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The Hanged Man continued watching Brolin as he scrubbed caked on flecks of vomit and wax from his gauntlets. Provided he was able to successfully clean up the black goo, he would use a sparing amount of water to finish the job, careful to dry the metal after. Once his boots and sabatons had received a similar treatment, he set them in front of the fire to dry, then gave his scarred, dusty hands a wash in the bucket. "Rest here," he told his companions before he got to his feet. Then it was off to the pantry to scare up something for them to eat.

Unless otherwise impeded, the Hanged Man was gone for a few minutes. While it was true that he was gathering up food, he also was getting acquainted with a bottle of brandy--the two remained only cordial, however, as the swordsman did not want to fall asleep at his post. He returned to the common room several times, first with a preserved peppered ham and a dozen carrots, then with some hard cheese and several half-stale loaves of rye and pumpernickel, and lastly with the most precious cargo of all: a honeypot with a long dipper.

"There's aught else back there we should take when w-we leave," he said, setting the honey down on a large table with everything else. He paused to massage his aching hand.

Aya watched Brolin step out with not much more to say, and listened to Carabia's words about him. With a tilt of her head she let the information sink in.
"Perhaps I'll feel more positive about him once I am no longer hungry. Hunger does poor things to a person, after all."
She snickered at Ver's quiet comment, which she barely heard herself.

Aybilla smiled at Cara, she appreciated the notion about moving her tail, which she found curious but not offensive. "I absoultely agree, let's share a room. Phoe, you too. Three is a better number anyway, so no one will be left alone when one has a turn on watch."

She turned to Pheonixheart and was struck to see the items she was pulling from her bag. The orange strange looking tunic especially catching her eye. She had some strange clothing.
"You mean, you don't remember anything then? I've never seen anything like those clothes before, so you must have come from very far. Perhaps through a portal as well." She offered in suggestion. "Funny things, portals. I have only been through a few - each with very little stress - but I don't doubt that perhaps the experience could adle the brain a bit. Maybe?"

Aybilla took another bite of loaf and was going to go fetch something to eat it with herself, but Hanged Man had gotten up and wasn't gone long. Each trip back brought something edible from the pantry, and it all looked good. Her eyes especially lit up when he returned with the honeypot. She leapt up immidiatly to go to the table before he set it down, so she caught him massage his hand. This was the first she noticed the aweful condition of it.

"Thank you, Crow for fetchin- Oh!" she exclaimed. She snatched up his hands to examine the scars "Oh my, what happened?" even with all of her healing knowledge, she couldn't make up or down of what she was seeing. 'This mysterious, hagared man. What has he seen in his life?' she thought.

Phoenixheart nodded in agreement when Aybilla suggested she also share the room with her and Cara. She then responded to Aya's question of her memory with "Well, yes and no. I can remember who I am and my past, but as for how I got here, it's like there's a huge gap... the last thing I really remember was reading in my library before waking up and getting caught up in these events..." She paused for a bit before continuing in response to Aybilla saying she might have went through a portal"maybe I did but I don't know where I could have found one..."

Her nose scrunches up delicately, clearly to refrain from some gigglesnort. Completely caught off guard after his mention of flirting. Good lord. Thankfully, the change of topics helps in composing herself. "Yes, of course! Having rooms near one another will make things so much easier." She happily agrees. "I would like to take a shift in keeping watch, too. If not tonight, then tomorrow." Determined to do her part for the group. Attention soon falls upon the food. Ooo, yummy. "Thank you so much, Mister Hangy." Carabia beams, politely waiting for the others to dive in before eating as well. She finds herself nodding along gently at the sound of Aya's voice. "Hunger is terrible for the mind, yes. I dare say that rest will make us all feel better in turn." The young lady pauses for the moment, content to nom as she listens on to Phoenix. "Portals can be cast nearly everywhere. It could have been cast right there in your library, for example."

The Hanged Man's lips curled into his crooked grin as Aya ran over to claim the honey, but her change in demeanor upon seeing his arms made it fade again. When she grasped his hands they twitched involuntarily in response, and he let out a soft grunt. The scarring was extreme, marginally worse on the left arm than the right, though it was difficult to notice. Bits of flesh had been ripped away, making the surface of his skin feel pocked and cratery, and in a few places the damage had left ungainly little tags of skin.

Right after Aya spoke her question, something pale swooped by the window. The Hanged Man turned his head to look at the white crow that perched on the outside sill, looking in at them. "One could say I was 'murdered,'" he said coyly, gesturing to the animal. "That one did this to me--it-it and its friends."

The swordsman didn't try to free his hands from Aya's grip, but he did call softly to Ver and Nix, "Come and eat, if-if you wish."

Brolin sat down in the stables, setting his newly-pilfered travel case next to him. Boots unbuckled and tossed aside, he wasted no time removing expensive fur and linen from the case to soak them and scrub himself clean.

Warm but somewhat stagnant scents of tobacco and dried herbal remedies poured out of the stable in throngs of hazey mist as he lit a large fisheman's pipe and took a draw while nearing the end of his cleaning and moved on to drying.

Waist tied with cloth, Brollie peered out of the stable to see if any had started to come out back. Deeming the coast clear, a pair of simple black trousers were tugged on- interestingly having been fitted with sections of gambeson pads stitched on the thighs and shins to protect and weaken effects from light blows that would otherwise take the thin man to the ground. Not nearly as well crafted as the under armor Hangy wore, it was obviously inspired.

Now dressed, he moved to the other side of the stable and took to his knees silently. Fingers groped at his bare chest- even with closed eyes he was able to brush over and locate tattoo's of religious nature buried amongst so many cryptic symbols and peculiar imagery- using them not unlike one would use a rosary in aide to hushed prayers whispered to the dark ceiling.

[Tattoo Ref]

"A portal?" Ver sat a bit straighter. So close to the fire, his face was cast in gold light in fire - he was probably prettier close to it than away from it. "... Odd. I was approaching this town when everything happened, but you..." He paused thoughtfully. "Do you recall if it has anything to do with the black pool we fished Brolin out of?" He paused again. "And the rest of you, were you transported as well?"
He laughed at the 'murder' joke (always one for puns, apparently), though he wondered how a crow could do damage such as that. He didn't press the topic yet. He also shook his head at the offer of food - he'd use his own rations first.

"That's really interesting, Pheonix. I hope we can figure out what happened. It might have something to do with, well, everything else."

Aybilla, whispering a small apology when Crow grunted, examined the tortured skin of his arms. She looked to the window as he gestured to it and gave the bird there a scrutinizing look before turning back to the scars. "Crows, hum? They did this much?"

She interruppted herself about the crows to tell Ver "I was here, traveling through. No portals for me unless this is some twisted plane that happens to look exactly like where I fell asleep last night."

Continuing on, she dropped Crow's left arm and lightly ran her free fingertips over the lines of the right one. "Perhaps I shall stop calling you 'Crow'. I wish I could heal this." She gentley turned the worse arm back and forth to see all sides "How did crows manage to do this much? Are there any other parts of your body that..." Aybilla's voice dropped off. She had just had a thought. About why crows would attack a body. And considering all of Crow's other names as he had given them earlier that day, she put two and two together into an idea that made her heart stop and chills to run down her spin. She hoped it wasn't true. She hoped she was just jumping to conclusions.

"...are wounded this way?" she hushedly finshed her sentance. She dropped his arm. "Why do you have the names you have, Hanged Man? And the crows. Why do they follow you so?"

In truth, she had indeed noticed the scarring the moment such armour was slid free. How could she not? Clearly, something severe had happened in this man's past. Yet it isn't her place to pry, downright surprised once Aya does so. "Crows? How awful.." Carabia frowns lightly, crimson gaze gently narrowed. Surely, that is something no one deserves - regardless of the apparent reasoning leading to some insane punishment. Naturally, she remains oblivious to Brolin's possible-praying elsewhere. As she swallows another small bite of bread, Carabia offers Ver an honest shake of her head. "I awoke to an empty castle. Well, mostly empty." At this, she bows her head enough to grace Dembala's cheek with a soft kiss. Thank goodness he had not vanished, too. Narrowed eyes drift back towards Hangy now. "I couldn't help but notice how they follow.." Why the birds began gathering back at the giant fire.

The Hanged Man shivered as Aya's fingers slid across his map of anguish, making his mangled skin crawl. He could only feel about half of her touches, as he had suffered nerve damage. It was a marvel he still had use of his hands at all. "Call me what y-you wish," he murmured. "I have made my peace with it." His arm turned obediently as she tilted it back and forth to inspect it. As Aya and Cara both questioned how mere crows could cause such damage, he laughed. "There were dozens, maybe hundreds ... I can no longer recall. The night was full of them, blacking my lantern and the moon above ... and they were set on their task. My arms suffered the worst from their on-onslaught."

He trailed off, seemingly lost in the past, but was brought back by Aya's questioning. He chuckled and didn't respond right away. Once she released him, he drew his seax and began to cut slices of pepper ham and cheese, stacking them onto a hunk of bread. "I cannot say, Master Ver," he said. "I have been traveling for a ve-very long time. Whole seasons have blended into odd smears in my memory." He took a bite of his food and chewed with relish, washing it down with a sip from a bottle he had brought back from the pantry. It smelled sweet. He used the mouth of the bottle to point at the white crow again, which was now tapping the windowpanes with its pale beak, as if asking for entry.

"A long time ago, a woman sent that crow to kill me. When it failed, she told it to watch me ... and when I saved her life, she left it at my side so that I might contact her, in case I ever needed to. As for the others ... maybe they are drawn to me, or to the white ... I-I know not."

The once-knight ate more of his meal, now dolloping a gratuitous amount of honey on a slab of bread. One might not have expected him to have so much of a sweet tooth. "Which name do you question, mistress?" he asked Aya, wearing his lopsided smile. "I have as many as I do scars, and similarly, each has its own tale to tell."

Prayers passed and gone, Brolin made his way quietly through the back of the Inn and to the common room the rest of the party shared. For now he leaned silently against the door frame, drawing mouth fulls of smoke from his pipe that he would in turn politely blow out of the open door behind him.

As he manged to catch the end of Hangy's story, eyes remained fixed on the ground and his own dancing reflection over the metal tipped boot-toes. Listening or lost in thought, he chose to remain silent for the first time that evening.

Aybilla listened intetly to Hanged man's explaination of the crows. And though she cast another glance at the white crow, with more nervousness attached, she let out a breath of relief. It sounded like a miserable experience, but it wasn't quite as horrifying as she had imagined it. Though terrifying all the same.

"I can't imagine how awful it would be to be attacked by so many at once." With the relief, her appetite came back to her in full force and she resumed her pursuit of the honey. Breaking a large chunk of bread from her partial loaf she rose the dipper from the jar and generously drizzled the sweet stuff over it. "That's quite a story though. If all of your names have stories like that attacked, I'm curious about all of them! Perhaps I'll ask you for one at a time. Thank you for being patient with my forwardness. Crow." She gave him a soft smile.

She took an eager bite, then looked around for something to chase it down with. Her waterskin was in her bag in the corner and she went to go retrieve it. She saw Brolin standing barely in the room. He looked much cleaner.

"Have a good bath?" She asked.

Phoenixheart shook her head in response to Ver's question and said "I honestly don't remember, sorry... though I didn't wake up covered in the black stuff that the pool was made out of..." Not wanting to take all the rations for herself and not feeling as hungry as she did before due to the apple that she had eaten, she politely and quietly refused the offer of the food. She then listened intently as the Hanged Man told the story of how he got the scars on his arms. She had also found her way back to the fireplace by this time and was sitting by it, enjoying the heat that it provided. The light cast on her from the fire gave her red and green eyes a bit of a glow. The shadows and light cast by the fire seemed to dance around her as she sat by it, giving her more of a wild, yet also a slightly fierce and beautiful look. It almost seemed as if the fire had personified itself as the young phoenix. She then noticed Brolin lingering in the doorway of the inn.

Ver just nodded at the responses, staring back at the fire as he tried to fit some pieces together. Unfortunately, he got distracted by the movement of the fire - his eyes were pulled to Phoenix. Just as soon, his attention was drawn into the Hanged Man's story. He shuddered physically at the suggestion of the crow blackout, and watched the Hanged Man after that. Ever since he'd been small, he'd adored these kinds of stories - it was clear how they'd influenced his life. He was smiling, by the end. "It's an interesting coincidence that these crows are still around. Can't say I know what it means, but... it's interesting."

It took him a few moments to realize Aybilla was speaking to him, looking up to her late and wrong to finally offer a nod of his head in answer.

"If'n you could.. woul' ye change anyf'ing?"

Brolin asked Hangy, breaking his own silence. Eyes glossy from drink, memories and nearly drowning- his gaze boreing holes in Crows own as he proposed the mild question.

While she doesn't seem uncomfortable by Hangman's tale in the slightest, the worry is still clear upon her face. Which in truth, is completely pointless given that his trauma must have happened long ago. No need to behave as though it is happening at this very moment. "Forgive me for asking about the crows, Mister Hangy. Tis' beyond admirable to keep fighting the way you do, even with such injury." Yes, she had indeed noticed the involuntary movements of either hand. It's certainly not apparent as he moves with a weapon drawn, however. The dedication is truly impressive. "That is certainly one intriguing tale.." Lids widen slightly after hearing of the white crow, only glancing towards the bird briefly, assuming they remain at that same window.

It's Aya's question that leaves her head turning, finally noticing Brolin leaning against one doorway. "Welcome back." The young Devil smiles warmly his way, still seated in the same spot comfortably. Her attention shifts once the redhead draws closer to join them near the dancing flames. "Try not to worry, Miss Phoenix. You might remember more detail about what happened with time." She offers reassuringly, now referring to her missing memory before all this. Crimson eyes dance between Ver and Brolin curiously, free hand brushing over Dembala's cheek affectionately.

The Hanged Man chewed thoughtfully as they responded to his story, despite the relatively few details he'd provided. After licking grease from his gnarled thumb, he looked from Aya to Cara with a smile. "Please, my lady, I do not mind sharing my tales--truly. And Mistress Aya, when-whenever you are in the mood to hear the ramblings of an old axe like me, then simply ask. It--it does my heart good to know there are young people these days who want to hear my tales."

Then, to Ver, the swordsman dipped his chin. "Interesting, indeed. Sometimes I know not where they're coming from. Maybe they aren't even r-real ..."

Brolin's question made him lapse into a long silence. He trailed a thumb along the scar on his cheek, down over his chin; he then reached down the neckline of his robes to procure a scrap of off-white cloth the length of his forearm. It looked ancient, and bore a scarlet insignia of a firebird with wings spread. Absentmindedly he rubbed it between thumb and forefinger. Finally, his eyes flicked to meet Brolin's greys. "Aye," he said. "I would."

Seeing that the back door was propped open, the white crow took flight from the windowsill. A few moments later it reappeared behind the inn, landing on the ground near the Gael. With an imperious croak, it began to walk towards the open door, and would step right inside uninvited unless its entry was impeded.

After catching enough of Hangy's story, he played blind to the crows advancement. He wasn't positive he could survive such a curse- certainly not was the apparent answer.

Back against the frame, he slid down noisily. Vision still distant as the void they had fished him from- for the time being it seemed like Hangy's answer was a key of sorts.

"Ive spent most o' me life fightin' a sky black with law's, not crow's." He'd remark absently, finally engaging the whole group. "Hard naught t' be." He'd shrug.

Aybilla had reached her bag, retrieved her waterskin, and fiddled with it as she watched the conversastion. She finished her section of bread and honey as everyone talked then after opening the skin took a swig. She nodded at Brolin's comment as she swallowed.

"Aye. What can you do? Laws, crows, something often wants to set you back. I can't boast life tales the same as others yet, and my wisdom isn't much, but in all I have seen I know that life is fighting something."

Despite this deep, rather thought-provoking conversation at hand, a single topic keeps circling around within her own mind. For a time the young lady falls completely silent. With everyone seeming relaxed, she hates the idea of spoiling such an atmosphere. Crimson hues instead focus upon the dancing flames, admiring the detail thoughtfully. "I truly would love to hear more tales, Mister Hangy." She smiles gently. "But for now, please forgive me. I think it' best I retire for the night. It has truly been a rather long day." After swinging the bag's strap upon the curve of one shoulder, Carabia rises to stand, still cradling Dembala. "I'll just be in the first room on the left. Goodnight, everyone." Carabia smiles warmly. This part aimed towards the ladies present, what with the mention of sharing tonight. With a friendly, if not somewhat formal bow of her head, she turns with the hope of disappearing up the staircase unless stopped! Should any of the ladies wish to share, they will find Carabia snoozing upon the floor specifically, curled against Dembala in his lion-form.