Slime Salad

"Oh... Oh!" she stares at Hyne's pack.

"Have you... open-- Nevermind!" she shakes off her own question.

"Get it safely to the Capitol" She says. "I have to go and see if there is any way I can help back down there." She mounts her horse, and turns it back towards the town.

The two hippogriffs are circling over the garrison building outside the town.

The King's wagon is still just sitting there as the 3 guards focus their attention on the corpse of the wyrmling and the dead Jenn. They drag the man's body and put him next to the wyrmling, then they seem to be gathering a few volunteers for some activity, but it isn't clear what yet.

The structure of the procession has been scattered. There is no coming-together and re-organizing like there had been after the ambush yesterday.

Some vehicles have already turned back and are headed for town. Some have skirted around the King's wagon where it blocks the road, and are already rushing on ahead towards the Capitol. Some are just sitting in the dirt on the roadside looking stunned. Nobody is taking the lead.

"You can tell your Queen that she's not getting the package," he suddenly blurts boldly, "And get somebody to tell the Jenns they shouldn't bother trying to get the crown from this kingdom."

He takes a step forward and declares, "As long as this artifact exists these people are going to be at war and all giving the crown will do is make it one sided. I'm going to take it somewhere far away, I'll spend my life travelling if I have to if that's what it takes to make peace possible."

Only the people closest to Hyne hear these words.

Oxnar's face breaks into a huge gleeful smile.

"What?" asks the Coachwoman, confused

Lady Godunva and Jasputin had just been approaching. "Oh, my, how dashing!" exclaims Goduvna, apparently not catching the context, just the tone.

Jerrold sits frozen in her saddle, eyes wide, as if not knowing how to react.

The guards and a few others seem to be gathering dry brush and piling it around the corpses. None of them notice what is happening between Hyne and Jerrold.

Erato Borodobur is standing on top of his red wheeled wagon, looking towards Hyne curiously, but he is to far away to have heard Hyne's words.

He begins stepping away from Jarrod, starting to glance toward where he plans on hiking first.

But only after that...

Only after that, he looks back to Jarrod, and says to her, "I'm going to look for a way to destroy Queen Arkwyn's crown."

Oxnar begins to chuckle

Jerrold looks from Hyne, to Oxnar to the distant hippogriffs, and back to Hyne again.

"Maybe that's best..." Jerrold says. Her expression is one of exhaustion and being overwhelmed. She looks smaller and older in her saddle than she did before. She reaches in her shirt and pulls out a tiny cloth sack, and separates it from a string around her neck.

"Talk to her before you do it." she says, and tosses the bag gently for Hyne to catch.

He catches the pouch with only a portion of the dexterity it took to throw a knife so precisely.

He loosens the hemp string threaded through the fabric of the sack, then pulls the sack from the bottom, allowing the object to rest on his palm.

It is a small and rather plain spiral sea-shell, weathered and smooth.

Jerrold isn't looking at Hyne anymore, she has turned back towards the town, and is trying to get her horse walking again.

"Whatever is going on?" asks Goduvna, finally realizing something odd is happening.

The coachwoman looks confused, but she has gotten quiet.

Oxnar has gotten his ridiculous smile under control, but still looks pleased.

He examines the shell carefully, but briefly explains, "We might be in the presence of royalty."

He places the hollowed opening of the shell to his ear. Almost vividly, he relives in his mind a moment on the strip of coast that acted as the scouts' entry point into unknown territory. Hyne stands, listening for the whistle of the sea shell one of them found while a comrade eagerly asks if he can hear it.

At first, Hyne only hears the oceanic hum of the shell.

After a moment, there is a scraping noise, and a small voice sounds in his hear, faint at first, but quickly becoming clear. It is a woman's voice.

"Hello?"

"Fran is that you?"

"You're early. What's wrong? Has something gone wrong?"

Jerrold is already riding away.

Oxnar is leaning closer, like he wants to hear. The others just look confused.

The sound from the shell is loud enough for Hyne to hear close to his ear, but it is doubtful that any of the others caught any of the words.

A brief pause follows the words heard from the shell. Hyne's gaze darts to the woman on the horse for a brief moment, before he looks ahead to the mountains and sea once more. "Fran's horse is taking her from a day's worth of hard battles," a man's voice responds, "she left with me a moment to speak with you."

"Who is this?" demands the voice. "What have you done to Fran?"

"Is Fran alright?" asks a second, different female voice. This voice is softer, and sounds young.

Oxnar starts waving the other confused watchers towards the carriage. "Best let Hyne alone to deal with this" he says.

"Fran will live," he says when he hears the younger voice ask about her well being, "but this message isn't from her or by her. It's from a man given the option to speak to your majesty, at the behest of Fran."

"Who are you!?" The first voice from the shell insists, somewhat angrily.

"Let him speak Tancred", says the young voice.

The coachwoman is ushering Goduvna and Jasputin into the carriage. "We should move, in case they come back" she says with a glance at the distant hippogriffs.

Oxnar sidles closer, trying to hear the shell

Another pause. Another search for conviction.

The ranger knows that anything he will say will not be taken with comfort. It may even come off as aggressive or threatening, but it must be done.

This time he does not follow the fellow scouts into the mission, he abandons them to stand at the beach. As if he were the younger version of himself, he mutters under his troubled trance, "I have given myself new orders. I'm abandoning my current route to pursue new objectives. Your majesty, I'm afraid that you will need to learn to rule without the crown, it is the only way to stop these attacks."

His memories of his comrades stand by him to place a hand on his shoulder. As pirate ships approach the coastline, they all seemingly know now what is about to happen.

Hyne continues, "There is a famous woman- a general from a far off Kingdom. She was a revolutionist. Her rebellion did not happen where I come from, but my people celebrate her as a beacon of strength with a warrior's heart. Even despite all of that, her most famous phrase is often lost on us as soldiers.

He gives a brief pause, then quotes, "'There is no good in war.'"

He allows the quote to enter her mind, then he explains, "Queen Arkwyn, I"m not going to ask you to keep your hands clean of blood, but as long as the crown exists there will never be a choice."

"What are you saying? Are you saying you have the crown?" says Tancred's voice, sounding upset.

"He sensed it too!" says the princesses voice. she sounds excited.

"What? No..." Tancred retorts.

"Whoever you are," says the princess, "The crown haunts my dreams, it is hungry!"

"Don't tell him that! We don't know who he is!" protests Tancred

Oxnar, leaning close in his eavesdropping is grinning again. He seems delighted by this whole exchange, but hasn't interjected anything.