Elsa, 19th Nachexen

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"Are there a lot of Norscans left?"
“Not now that they caught the Raven’s Cry, I think,” said Sorin. “She was the last one left.”

The two mercenaries and Marjan soon slipped back into their incomprehensible dialect, and once Elsa had finished her drink - or as much of it as she could stomach - she headed back in the direction of the great hall. The sky was darkening, and the winter chill was already numbing her ears and nose when she reached the doors under the wooden raven’s beak.

Inside it was dark and warm, a stone-lined fire-pit in the centre of the floor filling it with the smell of smoke. Long tables down either side of the hall lay mostly empty, a couple of young, wan-faced local women lolling idly on the benches that ran beside them. They turned their heads towards Elsa as she entered, but said nothing.

At the head of the hall was a high-backed throne of old, dark wood, piled high with furs. A grizzled-looking Tilean sat sprawled across it, his square-jawed face set in a habitual frown. He was listening to a man who looked like a local, with a mop of scruffy black hair and the posture of an apologetic mouse.

“...of course, sergeant, but I’m sure if anyone had known that Darja had it, they would have spoken up right away…”

Spotting Elsa’s movement by the door, the soldier gave a curt gesture for the man to stop talking and stood up. He peered through the smoke rising from the fire-pit, trying to get a look at her through the shadows. “Eh! Who’s there?” he called in strongly-accented Reikspiel. “Show yourself! Come forward!”

OOC:
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I’d like to play this out a little bit to take the temperature of Elsa’s interaction with the soldiers, but I won’t stop the clock for it - at minimum, they’re not going to turn down her request for accommodation.


Backertag, 20th Nachexen - Elsa

The next morning, Elsa made her way to the forge. It was built on the highest point of the outcrop on which the town was built, and from here you could look out over the top of the wooden wall, to the tops of the Raven Hills beyond. Some of the birds that gave the hills their name were circling a little way beyond the town - perhaps they had found a dead animal out there.

The person she was looking for was sitting on the rocks, watching the birds with her legs dangling over the edge. She was a striking-looking girl, with a broad face, pale eyes and pale hair, cropped short above the shoulders. A little way off to her right sat the cold remains of a large fire, ringed about with stones - in among the ashes, Elsa thought she could see the charred ends of bones.

She answered to her name without fear or hesitation, looking up at Elsa with a certain detached curiosity. She couldn’t have been any older than Tatiana, but she seemed far more self-possessed. “What is it you want?” she asked. “My father’s inside.”