One Very Lost Prince [open]

[Anonymous]

"Oh yes. Easily. You only weight...what? 200 pounds?" Damayanti wasn't the best judge of size, but she could easily lift someone much larger than Lorin with no strain on herself. She was worried about him, about what was happening to him, "Would you like my coat?"

As Lorin stood, the golem moved to stand next to him, slipping one of his arms around her shoulder and her own slim arm around his waist, supporting most of the princes weight, "Here. This should help."

The men were getting closer and Damayanti really hoped they were going to help them. Lorin didn't seem to be doing well and Damayanti didn't know how to fix him.

[Tally]

"No, thank you."  It was touching of her to offer, but he had a feeling one more coat would make little difference at this point.  He'd been in the cold for too long; he couldn't quite guess at how many hours.  His mind was too muddled.  The people approaching him were the only things truly sharp and real.

He must have had some hidden reserve of energy, for once he was on his feet and moving again it became easier to keep going.  Damayanti's support buoyed him and he came out of his stupor and realized they had nearly closed the distance between themselves and the other travelers.  They were within shouting distance of each other, though in the driving snow they appeared as little more than gray blurs.

[Anonymous]

It was slow going and Damayanti finally made an annoyed sound before she stopped and picked the prince up, carrying him against her chest. Despite her small size and delicate appearance, she didn't seem to have any problems carrying the larger boy, "You take too long. It's much better this way."

She didn't generate much heat, but there was some as she pushed her way through the deep snow. The men grew closer and started hurrying when they saw how badly Lorin seemed to be. It was three men, all big, sturdy and wrapped in furs.

"Please, can you help us?" Damayanti held out the prince in her arms, "He's too cold..." She didn't really understand how to help him.

"Wha-who? What are you kids doing out here?" The leader of the men came forward, shrugging off one of his furs and spread it over Lorin, confused but not unsympathetic. The fur was warm and stunk of bear and sweat and the man, "I guess it doesn't matter. Let's get you two warmed up and then we'll talk."

[Tally]

"Hey what...what are you doing?  I can walk!"  He didn't realize what Damayanti was up to at first.  When she grabbed he thought she was just offering him more support!

"It is not better.  Put me down, this is undignified!"  By the gods, she was strong!  He wiggled and struggled and could not pry himself out of her arms.  It was the most animated he'd been in hours.  He especially didn't want the first impression these strangers had of him to be this sight—this girl carrying him because he was too week to make it another fifty feet on his own two legs.

He was so worried about how this looked that he forgot to be worried about the strangers until they were right in front of them.  Damayanti finally let him go, and he struggled to regain his balance in the piling snow.

"Ah, thank you kindly."  The fur was huge on him, but warmer than anything he was wearing.  "It's a pleasure.  My name is Lorin, and this is Damayanti."

[Anonymous]

"Hi!" Damayanti smiled and waved at the men. They had given her a fur and she obediently wrapped it around her. She didn't really need it, but they had been insistent. It smelled funny, but it felt nice under her fingers.

Her large eyes watched the men talk, waiting to see what would happen.

"Ah, well, good ta meet ya. Come with us. Get ya somethin' hot in ya." The men turned, heading back the way they had come from. They had a ways to walk, and Damayanti helped support the prince. Eventually they came to a small collection of huts in the snow. It wasn't a village, just a place that travelers and hunters would use.

They smelled foul and quickly filled with greasy smoke but they were warm and out of the win. Gesturing to the pair, the men all sat down, one of them starting to warm up some soup over the fire.

"So, wanna tell me what you two were doing up here?"

((OOC: I don't have any real plan with these men xD Please feel free to use them or lead things or whatever))

[Tally]

It was every bit as cold as before, the wind every bit as harsh and the knee-deep snow just as difficult to plow through, but the meeting buoyed Lorin in a way beyond physical warmth.  Yet he felt hesitant, suspicious of the hope bubbling up inside him lest it be swept away by some worse misfortune.  He couldn't speculate on the nature of these men, on the myriad of dangers they might conceal beyond the generous exterior.  He felt his mind would break if he tried.  He could only fathom the driving snow, and the musty warmth of the fur about his shoulders.

Time passed without his awareness until firelight blossomed before him and they were ushered into small, stuffy huts.  He noticed the smell and the filth of them but didn't care.  Their question, wholly reasonable, caught him by surprise.  In all the hours he'd been out there, he had no thought to arrive at a believable excuse for his own odd presence.

"I..." His mind scrambled for some explanation, and by now they were all staring at him.  "I, uh..."

((OOC: We'll let Lorin get a little better then see what kind of trouble they can get into. xDD ))

[Anonymous]

Damayanti watched Lorin stammer, then looked at the men, then back at Lorin, "Um. His name in Lorin and I'm Damayanti. I was lost. I think he was too."

((OOC: Stop making me NPC all these guys Tal xD I'm not gonna run them all. You pick some up too.))

[Tally]

Lorin kept an ear open and noticed that only a few of them spoke Common, and they did so with a heavy accent.  The rest spoke a sharp, blunt language he didn't recognize.  Still, best not to be too loose with his tongue, even when talking with Damayanti.  They may understand more of Common than they were letting the two of them think.

One of them, the one who had lead the group out in the snow fields, passed them each a bowl of their...rather interesting smelling stew.  Despite his reservations, Lorin knew better than to refuse, and he would need his strength besides.  He tested a sip, and found it tasted quite a bit better than it smelled.

Whoever they were, they didn't seem terribly concerned with his hesitation or silence.  The leader was distracted by others telling him something in their own language.  Lorin tried to follow what they might be saying based on their gesture and tone of voice, but he was utterly lost.  He leaned in close to Damayanti.

"Do you know at all what they are saying?"

[Anonymous]

Damayanti happily ate her stew, not bothered in the slightest that it smelled like rancid grease. The men were nice and Lorin was nice and he seemed to be doing much better and suspicion and paranoia weren't really common to Damayanti.

When Lorin leaned closer, she nodded, smiling, "Oh, yes. Lifwayn wants to take you back down to the village. Most of them agree, but a few think that we're slavers." Damayanti blinked, realizing what she had just said and she leaned forward and spoke to the men in their own language, assuring them they were very nice people and not slavers at all.

Silence settled over the hut as the men stared at Damayanti, then the large one that had first spoken to them laughed, switching back to common, "Well, that settles it then. You and your lady friend are commin' back to the village with us. Ya can catch a ride back down the mountain with a trader or somethin'."

[Tally]

He'd been expecting a 'no' from Damayanti. After all, she spoke Common with no accent whatsoever. He stared at her when she translated with no hesitation.  Well! This girl was quite the useful one, and full of surprises besides.

Not only could she understand them, she could speak their language as well!  He must have looked quite the fool, sitting there with his mouth slightly open as she conversed with them.  He stuffed another spoonful of the stew into his mouth just so he would stop gaping.  His bowl was only half empty when an older woman grabbed it from him. "Oh!"

She ladled more of the soup into it until it was brimming full then forced it back into his hands.  "Atcha, atcha," she said, pointing at the bowl then at him. Then she muttered something to the men and a small laugh rippled around the room.

Lorin may not have spoken their language, but he knew a grandmother when he saw one, and he knew when he was being told to eat because he was too skinny. He'd spent some time as a ward to one of the more traditional and powerful Adelan tribes, and this was no new circumstance to him.

As it happened, he had been most wise not to speak much in their presence. These men did know Common!  Lorin scrambled to his feet so he could offer a proper thanks and a bow.  "That is most gracious of you, sir, and House Siilan extends its gratitude to you. My heart is alight with the radiance of your noble hospitality."

Their host—Lifwayn?—glanced at his men then shrugged. "Ah. Right!  Well sit!  Sit and eat, for we move on at first light."  He clapped a hand on Lorin's shoulder and it rather felt like getting thudded with a brick.

[Anonymous]

"She says you are...um..." Damayanti paused, trying to figure out a way to make what the woman said make sense, "Well, roughly, she said that you need to eat more. Don't they feed you?" She tilted her head, waiting for an answer while she ate another bite of her stew.

It was warm and tasted good, though it didn't really do much for her. She ate because the people wanted her too then anything else.

The men were watching them, a few of them a little nervous, but most seemed comfortable and the women all seemed taken with Lorin.

[Tally]

"I gathered," he said, smiling into his bowl.  Now she had Damayanti worrying over him, and quite unnecessarily!  Damayanti surely was a curious girl.  She must have never seen a Serenian before, for Lorin thought himself no leaner than he should have been, certainly no leaner than one would expect for someone of his blood.  "I eat well, don't worry," he said, giving Damayanti's hand a pat.

As he finished his second bowl, he watched the people gathered about in the hut.  A good number of them looked to be laying down bed rolls and some had even laid down.  Surely they would not be expected to all sleep in the same place!  "Do you suppose this is where we will sleep," he whispered.  "Everyone so close to each other like this?  All the men and all the women in the same room?"

[Anonymous]

"What? Oh yes. I think so." While Damayanti had the ability to understand and speak languages, she didn't really know anything about the cultures. Another woman handed her some furs, "Here. For you and your man."

A number of the folk were starting to strip down as well. It got cold in the mountains and sleeping with another person kept them warm and clothes made it harder to share body heat.

Watching them a moment, Damayanti started to set up the furs into a bed like the other woman were doing, "These are for us. Do you want help with your clothes?"

[Tally]

The bowl was plucked out of Lorin's hands and deposited...somewhere.  He was growing too alarmed as the people began shedding their clothes.  He averted his eyes before he saw anything he oughtn't.

"Do I..."  He didn't take Damayanti's meaning.  Then it came to him.  "I...my clothes...no.  Uh, no."

He must get out of this with as much social grace as possible.  "I will sleep in my clothes, and...I think you should do the same."

[Anonymous]

Damayanti was in the process of lifting her shirt when she paused, frowning as she looked around. Most of the others that were sleeping there had already stripped down. She blinked at Lorin, cocking her head, "What's wrong? Why not? Wont you be cold?"

Not that she would give much body heat. She wasn't icy anymore, thanks to the warm tent, but she wasn't a normal temperature yet.

[Tally]

Lorin really wanted to grab her shirt and pull it back down.  She was dangerously close to losing her modesty, and his along with it.  "Ah...no, the furs will be enough.  Let us just stay clothed."

He became very intent on arranging their blankets just so as the rest of the group settled in.  If his mother could see him now she would faint dead on the spot.

[Anonymous]

Damayanti frowned, slowly lowering her arms, "But that's not right...and the clothes are wet." She needed to obey, but he wasn't her master, not yet and keeping him healthy and alive was more important.

So she whipped her shirt off and began to undo her pants, nudity being rather unsexual to her, she wasn't bothered by her own, "You will need to strip as well so we can get you warm."

[Tally]

Lorin looked away just in time to avoid the most dire of embarrassment.  He threw a hand up like a visor over his eyes to shield himself from any accidental loss of modesty.  And it would be accidental!  He was not going to look.

"I really do...heartily request that...you...clothe yourself, my lady.  Please?"  The dim firelight would—he prayed—hide the fierce blush that heated his face.  In desperation he pictured his mother, standing right there looking down on the both of them, and that did for him in keeping any other unwanted physical reaction from showing itself.

[Anonymous]

Damayanti climbed into the furs, having already decided that following what everyone else was doing would best serve her new friend. Though several of the pairs were having sex under the blankets and that was something she was less clear on and decided to ignore that. Other people were just curled up together.

She leaned closer, her cold fingers lightly touching his hand, "What's wrong?"

[Tally]

"How can you not know?"  Lorin took himself a deep breath.  He had a solution in mind now.  He could make it through this with dignity still mostly in one piece.  Thank the gods of fortune she wasn't trying to undress him.

He looked straight down on his own chest and laid the first layer of blanket beneath him, so that it now stood between her body and his.  Thinking better of it, he then wedged one of the cushions at his head between them.

There.  They weren't touching, and he curled up tight under what was left of his blankets and pulled them over his head.