[OPEN] - a strange new land

[shieldofrohan]

Who: Éowyn and anyone else who happens to be around
What: A princess from Catholic Fantasy Land deals with arriving in a sex world, is confused.
When: May 8-10
Where: The castle (both the barracks and around the place generally), the village, and the forest.
Warnings: TBD

i. the barracks
There's no question that this is where she'd end up. There's plenty that discomfits her about the situation, from the idea of being tattooed to the thought of pledging her service to anyone but her King, but she's too proud to leave and too hot-blooded for the position not to appeal to her. For a long time, she's wanted nothing more than to fight. However much she knows she needs to go home (and she does, her uncle needs her there), the idea of being a soldier is too tempting to turn down.

But it's still a lot to take in, which is why for the first couple of nights in the castle, she can be found sitting cross-legged on her pallet in the clothes she was wearing when she got here, turning over the breastplate she was given in her hands and considering it. Occasionally, she says things under her breath that sound an awful lot like "but why?"


ii. around the castle
Éowyn has always prided herself on her sense of direction. But this place is unlike anywhere she's been before, with its complicated winding passageways and floors upon floors - very different to the open layout of Edoras. It takes some getting used to, is the point. And, as she's far too embarrassed to ask for another tour, she can be seen when off-shift, checking her map against the corridors with a frown.

And it isn't just the size of the place. It seems like every time she rounds a corner, there's something else to wonder at - and by wonder at, she mostly means wonder why. She's sheltered but not naive, and it isn't that she doesn't know what a dick is or even what some of the sex stuff is probably used for. She just doesn't know why you would put it everywhere. Don't they have anything better to use that space for? (Also, shut up, she's not blushing. That's, uh, the shadow of the helmet. Sure.)

She finds herself standing and staring a lot. At the paintings, for example. Her frown's obscured a little by her helmet, but it's still obvious.

"Is this common? In other lands, or only this?"


iii. the village and surroundings
Yes, it's confusing. Yes, it's more than a little disconcerting. But after all this time all but trapped in her uncle's hall, with duty always bearing down on her, it's also incredibly freeing to be here, where there's time off.

Frankly, that's not a concept she's ever really had. She's the Lady of Edoras, responsible for the household and her uncle's care and the reputation of the House of Éorl. Free time doesn't factor heavily into all that. It's actually pretty intoxicating to be able to just walk, breathe the free air, and to know that she could do just about anything and nobody would need to know. So she spends a lot of time wandering, taking in the sights. You can find her in the forest, humming under her breath as she walks without direction, or sitting on hilltops, or meandering through the village.

Or you can find her on the second day after her arrival, walking around the village with little scrapes and cuts on her bare thighs, accosting passers-by to ask where, in all of this, she can find a pair of leggings.

Comments

II.

[moonshined]

It seems as though new people are arriving every week, and for his part, Remus is settled in enough and growing used to his surroundings, which means he's taken it upon himself to be helpful to the newcomers as well as he can. So when he comes across an off-duty guard studying the artwork on the walls and looking puzzled, he pauses, on his way back to his room from lunch and full of roast chicken and sub-par mashed potatoes.

"I don't...think so. Not to this degree, anyway." He crosses his arms and studies what is an incredibly detailed oil painting of the Mistress pegging what must be the leader of an enemy kingdom. "The castle I grew up around was full of paintings that moved and talked, but none of those were quite so...colorful."

[shieldofrohan]

The detail is what's strangest to her, frankly. These clearly aren't some idle whim - as if paintings in a castle ever were. They're as well-worked as the tapestries of Edoras, but those show great battles and heroes and the history of the land, not... that.

But it's the other part of what he says that catches her attention. She turns to look at him, eyebrows raised. "Moved and talked? You do not speak in poetry there, I take it?" He sounds like he meant it literally, and, well, clearly magic here is very different to how she's always been raised to consider it.

[moonshined]

Remus gives her a grin and shakes his head. "No, I'm afraid I've never had much of a head for poetry. I mean it quite literally."

There's a gleam in his eye that seems to be ever-present when he thinks about Hogwarts. The place that gave him a second chance at a normal life.

"The art, every single painting, was enchanted. You could hold a conversation with a portrait of someone who'd been dead a couple hundred years, if you caught him or her in the right mood."

[shieldofrohan]

For a moment, she's a little starry-eyed at the thought. How many times as a child did she sit and stare up at the great tapestry of Éorl's charge and imagined it moving? How many times in the long watches of the night did she wish she could speak to him? The idea is giddying.

Giddying, and a little unnerving. She clears her throat, trying to push away her too-obvious wonder at what he's saying. She's a grown noblewoman, and she oughtn't to gape at things like a child being told a story.

"Is it not strange? To speak with those long-dead? Do they know they are... well, paintings?"

She has so many questions right now.

[moonshined]

Remus can't help but laugh softly at the wonder in her expression, even if it's gone all too quickly. "It is, a bit. But it's also very entertaining. They can all move between each others' frames and visit the other paintings, and sometimes if you've caught the attention of an especially talkative portrait—"

Sir Cadogan.

"—they'll follow you from frame to frame, trying to keep your attention."

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn colours a little at his laugh. She doesn't like to be laughed at. It shows in the cooling of her tone, the sudden flintiness of her eyes. "It seems queer that you should turn attention away from such a thing."

[moonshined]

Oh. Oh, no. Remus has spent his life far too hyperaware of other peoples' reactions to miss that, and his expression turns a little contrite in the face of that sudden chill.

"Well...when it's so commonplace, you grow used to it. It's just another part of everyday life."

[shieldofrohan]

"I see." His contrition isn't lost on her, but she never has been particularly good at backing down. That coldness is still definitely there. "I suppose I can see how that would be."

Her smile is brief, and it doesn't reach her eyes. "Even this may in time grow commonplace." Meaning the pegging painting, obviously.

[moonshined]

Remus eyes the painting again and has to cock his head at her.

"The paintings themselves, or the...the acts portrayed?"

Because really, the answer is probably both.

II

[ignisvulpes]

At some point, the woman catches Kaphlar's eyes - which is to say, at the point he decides he's had enough of penning homoerotic letters for the day and needs to stretch his legs.

(Are they still homoerotic if he's roleplaying as the Mistress? He isn't technically writing anything gay, but it still feels kind of gay. Except when he's addressing women, in which case he is indeed technically writing gay stuff but his masculinity feels solid and reassured. Complex stuff!!!)

In any case, right now, it feels like this conversation is going to be a lot more entertaining, if less profitable, than what he's been doing.

"Nah, we're just in some kind of weird porn utopia!" He shrugs, amused. "You new around here? I don't remember seeing your face around here before, and believe me, I'm pretty sure I would remember seeing it."

It takes a lot of self-restraint not to wink.

[shieldofrohan]

There's something to be said for being raised with a pathological case of pride. Mostly, right now, it's that she's doing a really good job of looking at him like something stuck to her shoe.

After all, seriously? Even to a woman who hasn't exactly been openly hit on that much, that's some pretty hackneyed flirting.

"I hope you are aware," she says, in a voice so cool it seems to suck the warmth out of the air around her, "that you speak nonsense, to my ears." What's a porn? What's a utopia? These are not words with a precedent or a translation where she's from. "But as to your question... Yes, I am new."

[ignisvulpes]

Geez. Why are all the chicks here so goddamn hard to get?

"Sorry, sorry!" He throws his hands in the air in a show of apology. "Let's see. Porn is short for pornography, AKA the ancient art of material made for the express purpose of getting someone hot and bothered. Or aroused, I guess, just so you don't think I'm being literal there. A utopia is..."

He pauses.

"... Well, see, it's actually a literary concept, yeah? Like a paradise that no society in the real world could ever hope to achieve..."

It's an accurate enough explanation, but... he somehow sounds pretty cavalier, almost mocking, about it.

[shieldofrohan]

She doesn't like his tone. There's nothing wrong with what he's saying, but his tone rankles her, perhaps more than it ought to. She's never been one to take well to any suggestion of mockery.

"Pornography," she says at last, considering it. "I have never come across such a thing."

[ignisvulpes]

"Wow, really?" His eyebrows rise in mild, but genuine surprise. "Where the hell are you from?"

[shieldofrohan]

"From Rohan." She sounds nonplussed. Honestly, she's sure such things exist where she's from, the more she thinks about it, but that doesn't mean she's seen them. After all, she's a highborn lady.

Also, she's been way too busy.

"North and west of Gondor," she adds, after a moment, since this is a distant land and Rohan a relatively small nation, politically speaking (much as it pains her to admit it). "Among the White Mountains."

[ignisvulpes]

Uh-huh.

Kaph has played enough Western RPGs to know all those names sound like some fantasy nonsense.

Not that he's surprised, exactly; after talking to Angel in his first or second day here, he heard enough to suspect the Mistress was somehow pulling people from all sorts of places. But still?

Well, it's kind of weird.

"So, not Earth."

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn's look is blank, but also oddly condescending. "Of course. Middle-Earth." Which she assumes is what he means, because the alternative is that he's talking about soil, and that seems even stranger than what he's said so far. "What does it matter, in any case, where I am from? I am here, for now."

iii

[shenunigans]

Dave is in the forest for less liberated reasons, because he has work to do. Once you settle into the village and start trying to exist, you realise that finding food and making money plays into that. Unfortunately.

He has been tasked with picking plants for the local apothecary, so he has a list (with ugly pictures he's attempted to draw himself) and a basket to fill. He's not looking particularly pleased by anything, in contrast to Eowyn who is Disney Princess levels of elated and carefree. He stops to raise a brow at her when hey cross paths, before he decides to man up and talk.

"You look like you're happy to be here." He sounds almost impressed. "That doesn't happen much."

[shieldofrohan]

Éowyn arches her brow, slowing to a stop herself and considering him. It would probably be more intimidating if the smile weren't still playing faintly around the corners of her mouth.

"Should I not be?" She gestures around herself. "The sun shines, the day is fine, and I am free. I may not have chosen this place, but it would be ill grace to scorn it."

[shenunigans]

"Depends on how much of a crap-hole your original home is, I guess." Maybe she's from some post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland and she's just relishing the zombie-free surroundings she's just found.

"Are you gonna hang around the castle or come live in the village? Because living in the village takes the shine out of the peaceful, fantasy-land life real fast, I'm telling you. They don't even have showers."

[shieldofrohan]

She opens her mouth to respond, then closes it again, her brow furrowing. "...What do you mean? Showers?" Because the only thing she can think of is rain, and she hasn't seen any evidence that the weather's all that different here.

Clearing her throat, she rolls her shoulders back and answers the original question. "I have lodgings at the castle. As a guard, though peaceful as it is, I imagine I shall see little combat."

[shenunigans]

"Oh, geez. You're from old timey places, too? No wonder you love it here so much." He steps a little closer, a little less wary that she's going to try something weird on him (he wishes).

"A shower is a cubicle that sprays nice, warm water on you so you can get clean. Kind of like portable, temperament rain. I miss it." And she probably doesn't care, but he's telling her anyway.

"Guess I should stop shitting on your happiness then. Welcome to the fold, grasshopper. My name is Dave, I am a peasant." He flourishes his hand, as if half-heartedly bowing, then gestures to the crap he's carrying around so she really knows he's a peasant.

[shieldofrohan]

She does care, actually. It's an interesting thought - like washing in a waterfall, but warm. And enclosed? She's never heard of such a thing, nor would have thought it necessary, but it's an oddly charming thought.

"Éowyn, Éomund's daughter." She dips into something that's half-curtsey, half-bow, and much more graceful than his sarcastic-looking salute. It feels awkward, mind you, because she isn't wearing her usual long skirts. Hell, she isn't even wearing trousers. "If not pleasure, what brings you so far from the village, Dave?" Her pronunciation of his name is very careful, and just a little accented, sounding more like daef, but she's trying.

[shenunigans]

"No idea who that is." But from the looks of it, he's important. She talks pretty fancy, and she curtseys and stuff. Most of the peasants here wouldn't curtsey for him if he saved their whole family from a fire, so he figures it's for people of a higher standing or something.

"I'm picking plants so I can afford to live." He says it plainly, he's not whining, really. "Only there's a lot of plants out here and I've never consumed a vegetable, so I don't really know what I'm looking for."

[shieldofrohan]

"Perhaps I could help," she suggests, frowning a little. She's no herbalist, but she's been overseeing a kitchen for some years now, and she's done her share of exploring the countryside with her brother and her cousin - enough to know some plants, if not all. "I have no other task upon me, I may as well aid in yours. What plants? For food, for medicine...?"