A secluded cove at the Corussan coast

RP for continuing parts of the story found here, as it involves an alt of Duchess Aislin. I'll convert this into a narrative for the story thread once it reaches a conclusive... conclusion.

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Kaleppo nearly jumped up at the sound of the voice behind him, and eased himself around with his arms and unstabbed leg to inspect the unanticipated variable. He looked the woman up and down while somehow avoiding eye contact, and then shunted himself back into position, tugging on one ear thoughtfully and muttering to himself. Then he tilted his head upward and took a deep breath.

"Excuse me but I'm in the middle of constructing a crime scene and I have to be very careful and no offence but you're being disruptive with your nosy question and it would take too long to give a sufficient answer and I know you don't have reason to trust me but trust me this is a very delicate matter and needs to be executed with the utmost care and precision and if that isn't convincing enough for you then you can go climb up there and check my calculations but be quick and then please go away so that I can finish."

He jabbed a finger toward the outcrop above the cave while he got his breath back, and then added: "feh."

A woman of young appearance, slim build, and with dark hair cut squarely at her shoulders looked at the Asura with a tilted head, her green eyes regarding him with a keen intellect and subtle curiosity. A basket hung from her elbow, and a satchel was strapped over her shoulder, resting against her left thigh. Everything she wore, meaning a plain linen apron and a dark brown frock, belted at the waist with a piece of rope, was undeniably worn, though somewhat tidy and clean. She looked over the crime scene that was taking shape and shook her head, tsking ruefully as if critiquing the work.

She took a few steps, keeping her peripheral sight on the felonous azura, and stooped down to look at the arrows that jutted out of the man's body, particularly regarding the fletchings. She ran a finger along one of them idly examining the way it was connected to the shaft, and the colour of the feathers. She glanced directly at the Azura as she spoke,

"Where did you get the arrows? If you're trying to make sure that this is authentic, I trust you researched the fauna from which the local centaurs make their weapons?"

She stood up, regarding the Asura once more, this time her gaze was piercing and calculating. He wouldn't be the first pirate she'd encountered who had offed one of his shipmates.

"You pirates are all very similar, but I've never seen anyone go to this length to hide that they'd mutinied or thought it time for a promotion."

The assumption was out there. Whether it was what she believed or not, one couldn't say, but the odds of her meeting normal people in a place such as this would surely be slim.

Kaleppo shifted uneasily at the critique of his work. He watched the annoyingly talkative woman corrupt his crime scene, and as she spoke he traced a series of circles into the sand at his side to record his observations about her. His work was disrupted when the stranger speculated about his motivations. The accusation made him tug his ears irritably.

"I'm not a pirate, feh, I'm a logistics management consultant. The cause for the deception is to preserve my operability in further stages of the road map. If you'd looked at my calculations that would have been obvious."

He held both pistols up and fired, aiming his shots well away from the stranger. The sound of a ringing bell and shouts of alarm carried faintly from the ship, now lightly visible in the fading mists.

"I can factor you into the road map," Kaleppo said to the guarded stranger. "You have to be a witness to the centaur attack, feh. If you preserve the plan you can get fresh clothing, bathing facilities, more red meat in your diet, fewer centaurs, feh, and eventually access to the Duchess of Corussa."

Kaleppo looked her in the eye to demonstrate his severity and seriousness. Looking people in the eye wasn't something he did often, however, and he twitched and wrung his fists as he stared.

"You make a compelling argument," the young woman spoke, "but you're assuming I want to be around people again. I also have a suspicion that this man trusted you, and we see where it got him."

She looked the Asura in the eyes, keeping her gaze transfixed on him for a moment. Her gaze conveyed a sense of age and sights seen that contrasted starkly with her youthful appearance, for surely she could be no more than eighteen or nineteen. She also noted the pistols he carried. The woman carried no obvious weapons, unless the basket were to be used as a crude, and likely ineffectual bludgeon. The way she looked at the Asura said she saw little benefit in being an accomplice to his crime, particularly when she glanced to the ship, where men now seemed to be piling into a smaller boat and preparing for a landing.

"Your friends, or perhaps enemies, look to be on their way," she commented plainly. "Your weapons would seem a good indicator of why I should go along with your plan, but their weapons just may be a reason why I shouldn't."

Kaleppo broke eye contact and glanced at the circles he had traced in the sand. "If you're right, my best recourse would be to remove you as an unpredictable variable before my control over the situation diminishes. Feh, fortunately you misunderestimate the bond of trust I share with my crew-krewe."

Despite his assertions, Kaleppo's gaze shifted continually between the approaching longboats - two had been lowered and were making a speedy approach - and the annoyingly incisive interloper. He snatched up one of his pistols and started to load it, pouring powder all over himself as his hands and lower lip trembled. With a cry of frustration he threw the pistol and powder horn aside.

"I'm just trying to help my friend! And now you're here and calling my bluffs and messing things up and he's gonna be feh dead feh for nothing you bully!"

He swiveled around on his bottom so that his back was turned to her, hunching over and folding his ears over his face, sulking.

The woman watched the asura with a curious expression as he turned and seemed to sulk.

"So you killed him to help him? Or killed him to help someone else?" Her questions hinted somewhat at her curiosity.

With the asura's back turned, she glanced back toward the tree line, and then toward the longboats being rowed toward the shore. It's likely she was thinking of just slipping away and leaving the pirates to deal with their own mess. It was also likely they'd already been spotted, so leaving would do little aside arousing suspicion at her sudden flight from the scene. She knelt down beside the body and examined the fellow to see if there were any remaining signs of life. It was only on closer examination that she noticed the injuries which would surely have come from a nasty fall.

"He would have died without the arrows you know," she commented, "I don't suppose you pushed him from up there?" She looked up the side of the cliff to where the fall must have started from, then felt around the man's neck and the back of his skull, shaking her head. He definitely would have died before long.

Ling could feel the presence of recent death grow stronger as they approached the shore. She looked across at Kjartan in the bows of the other boat. He was wringing his new fist. No doubt he was discovering the feeling for the first time.

They had five crewmen in each boat, and sets of loaded muskets bundled in sailcloth.

She felt her blood chill as boat drew nearer and the mist revealed a body lying in the sand, with arrows protruding from it. She could see Kaleppo, and one other... a female figure, quite tall... Octavia?

Kjartan had his back to the beach now. He was checking the muskets for his four rowers, and preparing to hand them out. Ling decided she had better do the same.

Avalon looked up and saw that the longboats were nearing the shore, and noted the muskets being primed by what seemed to be the people in charge of each boat. There wasn't much time before there would be questions and explanations. She looked at the sulking Asura curiously, wondering if he was going to let his entire plan fall apart from here on. Rather than voice the thought, she simply continued to seem as though she was inspecting the body, expecting it would probably go better for her if she seemed to be trying to help. Whichever side ended up strongest in the up-coming play, she would be ready to ensure her own survival.

Kaleppo peered out from undeneath his ear when he heard the boats landing. "Feh!" The captain had brought that creepy bossy Canthan lady along. The crew krewe were fanning out around the beach in a malcoordinated manner that showed them up as sailors, and not fighters.

"Septimus?" He watched as Ling jogged up to the body. He saw Kjartan aim his musket at the interloper woman, who stepped back with hands bared in careful diplomacy.

Ling was standing over the body, staring at it expressionlessly. Then she stooped down and pulled the Signet ring from the corpse's finger and tucked it into her pocket.

"Centaurs!" Kaleppo blurted. "Centaur attack! Out of nowhere!" He pulled himself up and started hobbling towards them, when a dead seagull crashed into him, bowling him over. He sat up and tried to shake the dizziness out of his head.

Ling turned her back to Kaleppo and faced the stranger, motioning for Kjartan to lower his musket. "Hi, my name's Ling Nuhua." She dusted the sand off her hands while she rolled Septimus' head to one side with her boot, revealing the bloodied mess that was the back of his head. "Those centaurs can land a pretty mean kick, huh?"

Kaleppo saw the now inanimate gull with its cloudy dead eyes and festering bullet hole lying on the sand next to him. It was the one he'd shot on the ship, the one that had been carrying Octavia's message when he shot it. He looked from the gull to the annoying Canthan woman, his mind racing.

"Dibs on his boots," one of the crewmen called out. Kaleppo shot a glare at him that went unnoticed by the crew krewe.

"They can indeed kick," Avalon spoke, looking down at the body, "however, I didn't see if that's how that injury happened. By the time I arrived the Asura was already dealing with the arrow wounds." It wasn't a lie per se, but she hadn't yet divulged 'how' the Asura was dealing with the wounds.

Avalon maintained her neutral posture, glanced up the cliff, and then to Ling. She assessed the other woman, and then the men with muskets, who moved around the beach as if looking for something to kill. She brushed a strand of her straight, black hair from her face, and then looked at the seagull, her brow rising slightly when noticing the bullet wound.

Ling noticed the other woman glance toward the cliff, but didn't look up herself. Then she wheeled about and marched up to the Asura, who was nursing his arrow-pierced leg.

"Let me see that," she said, pushing his arms aside, and then yanking the arrow from his leg with a slick popping sound that left Kaleppo screaming as fresh blood started to well up in the hole she had widened.

Ling turned back to the stranger, holding the blooded arrowhead up to the light. "Yeah, this has centaur attack written all over it," she said dryly. She flipped it around so that it was held point-down and went back to Kaleppo, raising her fist as if to reinsert it into the sobbing Asura's leg before Kjartan hooked her waist in his massive arm and pulled her away.

"Look!" He insisted, shoving a pair of crumpled notes under her nose. "These were on the body."

Ling surrendered the arrow and took the notes and read them each, and then made an unsettling hissing noise as she tried to wriggle out of Kjartan's grip to renew her assault on Kaleppo.

"She's gone mad, Captain! Feh! We should hang her and bury her in case it's contagious, feh!"

The renewed struggle from Ling let her slip out from under Kjartan's grip, and she started kicking the Asura who did what he could to shield his leg from her.

Kjartan left her to it, heaving his shoulders with a groaning sigh and then shouting for the crew to prepare to go back to the ship. Then he turned to the stranger.

"Who are you, anyway? I wasn't aware of any human settlements left in this area."

The somewhat short woman looked up at the pirate as he asked who she was, before replying matter-of-factly, "My name is Avalon, and there are no human settlements in these parts, at least not any more. I have a hut in the forest up the cliff. The Centaurs leave me alone, because I've spent considerable time scaring them into the idea that I am a witch, and not to be angered."

She then turned her eyes on Ling, in her assault on the Asura.

"My only concern is what happens now. I had no intention to get caught up in the death of one of your crewmen."

He nodded in greeting. "I'm Kjartan Hook-Hand, Captain of the Skulk"

Kjartan glanced at Septimus' body, with its head rolled to one side.

"He wasn't my crewman. He was a passenger - the brother of the lady that hired me. The toff insisted on coming on this expedition and spent the whole voyage ordering people around while moaning about how pointless it was."

He couched his musket under his right arm, freeing his hand to massage his clammy left one.

"Are those centaurs likely to come back?" He asked her, thoughtfully.

Avalon glanced around the beach, obviously looking for signs that centaurs approaching might be the case. Finally, with a slight exhalation before she spoke, she replied, "I'd think it more likely for them to show up now that there has been such a commotion here. But more likely they would show up there," she jerked a thumb at the top of the cliff. "They would have a far easier time of picking us off from the cliffs before taking the effort to run down the nearest gentle slope."

With that, having planted that seed of truthful uncertainty, she simply looked at the man with the clammy hand as if to say his was the next move. Her face was calm, but something in her eyes showed that her mind was racing.

Kjartan watched Avalon carefully as she gave her reply, his concern more with the woman who was able to scare off centaurs by 'pretending to be a witch' than the centaurs themselves.

Ling rejoined them, leaving Kaleppo to hobble to one of the longboats in search of some bandages, completely ignored by the rest of the crew.

"So, home time then," she said to Kjartan, her tone lightening with the prospect.

Kjartan tucked his hand back in his pocket. "And her?" He gestured toward Avalon.

"She didn't kill Septimus," Ling stated curtly.

"In terms of the mission, though?" He said.

Ling looked at Avalon again, as if seeing her for the first time, and then stared out to sea thoughtfully for a moment. Kjartan took the moment to go back to the boats and start organising their withdrawal.

The Canthan girl turned back to Avalon. "My boss brought us here so that she could scout out the Duchy lands and bring some maps and stuff back to the Duchess. I suppose you know your way around the area?"

"I know of a ruin that's a fair hike from here," came Avalon's reply. "There's not much left to it that wasn't made of stone, but there are still several buildings standing, as well as bits of a wall. It's been abandoned since long before I arrived in these parts." She watched the Canthan woman for a moment before adding, "My home is a quarter of a day from the ruins."

She then looked to the Asura at the longboat, and then the men on the beach. She picked up her basket once more, and held it on a crooked elbow with her hands clasped in front of her.

"I'm going to need to be on my way, or I'm going to need to travel with you for the time being. In either case, the centaurs are much less afraid of me when I'm not near my home."

Ling cocked her head as she said, "Well we're going back to Lion's Arch, and then on to Divinity's reach. The plan is that we might come back here, under the Duchess' banner, and we get to kill all the centaurs."

She looked to where Septimus' corpse was being loaded into one of the boats, and added, "Actually... we'll definitely be coming back now that tippie-toes is out.

"Want to come-with? We've got a spare berth on the ship, and you could probably get a mansion or something when you eventually come back here."

She turned back to face Avalon directly. "Unless you've got a party or something to go to?"

Avalon looked to the boat, and then to Ling. "Tippie-Toes?"

She then double-checked her basket as if ensuring she had everything she needed, then nodded. "I do believe I will come with you. It has been some time since I was among my own kind."

With that, she stepped across the rocky beach and waited for Ling, finally joining her in the same longboat. She took a seat and waited for the sailors to begin rowing back to the ship. Her gaze remained on the land where the entire incident had taken place, and the expression on her face was unreadable. If she was excited or scared, or even out of sorts, it didn't show.

Kjartan rode in the other boat with kaleppo. He stared quietly at the Asura, who in turn stared blankly into space as a crewman bandaged his leg. They rowed in silence for several minutes before Kjartan spoke.

"When we reach Lion's Arch, you're off the crew."

Kaleppo was drawn back from wherever his mind had wandered.

"You mean the crew, or the krewe?"

"For the last time, we were never your 'krewe'... and now it's become clear that you don't have the crew's interests at heart. You can continue doing your own thing by yourself."

Kaleppo tugged at one ear. "Feh," was all he replied.