Tea and Talks

[Kray]

A letter had been left by the door to Winters mirror maze From Kray to Sven inviting him to tea and talks at Edna's after closing hours of the theme park.

The ogre waits in the Kitchen, his crown and mantle making the light and shadows dance a sorceress jig over the walls. Two chairs have been pulled free from the stacks and a kettle extracted from the packed boxes is heating over the stove, cups, spoons and a box of mixed baked goods waits on the table, well most of a box a few pastries seem to be missing.

[Svelte Sven]

Svelte Sven, the sole Winter Courtier in the Freehold of Sacramento for the time being, quietly entered Edna's. He had not been expecting an invitation from the Autumn King, but it would have been supremely impolite to ignore it. And Sven would tolerate many insults, but 'being rude' was one he avoided on an almost pathological level.

It didn't take too long to find the Ogre. Not only was the kitchen his first guess on where to find the Gristlegrinder, but the quiet noise of the stove attracted his attention. "King Kray." He said, moving to stand behind an empty chair. "I am honored by your invitation. What is the occasion?" Sven's voice was quiet, lacking any strong emotion. His frozen Hedgespun jacket probably made him stand out in stark contrast to the decor.

[Kray]

When Sven entered the kitchen the ogre was for once standing quietly, leaning against the wall by the back door. At rest? thinking something over? or just zoned out of the moment? But he starts to as the darkling speaks, bulbous yellow eyes tracking down to find the winter courtier. "Ah. Sven. Thanks for coming." A large hand waves broadly towards the table set for two. "Uh. Grab a seat, help yourself to a snack." Pushing his bulk off the wall with a grunt he goes over to the stove. "Hm. Not boiling yet. Want Tea when its ready?" Because it was only proper to offer an invited guest something to eat and drink.

Speaking over his shoulder now as he watched the kettle, unnecessary because it would whistle when it was done, old stove kettles did that. "Uh. The occasion." Tapping the circlet of bones and paper flames atop his own head with a thick finger nail and making the shakdws in the room dance out of sync with each tap. "Hm. Unless I'm out of the loop you got a big day coming up. And I figured it would be better if you you were up to date with whats being going on round the freehold. If you aren't already." If he was then this would be a rather short visit. But as freehold notary the ogre was of the mind this fell closest to his area of duties to check on.

[Svelte Sven]

The Darkling didn't take his eyes off of Kray as he took a seat. "Tea sounds very nice, yes." He said from behind folded fingers. Sven didn't reach for any snacks and his eyes narrowed as the Ogre indicated his crown. I suppose there's no denying it. The Whisperwisp sighed slightly and nodded before speaking again. "It would seem that there are important matters to discuss. I would very much appreciate hearing what you have to say, King Kray." He emphasized the Autumn Courtier's official title, though his tone was still even.

[Kray]

Turning to face Sven and lounge against the worktop next to the stove, kettle still well within reach. "Ha. No need to sound to enthusiastic." Closest thing to a jest the ogre could manage with the topic. "Uh. Well then anything particular you got an itch to know?." A big hand comes up as the giant counts of topics. "Hm. Untill we find out other wise the rust is sorted, but tis still a recent event." Next finger. "Uh. There the tunnels and underland construction going on." A slow burn project but Sven had been down there before after all. "Ah. The dog sized, intelligent aggressive rats." He wasn't not overly worried but he had quite the size advantage. "Oh. The dead hunter." The toothy grin spreads. "Ha. The monster nest." Granted a lot of these were linked but breaking it down helped, although the last topic wipes the smiel clear. "Bah. And whatever it is that keeps finding us out and about that tried to kidnap a mortal." It could well be just another mortal, a crazy one but still. Although Kray's own brand of madness leads him to think not. "Hmpf. Or anything else you can think that I might be in the know about." If the list wasn't long enough already.

[Svelte Sven]

Sven exhaled sharply through his nose as he processed everything that Kray had mentioned to him. In other circumstances, it would have sounded like juicy gossip. Now, they were a prelude to several potential headaches. "I suppose it would be best to begin with this attempted kidnapping you mentioned. And then move on to the various monsters you mentioned leading up to that." The tea couldn't be ready soon enough. The fact that he had no fellow Winters to consult with was frustrating in its own right, but that he hadn't heard even an inkling of these apparent threats to the Freehold beforehand made him mildly ashamed as a Whisperwisp. Wasn't it his calling to gather up illicit rumours like this?

[Kray]

As topics go that was a fair one to start. "Uh. Well first time I was at the monster truck Derby, Circe was also there." A quiet whitelisting starts as the kettle finally starts building towards the boil. "Bah. This small slight women comes up, buys the guy behind us food and drink despite claiming not to know him, then all smiles says how much she missed me, how she could never find me frightening, how she felt safe around me." A shudder runs through the massive shoulders. "Ah. People don't miss me Sven, especially those I don't know." And well the giant was kind of hard to confuse with anyone else. "So. If we do know each other its from the time I don't have complete memories of." Arcadia, he meant Arcadia. "Bah. Anyway Circe helps me see her off but after this woman fails to get close to us but before she leaves she grabs the guy behind, the one she said she didn't know and says he is coming with her, then and there, no choice in the matter." That had all but confirmed the paranoid suspicions, a that had started to build, and a more threatening countenance take hold of his frame as he recalls the story. "Bah. Circe and me put a stop to that." For that day anyhow.

An oven mit is forced onto a hand to large for it as he grabs the now boiling kettle and transfer it to the table to pour into a waiting, slightly chipped tea pot. "Uh. Then a bit down the line same women walks up to me, Circe and Sonnie at some charity event in a mall." The mit is thrown with some force back over to the counter once the water has been transferred. "Bah. Same kind of encounter and we saw her off again." Good thing Circe had been there that time to now he thinks on it, if only to stop him from committing murder in public. "Ah. Any questions? or next topic?" A baked good is indiscriminately grabbed from those set out and unceremoniously consumed, keeping the ogres jaw busy for a few moments.

[Svelte Sven]

Sven paused a moment, staring into the middle distance, as he ran through a mental catalogue of paranoid threat analysis. "She could just be a severely mentally ill person." He offered, without any real conviction. He considered it the least-likely explanation. "Or a moderately mentally ill person who knows more about the Lost than she should." With an appreciative nod, he filled one of the cups from the tea pot. The Darkling didn't touch it right away, preferring to let it cool.

"Did she say anything specific? For instance, did she claim to know you from 'that time in Chicago' or was it all vague?" Was she a Hunter? A Loyalist? Just a very lonely woman? There wasn't really enough information to go on at the moment, but it helped to try to fill in the gaps.

"What's this about a 'dead hunter'? As in, deer hunting?" Sven was honestly surprised he hadn't heard more about a dead body before now.

[Kray]

Heavy shoulders heave in a shrug. "Uh. Sure she could be, its possible. She still tried to kidnap a guy." Whatever she was that was still the bottom line. "Ah. And if you aren't afraid of the nearly 8 foot, obese guy with a face of battle scars and a demeanor that says he wishes you harm your either insane or powerful. Or both." Insane mortal or agent of the gentry it still presented something dangerous. A shale of his head follows. "Ah. No specifics. Just going on about how much she missed me and found me comforting." That didn't help clear anything up but when you know for a fact the gentry exist paranoia stops seeming like a crazy reaction to very strange things.

Pouring himself a cup when Sven was done with the teapot. "Ha. No. Not deer. Hunter as in, the kind that hunts us, and everything else that goes bump in the night." Leaning back to recall this one. "Uh. Me. Sonnie and Circe cleared the collapsed tunnel. Past it we found old traps. Trip wires hooked to guns in the wall, explosives that kind of thing." Had Circe disarmed those? He was fairly sure anyway. "Uh. past all that we found a dead body in a side cave, some seventy or so years dead by my reckoning, gun in hand, missing an arm, untouched by roach, rodent or anything else." That still seemed odd. "Ah. Anyway it had a journal on him, in Spanish which the three of us do not speak or read." Bit of a problem. "Uh. So we used the images, coordinates and what words are shard with Italian to work out the bare bones." And now this might get a little awkward. "Uh. At the Monarch meeting last Winter Withers said he would get it translated, problem was he didn't and I had to wrangle into my work load." Not that it had been hard but the principle of the thing. "Uh. The rest of this relates to the monster nest." And to many topics could lead to crossed wires.

[Svelte Sven]

The account of the attempted-kidnapper was disturbing. Sven sincerely hoped she was just a disturbed individual, that would at least mean that regular authorities might be able to deal with the issue. But you didn't need to be a Winter Courtier to be paranoid about potential threats from the Gentry. "I'll keep that all in mind, see if I can't find out more. I'm afraid that this is the kind of problem that doesn't just go away with time. If anyone sees her again, I'd like to know about it. I'm always willing to pry secrets from people of they're a threat to our community." The Darkling would never say he was 'thankful' for his time in Arcadia, but he had at least picked up some useful skills.

Of course it couldn't have just been a game hunter. Sven thought to himself as he finally took a sip of his tea, appreciative for the warm, familiar feeling it gave him as he listened to Kray. On the one hand, it didn't sound like there was an organized group of crazed mortals hunting Lost in the area. The story of the dead man's journal was more intriguing than worrying, but he regretted that he wouldn't be able to assist. "I don't speak Spanish, either." He admitted. "If there is anything else that I can do to assist, I will, but I'm afraid I am not a total replacement for the previous Winter King."

Another sip of tea. "Are the 'monster nest' and rodents of unusual size also connected to the tunnels?" The Whisperwisp had attempted to assist some of the efforts to clear the underground tunnels, but he didn't regret missing the chance to be a part of more expeditions if they had turned into dungeon delves.