draw. That was my bow. Best I'd ever made." She took a drink then, but before she could swallow her cheeks puffed out, and her eyebrows bunched together. She forced herself to swallow, almost laughing at its flavor. "Son of a dry mare, what's this rotting made out of. Sweet? It's sweet." She took another quick sip to make sure of her guess before she held it out to him. Sweet was something reserved for children. Kumis, certainly, wasn't sweet.

Eboric takes the skin with a laugh, and drinks again. "Honey," he says. "Just honey and water, brewed like wine. It is sweet, to be sure, but it gets the job done." He holds it out again. "My Gedriht is significantly lacking in archers. We have a few, of course, and a small group of slingers, but on the whole it is spears and seaxes, and the shield wall." He tugs at his beard. "Earlier, when you were speaking of leaving your homeland, you said 'we'...there are others of your people here?"

Thistle took the skin back. "Your what? What is lacking?" The words he spoke, it seemed almost like half of them were complete nonsense. Probably that was just her frustration at being unable to understand. She took another pull, amusement at the flavor and his own ease of mood giving her cause to try out another smile. Hesitant, of course, but present. "I took four of my siblings with me. One of them is dead. Why do you ask?" Amazing how callous the words could sound, and how the hurt still burned a trail from her stomach up to her mouth. She steeled herself to it, and held the skin back out to him.

Eboric takes another drink, and passes it again. "I am sorry for your loss," he says. Never good at such things, he moves on quickly enough. "My...warband. More of an army now." He looks directly at her now, meeting her eyes. "It could be very profitable for you, Dei, if you were to join me. I have gold in plenty, and my thegns, my warriors, never lack for food. And better still is the glory. Those who fight alongside me will have their names remembered long after they are dead."

Thistle had taken the skin, and had drunk from it. She almost dropped it as she handed it back, her eyebrows climbing her forehead. "I . . .see." There was turbulence, then, a wash of emotions she couldn't hope to name. She kept their eye contact, as she tried to think, and found herself completely at a loss. It took her some time to put things together, to speak honestly. To not step upon the honor he'd offered her. "I was exiled. It's why I came here. When Leaf died, Iron took my sisters. He is holed up in Cenril, entwined with criminal business, and now I am too that I may find them. You have shown me honor, but I cannot accept." All amusement, all levity, had fled from her. What she had left to show him were the shreds of her pride and dignity, and all the honor that remained.

Eboric 's lips twist in a wry smile. "Ah, well. I could not ask you to abandon that sort of quest, not for all the riches and glory in the world. But, even though you cannot swear an oath to me, I will still help you, if I may. As I said, I have gold, and men, and even some thegns that are not out-and-out warriors, but operate more in the shadows. Perhaps there is some way I can assist you in finding your sisters, and taking revenge on this...Iron."

"He is my brother," Thistle said, the words quiet. "But I am head of family. It was not his right." She jerked the skin at him, a little: a small reminder. "I'm not what I was. It's hard to accept that. But I keep finding myself rescued by strangers, and that's worse." Her words held a shadow of bitterness. She looked at him, searched his face. "I do not take debts lightly. Most don't understand that, don't understand the meaning of honor. What you suggest would be a heavy debt. A very heavy debt." She was running herself ragged, trying to do so much on her own. She knew it. Her bones knew it. The weariness that pervaded her during the day and kept her awake at night knew it too. The truth hurt.

Eboric takes the skin at her prompting, and takes another long drink before holding it once more. "I understand," he says, simply. "And I know full well the debt that you would incur by accepting my help. But know that, while I will collect on that debt, it would not be something that you cannot pay. I do not extend offers like this often."

Thistle took a two full swallows before she tipped her head down and stared at the skin. A powerful man sat before her. A powerful man whose plans, whose ideals she didn't know. Perhaps his choices when it came to how he displayed his power were indeed strange to her, but of the man she thought that, maybe, she understood some small part of who he was. He was similar to the men she'd known at home. To her people. "If I chose to accept such a debt, its payment would have to not include either my sisters or my brother. Not their lives, not their bodies, not their minds." She looked at him when she said it, and whatever uncertainty she'd displayed before was gone. There was seriousness, a stoniness in her that would make no compromises over that matter. She held out the skin.

Eboric takes the skin and sets it to one side, being sure to replace the stopper first. "It would not be them that owed me a debt, Dei, so I would not take a payment from them. They will be left alone." He extends his hand for her to shake. "Will you let me help you?"

Thistle wiped at her mouth, and licked her lips for good measure. She hated fidgeting in people. All the same, she found herself wanting to make those small movements, those petty self-reassurances that in the end meant nothing and got nothing done. She forced herself to sit rigidly as she stared at his hand. Delaying the inevitable, that was hardly her way -- hardly -had- been her way, but there were too many difficult decisions of late for her to be able to do anything else. She'd one that she hired on, a hated alliance with another, several uneasy truces, and a number of men who wanted her dead. Rumors to her favor, rumors that she had the muscle to back up her cocky words, but those would be put to the test soon enough. A dead body wouldn't reclaim her sisters, see them properly married to honorable men. A dead body wouldn't be able to make an accounting. "Iron, Freyel, and the leader of the gang who took him in. They're mine." Surely she wasn't stalling. Surely not.

Eboric nods his head. "You will make all the decisions. I will simply provide the resources. No one will die if you do not want them dead, and you can kill every last one of them if you'd like."

Souls take her to the hells. She reached out and took his hand, tried not to feel resentment as his dwarfed hers. So often it was almost a prayer itself, she wished again that she'd been born a man.

Eboric smiles, and shakes Thistle's hand firmly. "You have made a good choice. Now, I really must go on to Gualon, but we will speak again soon. Just outside of Cenril, on the other side of the gorge, there is a fort. That is mine, and I can be found there often enough or, failing that, someone there will know how to reach me." He rises, and swings up into the saddle again.

Thistle stood, and watched him. She was uncertain about the choice she'd made, dizzy with the enormity of it. A nod was offered, and a slightly dazed: "Your horses be well." She touched her satchel as if it had some small reassurance for her.

Eboric grinned, and mounted. A shout had his warriors mounting as well. "Until we meet again, Dei." His horse started forward, again without a visible command, and was soon picking up speed.