The Beorning Prisoner

Rauwulf is sitting uncomfortable on the floor with his arms hanging from shackles. His torso leans forward as if he is unable to keep it erect. Blood sweat and tears streak his exhausted face.

You see the torch before anything else and hear the click of hard boots on the stairs. Then a long arm draped in black, and then the pale white face of the torch bearer. His looks around the dungeon with distate down his thin nose. His dark pink eyes glint in the orange light from the torch, which he waves around until he spies the oddly attired man chained in the corner. "Well well," he says in his reedy voice. "This is the prisoner I have heard so much about."

Rauwulf stirs at the sound of the strangers voice. He snorts as he becomes half-conscious. His arms twitch spasmadically, rattling the chains that hold him needlessly where he sits.

Xirith gingerly steps over the foul remains of some person, moving close. The light from the torch is bright enough to pain eyes made sensitive from continued darkness. "And what have we here?" the albino asks pointedly. "Some sort of wild man?" He nudges Rauwulf with a boot. "What are you, sirrah, and where do you come from?"

Rauwulf raises his head and squints tightly, trying to look at the face behind the torch which speaks to him. Red strands of hair which use to be thick and healthy now clump together, glued by dried blood to the skin of his face. "I am... Rauwulf," he mumbles dogedly through chapped and broken lips. "Forest child... of Araw." His tone is weary but proud.

Dragor opens the door far above and descends the stairs to darkness

Dragor has arrived.

Dragor comes down into his daily realm, happily thinking about the days work..

Dragor gets to the bottom of the steps and looks about, he looks questioningly at the situation before speaking.

Dragor looks the man with the torch over and then says,"Who er you?

Xirith puzzles over this response for a moment, his pale face a question mark. But then he wheels about, hearing the man behind him for the first time. "Who goes there?" he asks in a hissing tone.

Dragor frowns at this man's tone and barks back,'I asked first, ew the hell er you?

Xirith smiles thinly at the guard. "Seems we have the same question," he begins and steps towards the man. "I am Xirith," he says calmly, dipping his head in a slight bow. "I did not mean to interfere with your demanding work," he continues patronizingly.

Dragor squints at this man suspicously standing where he is at the foot of the stairs,"Ew let you in ere? King's men only in ere, and you don look like one of them..

The albino looks over the guard with his dark pink eyes, appraising the man. His hand slips into a pocket and comes up with a thin silver dime. He steps towards the guard and slyly slips the coin into the man's hand. "I am just curious about the prisoner. Tis nothing to concern yourself with. He shall not even be harmed." He smiles darkly. "Well, perhaps he won't be harmed. But I just wanted to see him for myself. Might I have but a few moments more with him?" He pauses and says coldly, "Alone."

Dragor looks down into his palm and smlie slowly spreading across his face, he looks up to the ceiling for a second, purses his lips then speaks,"Okay, you can speak wit him, but I gots to be ere.. Xirith you said your name is?

Xirith nods and smiles broadly. "Aye, Xirith. Servant of the powers to the South," he says with dark emphasis. "Now," he says wheeling about and ignoring the guard, "where were we? Ah yes," he says, bending down so the light from the torch is in the face of the prisoner. "You are a child of the forest. How...quaint." He stands back up, a finger at his lips. "And which forest would this be?"

Dragor puts the dime away and moves towards his stoole and table where various instruments of torture are laid out, he grabs one and begins to polish the blade on it, watching casually as the man begins to question the prisoner..

Rauwulf begins to rise slowly on trembling legs. Even slumped and ragged as he is before Xirith, the northlander's size denotes a powerful strength that is rare even among his kind. He stares through the torch with a calm ferocity that would intimidate most men on the battlefield. "My home is the Anduin," he rasps through heavy breath.

The albino's cold white face seems intimidated not in the slightest. "Oh, the Anduin is it. Well." His booted foot drifts until it is on top of the shackled foot of the Beorning. He presses down on it slightly with his heel, just enough to cause pain. "And what are you doing so far from home, child of the forest?" His voice oozes condescension.

Such slight pain does not seem to affect the Northman or he simply cannot feel it for the other pain he suffers. "I have come," he seethes with what could be a recently acquired sarcasm, for he does not do it well, "to raze Riavod."

Dragor looks up from his polishing to laugh out loud at the man,"E is a one man army e is..

The pressure from the albino's boot gets sharper. "Spying perhaps?" His pink eyes glint like those of a serpant. Then, at the jest of the prisoner, he suddenly laughs. "Oh, the woodman has wit, does he?" He lifts his boot and laughs louder. It echoes off the grim stone walls and shows his sharp teeth. "Well," he says leaning down. "I appreciate a jest as well as the next man but..." He brings the torch around so that it is inches from the Beorning's skin. "I find no humor in your situation, my friend. Now I suggest you talk."

Rauwulf's teeth clench as a rivulet of sweat flows down his temple and winds across the rugged features of his face and through the obstacles of strewn hair to drip from the side of his jaw. "I am no spy," he retorts, seemingly awakened further by the heat of the torch.

The flame of the torch is reflected in the deep recesses of Xirith's irises, making them seem like tiny fireplaces. "Then what are you?" the albino hisses. "I find it hard to believe you just wandered here on accident." He stands up and removes the torch from Rauwulf's face. He produces a hankerchief and wipes his own face, sweaty itself from the torch's heat.

Rauwulf's energy begins to return as if fuelled by anger and frustration. "I have told my reasons," the northlander growls defiantly as his voice raises beyond a murmer, cracking as if not having spoken thus for days. "You are you that I must speak again?"

Xirith says with a sneer, "Who am I? Who am I? Am I now being questioned now?" He kicks the prisoner hard in the side. "I will ask. You will answer. Is that clear? I care not if you have told this tale a hundred times." His voice has raised to a shout. Then he suddenly stops and says softly with a cold smile, "Now then, this doesn't have to be difficult. In fact, perhaps if you indulge me, I shall have you released." He looks behind him to the guard and shakes his head slightly as if to say, Don't worry, it will never happen.

Dragor smirks and polishes his device nodding at the man knowingly then speaking to the prisoner,"Aye, it's possible to escape if'n the money is good.. maybe e'll buy yer freedom..

Rauwulf's upper lip curls in hatred at Xirith after the albino's foot strikes the solidness of his ribs. A larger than average canine tooth protrudes menacingly among the set of white teeth. The anduiner emits a low, gutteral growl, perfect mimicry of a large predatory cat.

Another prisoner groans at the shouting, but one glare and a swift kick from Xirith shuts him up fast. The tall albino turns back to Rauwulf and sighs. "I tire of your theatrics, child of the forest," he says in a bored tone. "If you will not speak, I have no choice but to recommend that you rot away in here forever like the rest of these poor, poor souls." He glances around, then cackles. The sound is cruel and hard.

Rauwulf now smiles thinly at Xirith. He chuckles futily through his nostrils, as though there is no fear left within him. "You have not asked me any worthy questions," he says daringly. His face suddenly turns darkly serious as he stares with wild eyes at Xirith from beneath his brow. A slight expression of madness and cruel savageness passes over his face like the shadow of an unseen spectre come to remove the last vestiges of innocence left in the young man's soul. "My answers would bore you to tears."

Xirith is either oblivious or else--more likely--uncaring of the man's internal struggles. He says simply, "I only seek the truth, boring or not." He looks for a clean wall to lean against, and finding none, he scowls and drapes his hankerchief over his hand and then leans on the wall closest to him. "I did ask you your purpose in these lands," he says calmly as if addressing a child. "Perhaps that is a worthy question," he says acidly.

Rauwulf looks away and strains in futility at his chains in a display of restlessness and frustration rather than any attempt at escape. The spikes which anchor the northman's chains have been loosened and a film of chalky white dust covers a portion of their metal where they have been retracted from the stone in some violent manner. Rauwulf gives in to Xirith's questioning, as if it will help him return to the lands he obviously desires to return to. "I followed the merchant caravan," he says calmly and quietly, "from Esgaroth."

Xirith nods his head, pleased. "Now we are getting somewhere. And why did you do this?" His eyes glint. "Did you come here to spy?" He coughs, the chill of the room finally settling on him.

Rauwulf's brow clenches in mistrust. His eyes dart in the direction of the woman that lays unconscious beside him. The northman pauses as if he decides whether it would be to his benefit to answer. Finaly he speaks turning his head toward the small frame of the woman. "For her," he says softly and in despair.

Xirith looks to the unconscious woman beside the prisoner and just for a moment, there is a flicker of humanity on his face and in his eyes. The cold demeanor fades for the briefest of instants and the albino looks like a pasty, forlorn creature. "I see," he says softly. His eyes dart away as if recalling something lost. But then the mask comes right back up and he shrugs it off. "See where love can lead you, child of the woods." He adjusts his dark cloak. "You shall die far from home in a prison for your troubles." He whirls about on his heel and starts ascending the steps. "I will bid you goodnight, then, and farewell. For I doubt we shall meet again." His voice is as cold as snow. He carries the torch up the stairs with him, and soon the dungeon is again in damp darkness.