Spellbound (Finn Ashbroken)

[Yrmellyn Cole]

Spellbound

Trial 68 of Vhalar 718 in Earth Quarters in Rharne

BEFORE NOON

Yrmellyn felt obliged to do as she had said now when Finn was living in the apartment next door (still her property) and expected her to clean up and repair it. She didn’t know yet to which degree the man would be willing and able to help out with the task, but she figured that it wouldn’t hurt to begin at the work.

It was morning. She had heard him close the door and go down the stairs, so she assumed that he wasn’t at home. Good, because she hesitated to disturb him in the evenings and found it better to get something done while he was away. The time of the trial was perfect. The earlier she started, the more she might get done. Why, she might even be able to surprise Finn with a somewhat cleaner place when he returned.

She took her key and went there. As usual she felt uneasy when she entered the place. That feeling had been a major reason for why she had never come around to start the renovation. Now when she had heard some people were telling stories about it and calling it cursed or haunted it felt even less appealing to her. She knew that it was only stories, hogwash spread by a sensation-seeking chatterbox, more exactly the lady who had tricked her into buying the whole upper floor as a package. Nonetheless it added to her general impression of creepiness. Now when she had Finn living there she couldn’t give in to the desire to leave though. She had no other choice than to go ahead and do the job.

She made a general investigation of the apartment by looking around to get an overview of the mess so she could figure out where to begin for maximum efficiency. It didn’t take her long to decide that the obvious first thing to do would be to carry out the bigger pieces of debris, like parts of trashed furniture and other things that were broken behind repair. That done it would be easier to deal with all the small scrap that littered the place.

Yrmellyn wore her usual everyday attire, pants and shirt. She rolled up the sleeves and began to work. The first task was a hopelessly broken chair. Unfortunately it had been a sturdy piece of furniture, made of solid wood and very heavy. Yrmellyn realized that she would need to take it apart and then carry it out one piece at the time. It took all the strength she could muster to make the chair topple over on the side so she could start and work at separating the damaged backrest from the sacked seat frame. Soon it became clear to her that sheer strength wasn’t enough ... at least not her own strength.

Annoying! Why am I not stronger ...this is so impractical!

Should she give up and wait for Finn to come home, in the hopes of getting help? It made sense, from a practical point of view. From a pride point of view it didn’t. She was reluctant to seem like she wasn’t able to deal with hard work so she endured and continued with the chair. After a while it struck her that a metal rod she saw on the floor might be possible to break some of the wooden pegs and...stuff...well, she wasn’t a carpenter so she had no idea what the correct word was. She just took the rod and managed to get into a crack between the backrest and the seat frame. The she put as much weight as possible on the rod. The chair finally broke apart with a creaking sound and the backrest fell on the floor. Then, for reasons unknown to her, the seat frame fell apart like there was nothing left to hold it together.

Convenient...

Yrmellyn paused and swept the sweat away from her brow before she dragged the pieces of the former chair out to the storage room, where she would keep them until she found a way to use them. A quick investigation of the wood had told her that it seemed to be in good condition. It might be reusable.

LATE AFTERNOON

Yrmellyn had continued to work, with a just a short break for lunch. The day had been exhausting, but by the late afternoon she had disassembled and carried out the remains of two chairs, a collection of broken crates, a few metal vessels and some other bigger items. All of it could now be found it the seriously overfull storage room. The storage room was a later problem she didn’t want to think of right now.

What now ... I'm too tired to carry anything big now ... so perhaps I could start to pick up some of the smaller scrap ...

At this point she heard the steps of someone on their way up the stairs. A key rattled in the already open lock and she heard the muffled sound of a man's voice outside, before the door swung open and he entered. If was, hardly surprising, Finn who had returned home.

[Finn]

Vhalar 68, Arc 718 ~ late afternoon

What a trial! Finn was glad to at last be past the threshold downstairs of the new house he took residency in. Soaked to the bone from the rain outside, he had a smile on his face, however. Who would have thought that after their happenstance meeting thanks to Ymiden, Finn would get to meet the woman he so admired here in Rharne. Everything felt to be in the right place. Perhaps coming back so close to the origins wasn’t such a bad idea after all. Save for the season that he’s decided to move.
Rubbing his hands together and blowing hot breaths into his palms, he ascended the stairs, trying to fight off the shivers. The priest couldn’t help but notice the heap of debris as he reached the landing. That certainly was not there in the morning.
“What the…?” He murmured with a mild frown on his brow, knowing their most likely origin. Unless this was a doing of cleanliness loving thief, there was another likely reason for why his door was unlocked and for that broken furniture to be outside.
”Yrmellyn!” Finn exclaimed as he entered, half expecting her there but still taken by surprise. Her name ringing no longer with mystique feel of familiarity but with the bells of budding new acquaintanceship. He offered her the same amiable grin he gave to Faith earlier that trial. The warmth spread across his mature features like the richest of sunsets.
It was undeniable that his landlady worked hard to clear out the mess from the apartment. Of course, he noticed! Brushing his hair back from his eyes, his greys scanned the room. Impressed with the progress, even if there was still much to do, Finn nodded his head slightly.
“I see you’ve been busy,” Finn commented, undoing his coat. "I hope you did not bother yourself with the heavier stuff. Last thing I’d want to happen is have you injure yourself. After all, w both need to pull our weight.” Finn added. There was care in those words with a sense of manly duty he’s undoubtedly meant to perform.
Shedding his wet coat, the priest then hung it on a collapsed piece of furniture. Unlike Yrmellyn who’s been moving things back and forth for the past, who knew how many breaks, Finn was not so warm. The shirt clung to his frame seeking warmth much like his body itself. A shiver rattled him at last and Finn immediately went to his sack.
“Actually, since there is a lot of wood around, we could start a fire. Easier to see and much warmer." A self-explanatory tug on his lips as he looked her way briefly.
"Would you mind picking a few pieces of wood from me, please?” Finn suggested as if living in less than ideal conditions was nothing new to him. A man weathered by trials… Retrieving his tinderbox, Finn then proceeded to clean out the modest fireplace that he used once before since moving in.
“By the way, since you cleared out a fair bit, have you managed to find anything interesting yet?” Finn asked, taking a pieces of wood, if she brought any, and placing them inside the gaping mouth of the sleeping beast. Suppressing another spell of shivers, his eyes flickered towards his sack for a trill. There was a dry shirt there. And it was calling to him.

[Yrmellyn Cole]

The warm grin on the priest's face was charming, no less. Yrmellyn smiled back at him. "Welcome back" she greeted him. "Erm ... I haven't ... dealt with any of the too heavy stuff ..."

For a moment she felt tempted to tell him about how tough it had been to take the armchairs of solid wood apart and how heavy they had been, but she didn't. It might sound like she was whining and trying to make him take over. He had been out all day and it looked like he was freezing. No wonder, as soaked as he was. She didn't want to seem unfeeling.

Yrmellyn gathered some of the useless pieces of wood from the floor and brought them to the fireplace. Finns was already retrieving his tinderbox and she watched him clean the fireplace and put the pieces of wood in it. Yrmellyn had thought he would lit the fire at once, but he seemed to forget it and glanced at his sack. For a moment she thought she saw him shiver, but she wasn't sure. He didn't say anything but she concluded that he must want to change clothes.

"Let me light the fire while you get dry clothes" she offered.

If Finn would agree she would take the tinderbox and fix the warm fire he had spoken about, but if he insisted in doing it himself she'd just leave it to him.

It didn't occur to her that he might feel uncomfortable with changing clothes when she was present. It was no big deal to her, just something that was necessary to do. Finn seemed like a practical person who endured a lot without complaining, she thought. Yrmellyn still felt guilty for not having worked faster and achieved more. The apartment was horrible. What had she been thinking when she had decided to let a man like Finn Ashbroken live in a place like this? She must have been crazy. It was embarrassing. She was the landlady of a dump. All right, she knew they were meant to work at the improvement togehter, that was the deal, but it didn't stop her from feeling like it had been her own responsibility to do the job long ago.

In her mind she was already wondering where it would best to hang the wet garments. Perhaps it would be possible to find a rope or wire somewhere in the debris. She was a bit tired though, so instead of digging into the debris she looked at the fire.

"I can't say I have found anything of greater interest in here so far" she told him. "There's a ton of broken things, but none of them seems to have been something special. The undamaged parts of the furniture may be possible to sell, or barter with, but the wrecked chairs were heavy like ... nevermind I'm going to look for a rope or wire now. To hang your clothes on I mean."

What I'd give to get to sit in front of the fire and rest instead, but ...

Just a few moments more. Then she would turn from the slowly growing fire and start to look for that rope.

[Finn]

Finn’s eyes flitted upwards to hers. Perceptive. Yet faint rouge rose to his cheeks for a moment. It was not that of being coy about having to undress. It was that of being uncovered, caught in the act of wishing where he should be taking care. But! He was not going to say no when she offered! The cold was biting his joints already.
“If you need any help, let me know,” the priest said, handing over the tinderbox. It was not an assumption that she couldn’t light a fire, though something inside him wondered about that topic. Ever since seeing Yrme, he got this subtle impression that at some point in her life she was of higher standing than today and at times, it almost felt like he could see her dressed in expensive silks with the demeanour of Glass quarter madam.
Unfortunately, unlike in the cathedral a few trials back where he could hide in a crevice in the wall, Finn was failing to find a similar provision in this flat. Alas, debris did not stack up so high and it was a simple apartment after all. So the privacy was denied to both of them but the prickles of cold water on his skin pushed him past the point of caring. Sighing quietly, there was no way of escaping. So when he began undressing, unlike other times, he stood almost sideways in her direction, not wanting to clearly display the marks of his past upon his back. In a matter of moments, all wet was on the floor, pooled in a heap of soaked misery as he listened to her findings or lack thereof, nodding to himself. He could take some of the better pieces and barter with them in the market.
But just as the dry shirt freshly dropped over his frame, even before it could be neatly tucked in his dry breeches, Finn moved with litheness of a cat. He could see her lingering by the fire, he understood the hesitation. So he reached out for Yrmellyn’s wrist, aiming to stop her in her tracks. She’s done enough for one day. If anyone deserved rest it was her.
“No need,” he said softly. “I can spread them out near the fire. It’ll do just as well.” Nudging his head back to the fireplace, he was cajoling her to return to the comfort. The amber light of the flame fell square on his profile, colouring his expression just as balmy as the setting behind him.
“You’ve worked a lot today. Take a rest. Let me fuss about for a little while.” And with those words, he let go of her, fingertips brushing but lightly along the inner side of her wrist like lingering sensation of a falling feather. After all, the final choice was hers and he was not going to drag her back to the warmth of the hearth.

[Yrmellyn Cole]

Their gazes met. Did she see a faint shift in the color of his cheeks? Did he sight silently? Yrmellyn wasn’t sure, but she guessed that as he didn’t object he was all right with the situation just like she was! She took the tinderbox and focused on lighting the fire. Although she of course knew how to start the fire it felt nice to be offered support, should she need it.

If Yrmellyn had been a more modest person she might have looked the other way all the time and totally avoided to get even a glimpse of Finn in the process of changing clothes. However, it didn’t occur to her to be that polite ... or prudish, as Yrmellyn would have called it. Finn would perhaps be useful as motif, the painter thought instead. A mix of professional interest and mere human curiosity made her glance at him in order to assess him.

Yrmellyn could only see Finn in profile. He stood sideways in her direction his back was out of sight, but she supposed it matched his well-shaped shoulders and arms. Nice view ... but she wasn’t the kind who would get wild over bare torso, even if she could appreciate a handsome man. Good looks was never wrong, but good looks alone were never sufficient for making her feel interested in people. Once upon a time that might have been more important to her, but after the initiation to attunement she had found intelligence and intellectual ability more and more important. This had been accentuated by natural maturing as the years passed by, and by her development as artist.

Anyways, he would be an interesting motif.

Yrmellyn looked at the fire again. It crackled silently. The fire was still only starting to grow and the light it spread was warm but limited. Oddly enough it made the messy room feel cozier. The painter relaxed and just listened to the low sounds of the fire in front of her and the even more silent rustling of fabric behind her. It was so peaceful. That feeling wouldn’t last long though. Right when Yrmellyn was about to start to look for that rope she still felt she should find, Finn was at her side and grabbed her wrist. He had moved soundlessly as a cat.

For a moment she was so surprised that she stood frozen as a statue. Then she relaxed again when he told her that he didn’t need any rope and wanted her to take a rest in front of the fireplace. Pleasant words from a very pleasant new tenant who also happened to be attractive, especially in firelight. Yrmellyn smiled at him. When he let go of her she felt his fingertips brush along the inner side of her wrist and it felt ... like butterflies arising in her.

Cole! Don’t make a fool of yourself. It wasn’t intentional. He was just being considerate.

“Thanks” she said.

She turned back and aimed to sit down on the floor in front of the fireplace, but first she swept a small heap of debris to the side as she didn’t want to sit in it. It was mostly strips of parchment and remainders of fabric, easy to move with a kick of her boot, but one single hard item fell out of the soft heap and landed in front of her with a small thud.

She crouched down and picked it up. It looked like some kind of gemstone, dark of color and mysteriously glistening in the firelight. Gemstones could be enormously valuable. Yrmellyn recalled the sphalerite she had been shown when she had visited Ne’haer last arc, by ... what’s-his-name ... Grant-something. A mapmaker. That man hadn’t been particularly knowledgeable about gemstones, but he had spoken a whole lot about how precious they were and how fortunate it could be for people to find one.

The dark stone on the floor was the size of a hen’s egg. She felt awed. Immortals! She might have stumbled over a fortune, just like that, due to sweeping a heap of debris away so she could sit down. It seemed like the kind of incredible luck that only happened to people in tales.

“Finn, look at this, a jewel ...”

But even as she spoke to him a shadow swirled inside the gemstone and it started to wobble and ripple like it was made of air or water. She felt a sudden cold in her palm, like ice or cold steel. The gemstone lost all it’s transparent gleam and turned opaque and grey like a common pebble. Yrmellyn let go of it. For a moment she had an odd feeling that the stone didn’t let go of her though ... but then it fell on the floor and disintegrated to dust. The process was swift. Yrmellyn just stared, speechless.

“Oh immortals ... what was this ?”

The stone was gone like it had never existed, but she still felt the odd cold feeling in her palm. She looked at her hand. There was a small and shiny blue-grey stain there, not unlike the stains of color she used to get on her hands when she worked at a painting. Yrmellyn tried to rub it away with one of the small pieces of parchment nearby, but the stain stuck to her skin and wasn’t affected. It seemed like some kind of quick-drying ink she thought.

“I seem to have been mistaken ... it seems to have been a very fragile vial, not a stone ... it broke and now I have an ink-mark in my palm. Well, it’s just some ink ...”

She laughed it off, but her laugh was forced.

Truth was that she felt shaken. The stain felt oddly cold. When she probed it with her fingertips it also felt glossy, like glass, or like metal. It wasn’t “just some ink” at all. It was something else. Yrmellyn didn’t know what it could be, but she was already sure that she wanted to get rid of it. She was going to attune to it later and find out how to deal with it. Right now she just wanted to sit in front of the fireplace and calm down. She wanted to sit in front of the fire with Finn Ashbroken and pretend that everything was all right. Irrational, yes, but nonetheless.

[Finn]

Somehow, it pleased him that she gave up on the idea of working some more. The warmth from the fire spread across his lips as he watched her approach the hearth to rest. Some of that was born out of consideration. Some of it seemed to stir inside him slightly more. It felt unusually satisfying to have a company again. Especially that of a woman like Yrme. Suppose, that was where this joy was coming from despite the fact that Finn has caught himself once or twice contemplating the woman's grown features and along with them the beauty of age.
Finn retreated to gather back his wet clothes, partly to take his mind off wandering thought and partly to do as he said he would. It was then that he heard Yrmellyn shuffling about. His eyes lifted in curiosity when she mentioned a gemstone. A treasure at last? He would like to hope so. Something they could sell for nel to get more supplies.
He saw the oblong shape just above the edge of her palm, glistening for but a brief second before the shine was gone as if life has gone out of it in that brief moment. Its surface then dark like secrets untold in the glow of the fire. Something jabbed at him with alarm.
The priest slow stepped to where the stone fell into the tiniest of specs. He dropped the pile of wet clothes on the floor next to the fire before crouching to inspect the dust.
"Odd," he murmured, running his fingertips through the little pile. It was fine grain. Very fine that it stayed on his fingers like the best of sawdust. When he stood, he noticed Yrmellyn rubbing her palm and he stretched his own hands, wordlessly asking if he could inspect. If she'd allow him, he'd take her hand into his. The roughness of his fingers from labour of the past was a warm nest to the refined and soft hand of the painter. He would face her palm upwards, closer to his face to see better before the side of his thumb would run across the mark. Although his knowledge of medicine was limited, he hoped he'd understand what he was seeing. But, the dusted finger only left a grey line behind.
"Sorry, that didn't help," murmuring some more he rubbed it off with his sleeve, taking care not to smear any more on her.
"But, I'm not sure about the ink bit." Finn replied, even if her reasoning was sound. But vials didn't just disintegrate like that even if they broke. The dark clouds in his eyes moved from her palm to her face. There was something in them which ran far deeper than his concerned face could convey.
"Hopefully, it will go away." The man added at last, allowing her hand to slip out of his grasp. Yet, there was an unspoken decision in that gesture. One she was not made privy to.

[Yrmellyn Cole]

Yrmellyn felt tired and upset. First all the hard work and now this! She was happy to put her hand in Finn’s and let him inspect the odd stain in her palm. It comforted her that she wasn’t all alone on top of it all.

Finn’s warm hand was marked by labor, rough and callous. There was something reassuring with that. It was the hand of a person who had coped with a lot of things. A capable hand. She watched while he investigated her palm holding it closer to his face to see better. When he ran the side of his thumb across the mark she felt ... like the spot was numb. The dust on his finger made a grey line on her hand and he apologize and wiped the dust off with his sleeve.

It actually made her a bit nervous when he said he wasn’t sure if the stain was ink. Yrmellyn was a painter and she had broken a number of ink bottles by accident during the arcs. She knew that broken glass or pottery didn’t turn into dust when it broke. No item she had ever before gone to dust right in front of her eyes. It was unsettling. Against better knowledge she wanted to believe that the mark was just common ink though.

"Yes hopefully, it will go away” she agreed when the man let go of her hand.

She looked into his eyes and smiled faintly. Under other circumstances the situation could have been romantic, with the cozy fire and the soft light, the remaining mess in the apartment adding an undemanding but nice touch of work in progress. As it was, Yrmellyn didn’t feel any romantic at all, despite how attractive she found her new neighbor. She was grateful for his compassion and concern, she was, but she didn’t want to linger.

The firelight made shadows dance over the walls and when Finn looked back at her the shadows seemed to reflect in his eyes. His face was calm and friendly, but there was something with his gaze that wasn’t calm at all. She didn’t want to see that glint of something more, unspoken, secret, so she shrugged and smiled and shook her head: “I’d better go home and sleep Finn. I’m bone tired. Let’s continue the work another trial, shall we?”

It wasn’t really a question, just a nice and polite way to break up and go home. She assumed that Finn would agree and so they would part for the evening.

[Aegis]

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Thread Review

I rather enjoyed the back and forth Yrmes and Finnly had here. The chemistry feels real, even if subdued. Well done both of you.

Withholding review from Finn. While you did grandfather into the Wealth System, you need to update your CS to include the new wealth ledger, with a link to your grandfathering in post. When you've done this, PM me and I'll release your portion of the review. Linking the review request for my own purposes so ignore this link. viewtopic.php?f=242&t=16103&p=108569#p108586

Yrmellyn Cole

• Skill Points - 15
• Renown - 0
• Skill Knowledges
  1. Investigation: Looking around in a place to investigate it in general
  2. Strength: Using a lever to compensate for lacking physical strength
  3. Strength: Dragging heavy pieces of wood to a storage room
  4. Endurance: Enduring a long trial of hard physical work
  5. Endurance: Continuing to work despite feeling exhausted
  6. Detection: Detecting subtle signs of people freezing
  7. Detection: Detecting subtle changes in people’s faces
  8. Detection: Finding a gem among the debris
  9. Tactics: Finding out the most effective way to start at a project
• Non-Skill Knowledges
• Items and Other Rewards
  1. +5 extremely fragile ink vials that crumble to dust if damaged
  2. So there is the temporary curse of turning to metal that Oracle and now Ghoul are aware of.

Finn Ashbroken

• Skill Points - 15
• Renown - 0
• Skill Knowledges
  1. Deception: Keeping Secrets
  2. Detection: Recognize a stain
  3. Etiquette: Idle chit-chat
  4. Caregiving: Offer reassurances
  5. Caregiving: Calming down a distressed individual
  6. Caregiving: Gentle touch
  7. Medicine: Recognize an ailment
  8. Etiquette: Treat lady with respect
• Non-Skill Knowledges
• Items and Other Rewards

Final Notes

If you have any questions, please PM me. Also please add the provided stamp to your review request found here and please update your CS with all of this information.

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