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]

[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.