I'm not lost [r]

[Cyrus]

It had been a while since he had last visited his homeland; that was a fact. He had been dancing along the border of Plegia for a while now, curious of the difference in climate and geography there, another fact. Coming back to Ferox would be an expected change, since it was a kingdom located amongst harsh climates and high elevation. Snow was near constant here; it didn’t take a genius to understand that. Yet despite knowing all this, the actual experience of switching from the hot, dry climate of Plegia to the cold winds of mountainous Ferox was never going to be easy.

“Should have planned this better." Muttering to himself, he grimaced, stopping on the snowy path. How much further was it till he reached the fort leading into Feroxi again? A sign said he was close. But how close was that exactly? Taking a moment to look around, he searched for something that hinted at his current location. Around him were frozen trees, yet they looked as identical and frozen as the rest that populated the mountainside. Very helpful weren’t they? Some hours ago a nice man had offered to carry him up to the Feroxi fort leading into the country, but once that wagon driver found out Cyrus didn’t have the proper funds to pay for his services… Well, saying that they had a disagreement was a nice way of putting it. He could still felt the throbbing from being smacked against the ribs with the flat side of the driver’s sword. What a grump.

The only sign that he hadn’t been walking in circles for the past hour was that the Feroxi hadn’t seen his footprints since he hopped off the wagon. It helped that he was following a path, but he was hoping for a shortcut. Such a path tended to be for those with carts and wagons, and winded around the mountain. Tilting his head up, he blinked quickly as snowflakes landed on his lashes, glad that it wasn’t snowing too much, but the flurries in the sky didn’t seem to be enough to cover such deep imprints in the snow at this time.

He made another scan of the area to double check, but still no distinct sign of where he was. His parents would be so disappointed in him right now. Unable to find where your own homeland is after wandering around for a year? He could imagine their stares at him now. With a huff, he decided his best bet would be to keep walking. Taking several steps forwards he stopped at the noise of a sound. Thinking the noise came from animals in the trees, he shrugged, only to notice the sound of crunching snow again --this time from behind.

“Nice weather, huh?” He called out, trying to make conversation with whatever was keeping him company.

Nimue

((kind of long, hope it's okay :3

[Nimue]

Ask a traveler and they will know. Nimue's foot tapped impatiently from where she sat sidesaddle on top of her wyvern, her axe carefully strapped to the side of her saddle. She was anxious to find out about her brother now that she was up in Ferox, and unlike most people who wanted nothing more than to hunker down and conserve warmth, the peppy girl was all fired up, comfortable with the cold that reminded her so much of her home in Rosanne, curled up with her brother around a hearth. Still, she was a summer child, her hardships considerably less than others, though she had trained in a harsher condition than others - the point being, however, she was doing poorly waiting for a new traveler that could bring her more tidbits of information about her beloved brother. Letting out a loud huff, she finally reached her breaking point and threw one leg over her wyvern's neck, tightening her grip on the saddle even as she squeezed her legs around her partner. "C'mon, Temis!" she urged, "Let's go!"

Letting out a soft bugle, Artemis opened his wings obediently and took off in a flurry of dust, soon leaving the small settlement behind as they started flying. She'd have to go back before night started to fall, even with a wyvern for protection she made a prime target for anyone looking for an easy target to loot, and for a prolonged moment, the girl smiled and enjoyed the feeling of crisp air blowing against her face, her long chestnut hair streaming behind her... and then she heard a soft sound, something that had her opening lavender eyes to see a single figure struggling through the snow. "All right, Temis, down," she encouraged, and the wyvern let out a soft sound, slowly gliding down so that he could land, snow crunching beneath him even as Nimue slid down his side, landing with a soft thud from her white leather boots hitting the ground. Well aware of how she looked with Artemis behind her, she puffed out her chest and lifted her head, trying to make herself look more intimidating that her short stature actually provided her. "You! They said a traveler would know about my brother, so spill! Where is he? Is he safe? Is he looking for me?"

Words. -- Tags. Cyrus Notes. Better tell her, Cyrus, otherwise she'll tell Artemis to sit on you. *brick'd out* No but ahhhh there were so many Alice icon choices for this, I had a hard time picking which one to use before I just said screw it and went with this one. 330 icons to work with total, I am spoiled for choice for Nimue.

[Cyrus]

No reply. It must have really been a rabbit or something, then. Scratching the back of his head, he shifted his weight, ready to take a step forward when he noticed a shadow quickly appear on the ground in front of him. Its wingspan was nearly several feet apart, too big to be a bird. Instinctively he jerked his head up to see what it was. Seeing nothing in the snowy skies, he looked left and right, the trees turning into a blur as his line of sight quickly shifted. At the sound of something landing, he turned, his shoulders tensed and a hand on his sword as he prepared to defend himself in case of an attack. At first glance, the large wyvern in front of him was a good indicator of trouble ahead. And where there was a wyvern, there was always a rider. Seeing movement atop the back of the creature, Cyrus spotted the person likely to be the wyvern’s rider. As he listened to the crunch of snow when the rider landed on the ground, the man contemplated running off into the forest in order to avoid trouble.

That all left his mind when he realized how small the rider was. She nearly looked like a kid to the taller Feroxi. He wanted to write her off as not dangerous, but something told him otherwise. Despite her height, Cyrus could see in the proud tilt of her head that this girl wasn’t afraid. It might have helped that there was also the large wyvern behind her. Staring at her face, he felt the girl seemed more annoyed than aggressive. Cyrus didn’t know if he was responsible for her ire, but he hoped things would be smoothed over without fighting. He really didn’t want to appear in front of his family bandaged somewhere.

He felt his heart leap into his throat as he was suddenly barraged by so many questions at once. The sudden onslaught of questions made his mind race to try and remember if he had met this girl before. He met many people on his travels, and he liked to think he was good with faces. Yet he couldn’t recall this girl’s face. His hands raised on their own, as if doing so would protect him from the many questions directed at him. "Whoa, whoa. Are you sure you’ve got the right person here?" Taking several steps backward, he wanted to get as much distance from that wyvern as possible. Was she going to listen to reason? He didn’t want to test that idea, may as well try getting as far away as possible.

Stopping with some feet between them, he continued with a shrug. "I don’t even know you. It’d help if you gave me some information about yourself, little lady."

Nimue

[Nimue]

Artemis let out a low growl, wings spreading slightly as the wyvern crouched, obviously ready to spring if the other human tried to run. Nimue wanted to talk to him, and he was running away. That was good enough reason in his book to pounce on a human and sit on them for her so that they wouldn't go anywhere. But she had told him that humans were fragile and generally didn't like having a wyvern slowly crushing them, so he didn't spring right away, though with the way that his tail waved, he obviously wasn't against the idea.

Nimue, meanwhile, put her hands on her hips, oblivious to her wyvern's intent. "Positive!" she insisted. "The people at the tavern said it would be a traveler who'd know about my brother, and you're a traveler!" ... Yes, her logic was probably flawed, but the girl was desperate for someone she knew, and after losing so much in Rosanne, she didn't have any of that. All she had left was Artemis and her brother, the two things tying her to the world at large. She huffed and stomped her foot, ignoring the way the white leather plunged through the snow and how it made her chestnut hair fluff up slightly from the action. She was acting like a child, yes, but at eighteen, sometimes she really was more of a girl than a young woman, someone who was desperately reaching out for a parent that she'd not had since she'd lost her mother. "My name is Nimue, and I'm from Rosanne. I'm here looking for my older brother, who's a sellsword. He came to Ylisse eight years ago to try to make a living and send money back home. Now tell me what you know about him."

Artemis accentuated the demand with a low growl, the wyvern obviously protective of his rider. He wasn't about to let her cry. Not when he could do something to fix it, that is.

Words. -- Tags. Cyrus Notes. Don't run Cyrus. Wyverns are like T-Rexes. They can smell fear only see you if you move. *brick'd out*

[Cyrus]

Were his words helping to defuse the situation a little bit? He doubted that, glancing nervously now at the growling wyvern. The impatient lashing of its tail was not a good sign. The expression on its face (snout?) reminded him of a cat that was waiting for the right moment to snatch up a mouse. If it decided to attack, those wicked claws and teeth were not there for show, and that rider probably knew how to best utilize her steed.

Pulling his gaze away from the wyvern, his expression took on one of disbelief. "I'm a traveler, yeah, but there are plenty of them." Muttered mostly to himself, his jaw set as he wondered how he'd gotten himself into this situation. His name being mentioned in taverns was a questionable fact, even if it would do good for his ego. His former work as a soldier had earned him some recognition amongst his seniors and younger recruits, but to gain enough of a reputation to be mentioned in places like that was unlikely. For the past year he'd traveled a lot, but that wasn't enough to earn him fame either. Coupled with the fact he tended to unknowingly get recruited into less than honorable causes wouldn't do wonders to it either. If there was a bandit raid nearby a village, then yeah he may have accidentally wandered into that situation. His bad. He was a mercenary, not an information broker. Whatever he knew he got from gossip in the public houses and from his fellow soldiers back in Ferox.

But none of that experience in the field mattered at the moment now that he had the girl's name and country of origin. Nimue of Rosanne. Before he knew it, he felt words slip from his mouth, "Cute name, little lady." Whoops, he shouldn't have said that, considering how her mood seemed to sour with every passing moment. She was looking for her brother who arrived in Ylisse eight years ago. Upon hearing that he felt a pang. Eight years was a long time. That might explain her impatience. Well, if it was Ylisse where he had anchored at, "...why don't you look for your brother in Ylisse? Find out information there?" That seemed like a logical thing to do.

Nimue

[Nimue]

Nimue huffed and tossed some of her chestnut hair back, trying to hide the fact that she hated having to seem so harsh and aggressive, it wasn't who she really was. She was just so desperate to see her brother again... she would do just about anything to see him, even threaten someone with Artemis, even if she would never severely hurt them. There was a reason why she was little more than a lost child searching for someone familiar to cling onto, after all. "Yeah, but what if you're the right one?" she asked, her tough wyvern rider mask breaking for a moment to reveal the frightened girl underneath, the one who clung to Artemis and let the large wyvern take care of her if only because he was the only one who still did. "I can't take that chance and just let you go until you tell me what you know."

She didn't have her axe on her, of course, and she'd thought that was a smart idea up until the moment that she heard the comment about her name. That brought her right to a halt, the Roseannean's cheeks pinking as she flailed a little, never having been complimented like that before outside of a tavern, and that was something that was pretty easy to disregard with all the drunken men around her. "I-it's not cute! Shut up!" Artemis let out another warning growl from behind her, only quieting again when she laid a hand on his nose, not wanting to scare the man. "And I've tried looking there! They said that he had to go up to Ferox, and since that was the last thing I've heard of him, I've been up here ever since!" It made sense for her to stay in Ferox, it was cold, like her home had been, so why shouldn't her brother have been here too? It was a rough place, like their home, so to her, it made sense to stay up in the north, in Ferox.

It wasn't quite home, but it was close enough, so why... why couldn't she find him?

Words. -- Tags. Cyrus Notes. She's trying not to cry a little bit, and she's sad and lonely. Poor thing just wants to have her brother back, but she can't even get that, mwahahahahahaha!

[Cyrus]

To his surprise, rather than turning straight around and rushing off on her wyvern for Ylisse, she made no movement at all. Confused, he stared at the rider, wondering if the idea was going to need a some time to sink in. Instead, as he continued to stare at her, a tilt of her head revealed a different expression -- opposite to her previous irritation and anger. Damn, he hadn’t meant to do something like that. He prided himself for being a lady’s man, even if he ended up getting slapped more times than not. Raising an arm, he scratched at the back of his head, uncomfortably looking to the side as he wondered what to do next. Considering his options, it seemed the best course of action was to submit to her requests for information.

Before he could even open his mouth, the sudden outburst from the little rider caught him by surprise. And quickly that sad looking girl from moments ago turned back into her old self. Gods that was quick. Resignedly, he gave a small sigh, amused yet tired at the same time. She had a way to wear him down, maybe because she reminded him of a kid.

“Alright, alright. I’ll see what I can do.” Shifting his weight in the snow, he placed a hand beneath his chin, racking his brain for some type of information. As a traveler since a year ago, he frequented many inns and taverns. Typically he’d meet someone new, and chat with them for the night. That was usually it, so if he’d actually met Nimue’s brother, the chances were low. Practically nonexistent. He liked company, but he didn’t ask much into a person’s life. Running around all over the place made it hard to meet people again. He’d been near Plegia and Ylisse more recently, but hadn’t bothered to visit the coastal region. (Now that he thought of it, maybe he should. Oceans, sand...) He wouldn’t know news of people coming over from foreign lands. Plus, if eight years had passed...a lot of things can happen in that much time.

“Uh...you got a name? Or a description? If your brother came to Ferox, he might have joined the army. I know some guys from then.” Quickly, he added after, “Don’t get your hopes up, though. I don’t talk to everyone.”

Nimue

ooc: srry, Cyrus prolly knows nuthin. Nimue's gonna be disappointed. but hey, you got a shoulder to cry on |D

[Nimue]

Of course the young woman was still acting like a kid. For all intents and purposes, even if she was eighteen, she still was a kid, a little girl who was clinging to the only source of comfort she had - even if said comfort was actually a large wyvern that had nothing against becoming aggressive if it meant protecting her - and searching desperately for someone to take care of her. Maybe that was why she visibly perked up under the thought of being right, her back straightening as her violet eyes lit up with interest. Her brother was so close, his laugh light and his smile easy. She just had to be brave enough to reach out and seize him again before he slipped through her fingers. She was strong enough now to walk by his side. She was.

"Agravain," she supplied softly. "His name is Agravain." She loved her brother, remembering his face, his smile, the way that his hand had ruffled her hair while he called her his princess even though she would yell at how he was messing it up and try to knock him off. Her mother had always insisted that his name was from his father, but when either child would ask, she would refuse to say anything more, and the few times Agravain would ask around, he wouldn't get anything back about the name, so the elder had dropped it. "He's tall... kind and handsome... always had time for people, even if he was busy and had something to do. He was pretty good with a sword... and he had cropped brown hair, like mine." The wyvern rider frowned, her brow furrowing as she thought back. She... she couldn't remember what color his eyes were. She knew they had been there in her mind's eye once, a long time ago, but age had faded the picture, blurred it beyond what she could immediately recall, and it saddened her to think that she had lost such a thing. "He... he was pretty good with animals. He couldn't ride a horse to save his life, but he could care for one and make it trust him with only a few words." She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her fist, ignoring the way that Artemis let out a soft whine of worry from behind her. Mercenaries like her didn't cry. "He wouldn't have joined the army though, not even if they paid him. He hated fighting unless he had to, even if he was a mercenary. He didn't like killing people."

Words. -- Tags. Cyrus Notes. Minor King Arthur names for this family! Nimue was Merlin's lover, and Agravain was Gawain's brother and the knight who, along with Mordred, discovered Lancelot and Guinevere sleeping together. A little insight to how I picked the names there for you *cough*

[Cyrus]

Slowly he was piecing together whatever information he heard. As previously mentioned in their conversation, this person was a foreigner, which can sometimes be picked out easily. Sometimes it was by their looks, but then there are also the cultural differences. Newcomers in Ferox sometimes felt out of place amongst the rowdy soldiers, but that was to be expected. Some didn’t know how to have fun like a Feroxian.

In the short pause of their conversation, Cyrus tried to think of any people he had met with that name. Unfortunately, other than the names of his friends, he couldn’t recall all the people he’d ever met. Soldier-life built tight bonds, but he couldn’t become close to everyone. Some of those people may have even been left on the battlefield, a nameless body that wouldn’t get a grave. What a depressing thought.

And even more depressing was hearing those nostalgic words from the past about her brother. The way the girl still looked up to her brother, how she continued to compliment him, was very familiar. Those tidbits of rather useless, but affection, information that made family so unique. It wasn’t useful information for a successful search, but it revealed the feelings held for someone so dear. He knew those kinds of feelings, considering he was an older brother himself –

“That’s right!”

How could he have forgotten? Running his hands through white hair, he began to mutter to himself. Only now did he remember the original reason why he was in Ferox. He had family that he needed to visit. He needed to move quickly. The sun was slowly moving across the sky, and he didn’t have time to get sidetracked before arriving at the next shelter for the night. The distance he could have travelled in this time still spanned out along the mountains, and he needed to get moving. However, he couldn’t fully bring himself to turn tail and leave the girl hanging with no further information. Despite their abrupt meetings, he held some admiration for the girl, especially for her passion to find her brother.

“Hey, little lady. You mind continuing our conversation on the road?” With a tilt of his head at the pathway in front of him, he briefly waited for a reply. He admitted he was a little worried for her reaction, but it shouldn't be too much to worry about. His profession made it that he was decent at bargaining. He had some leverage in this conversation if he made it seem like he had something she wanted. Technically he didn’t; his knowledge didn’t extend that far into the continent – but he wouldn’t tell her that now.

Nimue