Wander about looking dismayed

[aestrix]

There is a certain reason why wandering around outside by yourself while looking dismayed and thinking about your troubles might get you a bit more than sore feet, burrs in your shoes, and catharsis.

Sometimes, you might just find a mysterious old woman. It's hard to tell them apart from perfectly ordinary old women, just the way mist curls around her feet or for the way her eyes catch the light a bit too well, or other telling signs of mysteriousness. Those vary, though, and often it's quite a good idea to err on the side of caution with these things, and take care with heeding their advice.

While their advice often is a very bizarre set of instructions, following them perfectly will get you exactly the result the mysterious old woman advertised, without fail. If she advertises a fixed roof if you were to weave a net made of reeds picked only at midnight on a new moon and then drape it over your roof at sunrise, or a full stomach if you filled a large pot with clear water, acorns, and fresh wildflowers and put it over a fire and leave it to simmer for four hours, you will get a fixed roof or a pot filled with delicious stew. If you follow the instructions exactly.

If you don't, you could get something else entirely.

Comments

[light_another_life]

... Also no longer hugging a husband.

She briefly wonders about whether or not that invalidates their marriage, and then decides that actually, right now she doesn't care.

Un-hugging doesn't seem like a thing she wants to do just yet, though she does shift a bit to try and relieve her aching limbs - ow, no, that just made it worse. She hisses in pain, but decides that doing things is too hard and she should instead not. So she doesn't.

[feel_so_free]

Her non-serpent non-husband wakes up and starts making distressed noises.

[light_another_life]

Eep!

Time to un-hug.

... Is there an obvious way to sooth distressed noises, can she help...?

[feel_so_free]

Distressed noises continue. The ex-lindworm is sadly not wearing any helpful 'soothe my distress, here's how' signs.

[light_another_life]

"... Hi...?" she attempts. Does the ex-lindworm have language, it seems like she would, she was speaking while she was a lindworm, but now she is no longer a lindworm so that might not apply.

[feel_so_free]

It's possible that she does have language, but if so, she is too distressed to make use of it. Instead she curls up amid skins and shifts and cries a lot.

[light_another_life]

Imarivet considers doing something that attempts to soothe, then decides that if she had just been a reptile that was forced to eat people for however long, she wouldn't want to be touched by a stranger that just made her rip ten layers of skin off and then whipped her with birch rods and dumped her in lye. Instead, she retrieves one of the sheets from the bed and gently drapes it over the ex-lindworm. Does she seem okay with this?

[feel_so_free]

She snuggles into the sheet and continues crying.

[light_another_life]

... Okay. She - doesn't know how to help with that. Hugs seem an option, but she's thirsty and kind of shakey and covered in bits of lye blood and milk and sort of sticky with half-dried sweat and her family is likely now wondering whether or not she's dead -

"I'll be back in a little bit, okay?" she murmurs, in a soft voice. In case the ex-lindworm can understand her.

[feel_so_free]

Sniffle.

[light_another_life]

She smiles a little at the ex-lindworm, then goes to the door and pokes her head outside. Is anyone there?

[mydarkness]

Taphinieu is sitting against the wall opposite the door, looking tired and nervous and like he may have been sitting there all night. He spots her and smiles. "Oh, good, you're alive."

[light_another_life]

"I am!" she says, smiling properly. "She's, um, also alive."

[mydarkness]

"...Um, 'she'?"

[light_another_life]

"Yep. She. Also the room is an absolute disaster now."

[mydarkness]

"Um," he says, and takes a moment to consider what else he could possibly say to this, and ends up on, "...um?" again, in a slightly more lost tone.

[light_another_life]

"... Sorry, I'm being flippant, um. Could you have someone tell my family that I'm not dead?"

[mydarkness]

"Yes, of course, right away."

He tries to get up, stumbles a bit, tries again, and succeeds.

[light_another_life]

She names her address, then pauses, and adds, "But it's likely my brother's hanging around outside the palace somewhere with a good view of the entrance, slightly below average height, athletic build, black hair, probably in dark clothing because he's allergic to pastel, will mysteriously show up if you say, 'Hey your sister is fine' and then not bat an eyelash about how you happened to know he was there..."

[mydarkness]

"Okay."

[light_another_life]

"Thanks you so much," she says. "I'm going to go curl up and not move for a while."

[mydarkness]

Nod nod. Off goes the prince.

He looks around near the entrance of the palace for someone matching the provided description.

[aestrix]

There doesn't appear to be anyone present.

[mydarkness]

Then he will look harder. There are only so many places that qualify as having a good view of the front entrance; if he systematically checks them all and there is no one of slightly below average height with black hair and an athletic build wearing dark clothing, he can go back to Imarivet and say he didn't see anyone, but he isn't going to give up without properly checking.

[all_too_familiar]

Well, maybe not in good view of the front entrance, but there sure is a person matching that description innocently doing laundry by a nearby stream.

... If one pays attention, one might notice that this is a very good place to hear people walking over the bridge that crosses the stream. And one would need to cross that to get to town. And that sound carries better when there aren't trees blocking the way, such as if instead of trees there is a stream.

Almost like someone has put a lot of thought into this.