Dave
"Ilona Maith"
The Great Hall, the Keep Sempiternal

The music was boring and when it stopped, it stopped entirely. The silence loomed over them once again. 

One of the wicks on the candelabra next to her was crackling ever so softly. Somewhere in the far off rooms, a servant had dropped something. The rain padded the window in slow, methodical waves. 

The Princess cleared her throat, "How did you like my father's Isles, my lady?" She gave little Fleur de Lysse a similarly tiny smirk. She had never had a father, but the Pirate King was what she imagined one might be like. Distant, looming, frowning, dispensing coin every so often. Ilona spoke highly of him, almost like he was always listening. 

"I have not been back in some time, and I can not say I am not jealous you were there. How was he, the King? Tell me, how many times did he smile? Once? Twice?" She chuckled.

"I think you will find I am..." She spun her hand to summon up the word, "_fun,_ I think you say."
Eric
Fleur De Lysse
The Keep Sempiternal

Fleur's eyes shifted as someone spoke, landing on the strange woman that had arrived last, and was sitting on the opposite side of the table. Clearing her own throat, almost as if she were afraid of her own words, a soft blush came to her cheeks. She fixed her hands and folded them in her lap to keep with fiddling with them. Typically, Fleur was quite a talkative young woman, but for some reason the presence of her family was making her nervous, afraid she was going to say the wrong thing in front of her mother and her siblings.

"The isles were quite lovely. It was much warmer there, and much more colorful." She noted, her eyes glancing around the dull colored room. 

"Why have you not been back? I couldn't imagine being away from home for a long time." It held truth, in her statement. Fleur never found herself away from home for extended periods of time, and even when she was away there were days she felt herself missing the charm of her household- as dysfunctional as it might be. 

"I believe it to be a few times. Does he not smile much?" Tilting her head lightly at the question, Fleur glanced to her mother, almost as if for approval before she were to speak again.
Dave
"Ilona Maith"
The Keep Sempiternal

_"Why have you not been back?"_ the girl asked.

She grabbed her cup and took a long draw from it. They had chosen her for this, for her ability to lie. It was like fucking. It was like anything else. 

Ilona talked little and less about her father's Kingdom. It was why they were all together, her family upon the Trillium, but it was never spoken about, and never in the presence of the Princess. Very rarely though, Ilona herself would make little comments about her father, or about her home. Many of the crew, especially Parrinplank, had returned on multiple occasions, but the Princess herself had never stepped foot on the sandy beaches. The implication was not that Ilona did not want to return, but that she _couldn't._

She had no answer for the little girl, and so instead she simply put on a smile and set the cup down beside her.

"I do not like parrots, so much," She said blithely. "They are always uh... Squawking and tweeting and repeating your words right back at you, and it is only when you hear yourself speak that you realize how _stupid_ you sounded in the first place." 

When she was told that the Pirate King had been in good spirits, she clapped her hands together, "Aaah! It is so nice to hear that. Well..." She shrugged, "He _may_ have been drunk, who is to say? As for smiling, my lady..." She looked over to the Skaggerlies, 

"Ask them if my father is a man for smiles. I do believe you both uh..." She raised her eyebrows, "Earned his ire, did you not?"
Ronald
**Rian Koern | The Rustlands**

An early sun rose over the rugged creeks and clays of the landscape. The soil of the Rustlands had few nutrients to offer, turning the earth orange from the Ibbish Mountains to the Gulf of Emin. Combined with the long shadows cast down by the rising sun, it looked as if countless banners had been laid over the rocks as far as the eye could see.
Black and orange. The colors of the House banner. His people sure were an unimaginative bunch.

Martin had spoken true. His rangers were skilled. Life at River's Peak had dulled their edge, but the potential was there. Martin himself was more skilled than he had any right to be. Rian had judged them too soon. That being said, one could only wonder what they could've been like, if only had they chosen to hone their skills instead of retreating behind the walls of their black gate.

"The town, or what remains of it, is up ahead. According to Roen, they were slaughtered by a bunch of northern savages with the help of what seemed to be islanders", he told Martin. "Hopefully, they will have left enough evidence behind to identify the culprits. We'll give it to the Matriarch, she'll unleash the black ones on them, and it will be the end of these people."
Patricia
**Martin Koern, The Rustlands**

"Hrmf-" Martin pursed his lips "-whomever the perpetrators are of such an act deserve such a fate, assuredly a just end to a rather unjust tale. That said, it seems rather odd to see such a union, southron pirates and northern savages, united in arms." He let out a sigh "Stranger things have taken place as of late though, and at this rate shall continue to occur." Shaking his head at the strangeness of it all Martin shot a glance up ahead, squinting at the rough landscape.

Martin looked back at Rian, an eager look upon his face "Well, it does indeed appear to be a clear path ahead of us, how should we go about this Rian? Go straight in or perhaps take a more cautious way about this? Tis your patrol after all."

Martin shot a glance back at his rangers, many of whom were starting to slip back into the pattern of being out and about, shaking off the rust that had accumulated back at Rivers Peak, though they were noticeably brasher than their comrades. He let out a sigh, he hoped that they would be able to handle themselves accordingly within the town, that said they had performed well so far, with all luck they would continue to do so.
Ronald
**Rian Koern🔸The Rustlands**

"The town is dead. And it's daytime. But just in case..." He turned towards Lahel. "Have our team scout the perimeter. I'm going with Martin's group into the village."

"Aye, captain," She responded. With a hand sign, Rian's forces followed her down the slope and around the wooden palisade, while Rian himself followed Martin and his men into the ghost town.

There was a putrid stench in the air. Rotten bodies somewhere, but also a burny smell. Lots of buildings had been damaged by fire.
There was a squelch under his horse, whose hooves had crushed the hairless body of a charred Fellhound. No, not one. Hundreds upon hundreds of them laid dead inside a wide trench with wooden spikes. There were also a couple of Direwolves impaled on those. Plus some human corpses for good measure.

After careful consideration and pondering, all Rian could say was:
"The fuck?"
Patricia
**Martin Koern, The Rustlands**

The rangers of Rivers Peak moved into the town with a great feeling of trepidation about them, having smelt the stench of the rotting corpses long before having seen them they were at least somewhat prepared for the sight before them, regardless many were left gagging in disgust or covering their noses in an unsuccessful attempt to ward off the smell. A sense of extreme oddity lay over the scene, most of Martins rangers had seen nothing like it before.

"I've heard of towns being attacked by Fellhounds, but this?" Bran muttered from within Martins group, poking at a Fellhound with his drawn blade.

Martin stepped forward, frowning he moved amongst the corpses, often shaking his head or murmuring to himself. After sorting through the assorted bodies of felled beasts and men he jumped down into the trench, he ducked down and grabbed a particularly bloodied corpse by the hair, holding it up for all to see "Rian! I think I found those islanders of yours!" He dragged the corpse out of the trench, placing it down with a hefty thump. A half dozen more were to follow it, dragged up and placed alongside the islander, ending with a rather measly-looking villager.

Now with the dead lined up Martin pulled himself out of the trench, standing in front of his macabre display he signaled for Rian to come over.

"Take a look at this here-" He pointed down at a group of malnourished and hollow-looking corpses "-those there are our honest citizens, the lot who were here before all this." He kicked the head of a muscular looking brute "This lot from what I can tell are those barbarians from up north, big buggers they are. And the rest are our southrons, the pirates you said helped the barbarians with their... Work." 

He grimaced "Now Rian, I am not entirely sure that this was the work of the barbarians and pirates in question. For one it does not look to me as if these men were fighting each other, no, I don't see many wounds on this bunch that would resemble the work of weapons. I propose that for whatever reason the townsfolk, the southrons, and the northerners were working together against these beasts, now what caused this to happen I would not know, but it seems more than likely to me that this is the case."

He paused, taking a breath and a moment to think before continuing.

 "As for the fact that the town is burnt, perhaps they sacked it afterwards, though for what purpose I know not, it seems more likely that it came as the result of some accident during the battle." Martin looked over at Rian, a faint smile upon his face "Quite the deduction I know, but consider it, what else could have caused..." He raised his hands and gestured to the surrounding chaos "All this? I would be quite glad to hear your opinion on the matter."
Doris
Kelsafyr Skaggerly, The North of Marin
The Keep Sempiternal.

Kelsafyr rose a hand, idly twirling the pad of her finger in a circle, tracing the rim of her wine cup. There she sat, with her back straight and pristine posture, and for some reason, she felt herself looking forward to the events of the evening. She had adorned herself in one of her most favoured gowns, a white silk dress with a mink fur trim that lined her bust. She lifted her gaze and glanced from the woman to her left, to the one sitting directly before her.

Illona Maith wasn't what she had expected, and her expression likely told her as much. Her eyes narrowed into a squint, scrutinising every such detail of her appearance. She thought she would have seen more of her father in her - but she must liken to that of her mother, just as Kelsafyr and Shaydrin did. 

Fleur de Lysse, Kelsafyr recalled as being her name, was a very sweet looking girl. She had a certain innocence to her, a certain doe-eyed stare. The ice maiden couldn't have told you why, but she found herself taking quite a liking to her. 

She had been quietly observing the rest of the guests when she found herself spoken to by Illona. How fitting, she thought. She had just spent weeks in the company of one Maith, and now here she was thrown into the clutches of another. She cleared her throat, raising the goblet to her lips to wet her tongue. 

"I would say your father both took a disliking to me, and a liking to me, at the very same time." Commented the Skaggerly woman, setting her goblet down onto the table. "I do believe I received a smile or two from him, though. He was very kind to me, when I needed him to be, all things considered."
Ronald
**Selene de Lysse▫️The Keep Sempiternal**

Illona Maith... Islander. Princess. Adventurer. Charmer. Liar... But what was she lying about? Selene de Lysse had quite a reputation in the Keep Sempiternal: that of a witch in all but name. One who could pry your secrets open with soft whispers and honeyed words. One that guarded all the doors and held all the keys. It was an image that the so-called 'silverwrought' had carefully built over the years, but for all her efforts, it remained a half-truth. She had a talent for smelling lies, and a lifetime of telling them, but she couldn't read minds.

She glanced back at Fleur. She would be able to. Someday.

"Oh, some men pride themselves on being hard to figure out," She said. Violet irises turned to Bastien, then to Calypso, then back to Illona. "But luckily, we have his daughter with us. Someone who has known him for far longer than we have... And in ways that we never will. Dearest Kelsafyr says the _Pirate King_ is a man of conflicting emotions, but would you say the same of _Bradai Maith_?"