|
Rosalyn was sort of off to the side near the cabins. Out of the way but easily visible. She was tending an odd hedgespun creation, a metallic looking tree that was growing straight and strong. Inlaid in the pattern of the wood were thin strands of bright gold that looped and swirled in art nouveau style lines. Rosalyn knelt next to it, studying the creation and with a little basket of gardening and crafting tools next to her.
The outfit that Lucia's wearing when she comes into the Freehold Hollow is a little strange, in that she's wearing yoga pants covered in butterflies, a tank top, and an armored black leather duster, with a rig around her waist and one thigh that looks like a cross between a frog for holding a scabbard and a thigh holster, but with a coiled whip attached to it instead of a sword or a gun. She glances around, locks her glowing neon-green eyes on Rosalyn, and heads that way like she means business while waving a hand in friendly greeting.
Ros glanced up when she heard Lucia coming closer and smiled. It was a lovely smile- welcoming, kind, and just shy of the being so perfect it was unreal. "Good morning," she said cheerfully, her old fashioned accent a familiar one for Lucia. "How do you do?"
When Lucia gets closer the mechanical nature of some of the exposed parts of her becomes more clear, even if there's not much visible except her head and her hands because of the duster. For the most part her face looks normal, but the eyes with their neon green irises are more like camera lenses than anything else, with their focus visibly adjusting if anyone looks closely. Her hands are covered in artificial material that looks a bit like skin at a distance, but isn't, and there are seams that leak the same green glow as comes from her eyes, as well as metallic joins. They look like like fancy cyberpunk prosthetics, not flesh and bone. "Good morning," she starts saying in a voice that carries the faintest brush of a Spanish accent. "I was wondering if..." she trails off and squints at Rosalyn suspiciously.
She arched an eyebrow when Lucia trailed off and took a stab at what she might want. "Are you looking for an escort in the hedge?" Ros picked up a pair of pruning sheers and snipped off some of the plant, then ran the blade lightly across the back of her arm and rubbed some of the blood into the plant to bring out the warmer reddish tones in the wood and change the bright gold to more of a rose gold.
"Hmm? No, not right now," Lucia shook her head as if to clear cobwebs. "Your accent sounded familiar. It's not important." She paused to take in aspects of the scene, from Rosalyn's mantle to the hedgespun creation, and seemed to be fitting puzzle pieces together in her mind. "I'm Lucia," she said. "What are you making?"
"Oh!" She laughed a little at herself. "Sorry. That's usually what people approach me for these days. I'm making a new bow. My current one is... insufficient." She smiled faintly. "I'm Ros, pleasure to meet you."
Lucia silently considered the work from a distance before asking, "can I look?" She pointed one mechanical finger at the partially formed weapon and raised a brow just a little. "I should hedgespin arms at some point, instead of just forging them in my shop."
"Go ahead," she invited. "I've blended a really tough plant that was mostly metal with a thorn that was a good foot long when I cut it off the parent plant. Between the two, I'm aiming at growing something strong *and *deadly," Ros explained. "Hedgespinning has its benefits but its downsides too. Considering the Winter traitor running around is using cold iron, a lot of people are switching to purely physical weapons. Iron will go through hedgespun like butter, apparently."
Lucia moved closer to study the work, but tucked her hands behind her back to show that she didn't intend to touch and interfere, just observe. "There's value in having options," she agreed. She stopped studying the weapon and turned to face Rosalyn. "That was my original question. What is going on with my Court? I just moved here and found a mess."
Ros grimaced. "Well... I am perhaps not the best one to answer any detailed questions. I would recommend talking to Lux if you want to know more than I can say but... one of the ranking officers of the court was a bridge burner and was trying to make it impossible for people to dream. She tried to assassinate Lux with iron, and her betrayal caused the Winter Queen to become trapped in her dreams." Ros shuddered. "She still hasn't been caught."
Lucia's analytical mind was clearly at work if the face journey through the lands of displeasure were any indication. "Is that all," she said dryly when Rosalyn was finished. "Did I pick the right time to come home, or the wrong one?" The question seemed rhetorical, and she moved right on to one that wasn't. "Is there anything else going on I should know about because it might try to kill me?"
"There's something strange going on in the hedge," she offered with a wry smile. "Less details on that available right now, but if you notice anything that isn't right, report it. How long have you been gone from Philly?" she asked curiously.
Lucia paused in silence briefly before she answered that question. "About a hundred years," she finally said. "As this world reckons things. I'll be sure to let people know if I notice anything atypically unright in the hedge. I do need to spend some time rebuilding my fruit stockpile."
She beamed. "I'm newly returned too! Gone about as long. Watch your fruit carefully. Plants aren't growing as well as they should be considering the season."
And the devil makes three! But this is no devil; just a lovable ogre. Gallowglass emerges from the Trod, looking a little rumpled - must be sleepy. He's in a regular old t-shirt and flannel plaid pajama bottoms, feet bare. He brightens when he notices the ladies, meandering over towards them. "'Lo, Rosalyn," he rumbles, giving them both a faint smile. "And friend. Don't think we've met; I'm Jude Gallowglass. Jude, or Gal, or Gallowglass - whatever's easy to remember." He sticks out a large, frosted-glass hand. Light flickers and chases beneath the surface.
"It's best to watch everything from the Hedge carefully, always," Lucia answered, like this seems to be no different than business as usual. When Gallowglass approached them she squinted at him with narrow, mechanical eyes that glowed with a neon green that's almost certainly familiar to the mirrorskin. "Are you sure we've never met?" she asked. She didn't reach for his hand, either.
The light is green. Jude stops short, strain flickering across his features. The hand is dropped - but he doesn't turn icy, or mean. Instead he crouches down, purposefully making himself smaller than the stranger. "I...think we have," he mumbles. "Your - light, I remember green light," he manages, in a tone that harbors no malice. "I could never forget green light."
"Good afternoon Gallowglass," Ros said, giving the pair a somewhat wary look when it became they had some sort of fae connection. She turned back to her work on the nascent bow and focused her attention on it to start growing the recurved shape into the wood.
Lucia frowned before he crouched down and the expression didn't change as he did it, or as he addressed her. Her fingers twitched a bit, like she was on the verge of motion that she held back, and she seemed to have to force out words. "Do any of us forget it?" She dragged her attention away to focus her gaze on Rosalyn, eyes whirring softly as they refocused. "You go on frequent hedge patrols?"
"Some try to," he mutters, scooting back to give Lucia a wide berth. His shoulders slump as he does. Instead, his attention shifts to Rosalyn and her bow. "The kids are asleep again," he reports. "Speaking of patrols. Some of us go on frequent patrols."
"Yep. Patrolling is a joint duty between Summer and Autumn, typically. I'm only a Page, not a Ranger of the Thorns, but I'm still more comfortable in the Hedge than many higher ranking courtiers so I serve on patrols."
"Only Summer and Autumn, here?" asked Lucia with a brow raised slightly. "It seems, as an Archer of the Lonely March, like my responsibility as well. I try to keep a stock of fruits, which I search for when I'm out there. I'd like to help with the patrols." This was said to them both, not to leave Gallowglass out of the conversation and ignored.
"She leads an excellent patrol," Gal chimes in, nodding towards Rosalyn. "Last patrol I was in with Rosalyn leading, I wouldn't have a scratch on me if it weren't for me sharing a burden. Can't really put that on her, and even then, means we rescued two innocents."
She smiled faintly and stepped back to eye the shape she'd gotten out of the plant that was still firmly rooted in the earth. "And I don't know about Winter's titles or duties," she admitted. "But if you're comfortable patrolling the Hedge it's not like anyone is going to tell you no. You did a great job on rescuing those little guys, Gallowglass. I'm still moderately disappointed we couldn't reasonably hang out to see if that eelhound would have come back with the ink I sent it to fetch."
"Then I'll find when patrols are happening and join them, or organize my own," Lucia answered all matter of fact. Done, sorted. "Especially if you're saying there have been odd things happening. Have we stepped up our patrols, or started searching for causes?" Already the wording had become we, not you. The rest of what was being discussed she wasn't familiar with, so she had nothing to say about it.
He barks a laugh at that, some of the tension ebbing from his brawny frame. "One'a these days we're gonna be out on th'prowl and an eelhound is gonna come boundin' up to you covered in ink. You can make him our very own Freehold Cerberus." He gives Rosalyn a lopsided grin. "What're you makin' outta that plant?" He flicks his gaze back to Lucia. "Yeah. We have done both; some of us patrol as often as possible, and we've spent a lot of time on figuring out th'cause as well. You wanna go on patrols, you're on patrols. Why organize your own when you can just join your people?"
She snorted a laugh. "That contract doesn't hold that long. If it comes bounding up, it'll come trying to murder me again. Summer has responsibility for organizing the patrol schedule, so Gallowglass is an excellent person to pester in that regard." She shot Gal a little grin. "I'm making a new bow. Something a bit more eager to hit my target and with a stronger draw than my current bow"
"Either way," Lucia answered. "As long as it gets done and I'm not sitting on my ass." The glow of her green eyes shifts between the two Lost. "I should see if I can find more answers about what's going on with my Court. I appreciate the information from you both."
"Sure. I don't really know what's up with Winter, sorry. I just do what I'm supposed t'do. And it's gettin' done. Only reason you'd be sittin' on your ass is on you." He squints curiously at Rosalyn's bow. "No shit? You can just...make it out of the plant, like that? Still growin'?"
"Hedgespinning it," she confirmed. "Remember how we made that culvert to redirect the water? Same thing, just a wee bit more planning."
Lucia nodded. "Good. Bye then." She didn't seem upset, just direct, and with that having been said she just turned and headed away to do just as she said she was going to.
He whistles, brows lifting. "You can just..take th'Hedge, turn it into stuff." He looks a little sheepish, rubbing the back of his neck. "Shit, I didn't know that. Probably shoulda paid more attention. Can any of us do that?" He pauses to watch Lucia go, brow furrowing. "Shit. Was I a dick? I didn't mean t'be a dick."
"Oh! You're heading out?" Ros seemed a little disappointed. "It was nice to meet you! We'll have to go out in the Hedge together soon."
"I don't think you were," she told Gal quietly. "But yeah! We can all do it. Honestly, it's more about imagination and will than skill. I'm growing my bow but someone could sing it into existence or punch it out of stone, or bore it into existence by lecturing the hedge about the properties of a bow until it spits one out."
"Huh. I'll be damned." He nods in approval, mouth pursed. "Learn somethin' new every day."
|