'Thank you, Melgiel. Your son is performing an honourable deed: the Men need to acknowledge their debts to help us, or we will all fall to the dragon. I will fetch him and be waiting for you whenever you are ready. Please take your time,' says Niping, bowing customarily. The old dwarf can be quite respectful when things go the way he feels they should.
Niping ends his part of the conversation and heads off to the Lakeside in search of Lan.
Chapter 2A - The Search for Lan
Re: Chapter 2A - The Search for Lan
I left a week for Glaiz's response. She can back-date a post when she returns.
The lakeside is chaotic as the dawn approaches, a maddening marketplace filled with desperation. Men make their final trades with each other, their campsites all around finishing the final efforts to pack. Distrustful glances pass between Men and Dwarves more often than words while the soft sobs of children are heard among the tents and wagons, shushed by parents who are waking them and shuffling them onto wagons and carts, or wrestling shoes onto tiny feet for the long walk ahead. The lake itself is still, mist lying on its surface, reflecting the overcast sky above which, for the moment, shows no sign of the dragon's return.
"Please! They didn't mean it!" Lan pleads as they locate him. He practically grovels at the feet of a group of Men. "How can we go on, being just dwarves? We are too few, we cannot do such deeds. Let us smith for you, I beg. Don't leave without us!" He has the shiftlessness, the vacancy of spirit, which Niping has grown accostomed to - the apprentice with hardly a spark in him. To Glaiz, however, he is a shell of the man she married, the man she idolized and knew. Once handsome and gregarious, now visibly broken.
The lakeside is chaotic as the dawn approaches, a maddening marketplace filled with desperation. Men make their final trades with each other, their campsites all around finishing the final efforts to pack. Distrustful glances pass between Men and Dwarves more often than words while the soft sobs of children are heard among the tents and wagons, shushed by parents who are waking them and shuffling them onto wagons and carts, or wrestling shoes onto tiny feet for the long walk ahead. The lake itself is still, mist lying on its surface, reflecting the overcast sky above which, for the moment, shows no sign of the dragon's return.
"Please! They didn't mean it!" Lan pleads as they locate him. He practically grovels at the feet of a group of Men. "How can we go on, being just dwarves? We are too few, we cannot do such deeds. Let us smith for you, I beg. Don't leave without us!" He has the shiftlessness, the vacancy of spirit, which Niping has grown accostomed to - the apprentice with hardly a spark in him. To Glaiz, however, he is a shell of the man she married, the man she idolized and knew. Once handsome and gregarious, now visibly broken.
Re: Chapter 2A - The Search for Lan
Niping the smith
Niping sighs uncomfortably, feigning too much preoccupation to notice the scene ahead. He stands to the side for a bit, watching Niping's base character unfold, and hoping his apprentice will notice him on his own accord and give up this shameful grovelling. This does not happen, and his temper raises. Soon it is apparent that he must extricate his wayward apprentice from this rather disgusting situation. He steps up to the dwarf and pulls him to his feet, carelessly swatting him across the shoulders as he does so.
'What's come over you, Lan? Get off the ground, and stop grovelling to tall folk like a smarting child. Hear me, if I don't roast you for deserting your post, you'll have witnessed a miracle. If you're that desperate to get to work, we have plenty of work to do back at the wagons.' After he has his piece with Lan, he glares up at the Men and offers a curt and rather unenthusiastic apology. 'You must forgive my apprentice, he is often taken to extremes and his manners are lacking. I am surprised to hear his words, however; he seems to gather that you are planning to leave. Is this true?'
Niping sighs uncomfortably, feigning too much preoccupation to notice the scene ahead. He stands to the side for a bit, watching Niping's base character unfold, and hoping his apprentice will notice him on his own accord and give up this shameful grovelling. This does not happen, and his temper raises. Soon it is apparent that he must extricate his wayward apprentice from this rather disgusting situation. He steps up to the dwarf and pulls him to his feet, carelessly swatting him across the shoulders as he does so.
'What's come over you, Lan? Get off the ground, and stop grovelling to tall folk like a smarting child. Hear me, if I don't roast you for deserting your post, you'll have witnessed a miracle. If you're that desperate to get to work, we have plenty of work to do back at the wagons.' After he has his piece with Lan, he glares up at the Men and offers a curt and rather unenthusiastic apology. 'You must forgive my apprentice, he is often taken to extremes and his manners are lacking. I am surprised to hear his words, however; he seems to gather that you are planning to leave. Is this true?'
Re: Chapter 2A - The Search for Lan
Chastised by his employer and not yet noticing his wife amidst the crowd, Lan retreats, chastened and chagrined. He stands quietly behind Niping.
The Man addressed is a broad-shouldered man with a gnarly red beard. He snorts at Niping's statement. "Leaving? Aye, one and all. Courtesy is... lacking among dwarves. At least your apprentice there is sensible." He looks them up and down. "Death. Death and remorse follow your kind. Not brave enough to face dragons on your own." The rotund-bellied man to his left cuffs him on the shoulder. "Aye! The song of Fram is a favorite! Never shall a dwarf hail or see, a treasure as precious and dear as these!" He sings the last part, then flashing his teeth before laughing.
He refers to a popular tavern song of Men, telling of the Northman hero, Fram, who slew the dragon, Scatha, roughly a thousand years ago. After doing so, the dwarves requested their treasures be returned from the dragon's hoard. Fram sent the dwarves the dragon's teeth with a message saying they are a treasure that no dwarf could ever hope to acquire for themselves and began several generations of feuding and war in the northern mountains.
The red-bearded man laughs with his friend, then sobers suddenly, answering Niping once more. "No, no, we don't intend to stay. We all know whose greed drew the dragon. And we know who will pay the cost in blood and pain when it hungers again on the morrow."
The Man addressed is a broad-shouldered man with a gnarly red beard. He snorts at Niping's statement. "Leaving? Aye, one and all. Courtesy is... lacking among dwarves. At least your apprentice there is sensible." He looks them up and down. "Death. Death and remorse follow your kind. Not brave enough to face dragons on your own." The rotund-bellied man to his left cuffs him on the shoulder. "Aye! The song of Fram is a favorite! Never shall a dwarf hail or see, a treasure as precious and dear as these!" He sings the last part, then flashing his teeth before laughing.
He refers to a popular tavern song of Men, telling of the Northman hero, Fram, who slew the dragon, Scatha, roughly a thousand years ago. After doing so, the dwarves requested their treasures be returned from the dragon's hoard. Fram sent the dwarves the dragon's teeth with a message saying they are a treasure that no dwarf could ever hope to acquire for themselves and began several generations of feuding and war in the northern mountains.
The red-bearded man laughs with his friend, then sobers suddenly, answering Niping once more. "No, no, we don't intend to stay. We all know whose greed drew the dragon. And we know who will pay the cost in blood and pain when it hungers again on the morrow."