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DRAGONMOUNT

A WHEEL OF TIME COMMUNITY

Having Survived the Haus...


Delfon

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Jon sits back on the rough wooden bench, staring into the blackness of the cell around him. 'How did I ever end up here?' Jon thinks to himself for the millionth time. 'I was at the haus. Kitten came in shouting about bloody murder. Guardsman asking questions.' His thoughts spin out into a whirling cloud once again. 'What's happening to me? I can't seem to think straight.' Jon stretches out his arm and brushes his fingers against the thick wooden planks that make up the far wall just a few feet away. He then sits up without slouching and his hair brushes the low ceiling, and he knows that if he reaches to the sides the rough hewn stone walls will greet his fingers well before he fully extends his arms. Jon's stomach rumbles, and the abrupt sound startles him in the intense quiet of his cell. 'Soon the flap on the bottom of the door will lift and another bowl of gruel will slide into the room, tasteless mush.' The thought of eating reminds Jon of the low open-topped tray he gets to use as a bathroom, and he curses to himself. Starting himself once more with the noise that is his own voice. 'Is that what I sound like now?'

 

Jon's thoughts tumble around incoherently until the expected heavy footfalls of the guards interrupt them. Abruptly the world is filled with light as the door is thrown back. Having not seen light in some time, Jon wraps his arms around his head protectively, both to protect his vision, and because he remembered the beating he received the last time the guards stormed his room. They came because he wouldn't be quiet about being innocent, and demanding to be let out. After a full minute of apprehension Jon slowly lowers his arms, tonguing his split lip from the beating. In the relative brightness of the two torches the guards are carrying, Jon's eyes protest and he blinks repeatedly trying to let them adjust to the light. When they finally do adjust Jon is confused, the two guards carrying torches are trying to stay as far from the third person near the room as possible. 'This doesn't make any sense! Why would men willing to beat someone half to death be afraid of a woman?' She is short, even for a woman, but somehow her presence reaches into the tiny cubical. She isn't beautiful, although she isn't ugly by any means. Handsome might best describe her. She's dressed in finery, but of no particular style. There is a circle of gold around one of her fingers, but Jon can't make out and details with his over-stimulated eyes. Another man stands behind the woman, his presence barely registering in Jon's mind even though this man radiates deadly violence while he casually leans against the wall in the hall outside. His hard eyes alternate between boring holes in the two guards.

 

"Mr. Smythe, you are free to leave this place. Your involvement at the Haus of Three has been cleared up. Do you require healing?" She asks while leaning into the room. Jon's mind is still a little flighty, and all he can think to say is, "Even you have to duck to enter here, you would think they would have made the ceilings a little higher" Jon smiles his best smile, and winces as his split lip cracks open again. Sliding off the bench, Jon waddles as best he can in a deep crouch to exit the room. The lady moves back to make room for him, and a glance at the guards has them scurry to light the way out of the dungeon. Jon manages to stand without assistance, but each vertebra in his back cracks loudly as he straightens up.Following the guards, Jon still doesn't really understand what is happening, or why. He also doesn't care. Jon has no idea how long he was stuck in that box, and being able to stand up straight and move unhindered is the greatest blessing imaginable right now.

 

The lady and her man-at-arms walk slower than the the guards speaking to softly for Jon to hear. Jon doesn't want to walk any faster in case the guards ahead turn on him again, and he wants to give the lady her privacy - so he maintains a pace to stay exactly between the two groups. After walking down a long corridor filled with too short doors, they reach a normal sized, iron bound door. The guards pull out a ring of keys and quickly find the correct one to unlock the door. Inside is a guard station with a half played game of cards on the table, 'Whomever was playing that hand is going to loose' Jon thinks idly as he passes through the room. It isn't until the lady's man at arms presses a new outfit into Jon's hands, and gestures into a bathing facility that Jon starts to realize what's happening. "I'm free now?" Jon asks confused. "I'm free to leave this place she said, she wouldn't jest about something like that would she?" Jon asks the man enthusiastically. When he shakes his head, Jon smiles again, and this time he doesn't even notice the pain of his lip splitting back open.

Edited by Delfon
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  • 2 weeks later...

Heading into the bathing facility Jon takes his tattered, and filthy clothing off and throws the ruined garments into the fires that heated the water. Stepping into the soothing hot water, Jon feels his stress and pain melt away. Digging a pad of soap and a wash cloth from a nearby bucket Jon begins the arduous task of cleaning the layers of filth from his body. Jon winces as the soap finds his open wounds, and winces again as he brushes the purple bruises, welts and scrapes that cover his torso and hands. Some time later, Jon sits in the thoroughly cold, murky, brown water wondering how long he's been sitting there. 'I'm finally clean enough to face the outside world again, but some part of me is reluctant to leave this room. If this is just a dream, or some sort of cruel trick I don't know if I'll be able to hold onto my sanity.' Jon thinks to himself. Realizing just how brown the water he is sitting in is, he adds, 'Well one way or another I've got to get out of this disgusting water!'

 

Getting dressed slowly to account for his injuries, Jon notes that the clothing he was given is made in a similar fashion as his existing clothing, 'Well someone has an eye for detail.' Jon remarks mentally. Once finished Jon exits the chamber to find only the two guards outside the room. Praying that his mind hadn't made the two other people up Jon asks, "Where is the Lady?" Although the two guards don't seem as cocky as they once did, they also don't seem cowed by the ladies presence any longer. Jon flinches as one of the guards reaches toward the table that contains a sealed letter and a cudgel. Jon can't help but breath a sigh of relief when the man picks up the letter instead of the bludgeon, and extends it toward Jon. Taking the letter he breaks the seal with his thumb, assuming that it was from the lady who was here before. If Jon had bothered to check the seal, he would have noticed that it was marked with the Flame of Tar Valon. Reading the note quickly, he folds it carefully and slips it into his pocket.

 

"Mr. Smythe,

 

I'm sorry for our abrupt departure, but I am needed urgently elsewhere. I have left instructions with your jailers, and you should have no further trouble with them. All of your belongings should be returned to you, and I have no doubt that not even a copper penny will be missing. I have set you up with a room at The Toothless Gum, stay there as long as you need to to recover from your injuries. I will not be able to check on you for some time, so send word to my sisters if you require anything more.

 

I wish you a speedy recovery Mr. Smythe,

Lady Catrelle Najiamn"

 

'Send word to her sisters? How would I know who her sisters are? Or where they live?' Shaking his head, Jon glances up at his previous captors, "My belongings if you please." Jon says with a quick palm up waving gesture. Jon smiles to himself as the guards move to obey, 'They have no idea what she wrote in the letter, and my sudden confidence scares them. This could be fun...' Jon's thoughts trail off as the guards unlock a door, and enter a long room filled with numbered chests. The guards lead him to a chest marked with the number seventeen, and one of them stoops to unlock it as well. After poking around his belongings to make sure everything that should be there was there, Jon decides to press his luck, "Which one of you is going to carry this to the Toothless Gum?", and when one of them opened his mouth to object, Jon simply raised an eyebrow while tapping the letter in his pocket idly with his free hand. The guard closed his mouth, and bent to pick up the heavy chest with a barely audible curse. 'Serves you right you motherless dog' Jon thought at the man fiercely, but on the outside Jon exuded nothing but calm confidence, and a nobles superiority.

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