Setting: An enchanted forest

[coerthan]

[This forest is lovely, dark and deep, with pale blossoms and little floating lights peeking from dark shadows, a mist filling the air, and a general sense of mystery and magic pervading the entire place.

And if there's one thing the duskwight, cave-raised Drividot hates, it's magical forests.]

Damnable trees... [he mutters, struggling to bend aside shrubbery without getting slapped in the face with a bent branch.] I suppose that I can't just take an axe to them, otherwise I'll have sylphs or elementals or wailers or gods-know-what after my arse...

[And he freezes when he hears a branch snap that he had nothing to do with. Now what?]

Comments

[crossedarrow]

[Perhaps 10 yards from Drividot, a bowman leads his horse through the forest. He's no trouble cutting whatever's in his path down with a longsword, so he notices the elezen first. Silently, he moves to his horse's pack and withdraws a steel bow and quiver of arrows, drawing as silently as he can.

This... person didn't wear the colours of the enemy. Perhaps that was why the bowman was aiming for his shoulder. Any human wouldn't be able to hear the bow bending. An elezen probably would.

But he's never seen an elezen before now.]

[coerthan]

[Indeed an elezen can. An elezen can recognize that sound easily, from their own long history with the same weapon. An elezen can also reach for their own bow, under pretense of seeing something in the underbrush at a different angle from the hunter.]

I hope I don't have to shoot you, [He says to the underbrush.] I fear that would lead somewhere neither of us want to go.

[crossedarrow]

[He didn't expect to be heard. What had started as something commonplace in a strange location - letting fly a few arrows and killing before asking questions now posed a predicament. He'd had time, by now, to note the fact this man - while certainly a man, was not human. Too tall. His face far too angular. Ears, pointed. Limbs, elongated. Not to the point of being grotesque - just not human.

He'd assumed that the man was a manakete. But a manakete with a bow and arrows... He flattened his back against a tree, turning away. His eyes darted to his horse, a silent indication to it to stay where it was. If that went down, he really was screwed.

Perhaps Drividot heard the sound of twigs snapping before a human emerged from his (discovered) vantage point. The bow stayed raised, and his eyes were cold.

And he said nothing, save for one question, if the utterance of a few words could be called a question.]

Which banner do you fight underneath?

[coerthan]

[Hostile hyur. Not much of a surprise, really--the bow and arrows, only slightly; but then hyuran archers were far from unknown. The banner question, though--that was out of place. It belonged farther north, to the feuds and fights between the High Houses when they didn't have enough dragon-fighting to keep their warriors occupied. Not to a place like this.]

None, [wasn't precisely a true answer, but it was close enough.]

[crossedarrow]

[A snort, but not even the flicker of a smile.]

Don't expect me to believe you've a bow like that without the support of a high house.

[The man's unarmoured. He's not a knight...]

[coerthan]

[He'll see that snort and raise you an actual laugh.]

The High Houses, supporting archery when they could give the same resources to spears? Don't make me laugh.

[And he does seem to be armored. Surely, he would know better...]

[crossedarrow]

[Not laughing.

Part of the bowman wants to discuss the merits of being far further away than the end of a stick to bring something down, (after all, even he has some kind of reverence for his art) but...]

I have little idea what country you belong to, but I'll assume your head can come off alike any other man's. Should you wish to keep it, I counsel you to leave my lord's wood.