Lost.

Writers: Leigh M-F.
Date Posted: 14th December 2016

Characters: Nohria
Description: The snare has tightened.
Location: Amber Hills Hold
Date: month 9, day 1 of Turn 8
Notes: Mentioned: Corran, Serra and Neja (NPCs), Goulan (ONPC), Lord Zathris, Lady Benani, Dannarr (NPC).

Nohria was ruined. There was no way around that simple fact. She had been ever since she had met Corran's parents, and learned more about where he came from, and what sort of people they were, and the sort of person he was.

She had come to like Neja and Serra. And she had truly and hopelessly fallen in love with Corran. She no longer simply wanted him, or respected his prowess as a fighter; she liked him, _loved_ him, and it was killing her slowly.

She pretended it wasn't. She did her chores, succeeded in luring away three more women (including the mother who still hadn't bonded with her baby), scattered propaganda some nights, and kept Goulan in the loop while dodging suspicion as best she could. But when the internal conflict became too much -usually twice a month-, Nohria went to the tavern for some beer. A bad idea, of course; she could well become an addict and she knew it. But maybe that could be a good thing. Maybe Goulan would send her back to the bandits to be sobered up, and she could reassure herself that she was still one of them. Still the herbalist, the woman's specialty healer who was quite capable with knives and keeping people in line.

Still free.

Dannarr would have told her up front that a man wasn't worth losing herself over. But Dannarr was no longer among the living. Shortly after her imprisonment, Nohria had put on her stealth gear, thrown a specially-made herbal dust into the two night guards' faces to make them fall asleep, and delivered poison to her fellow bandit. She was hoping she was just being overly cautious and Dannarr wouldn't need to use it. Its base was the herbal mix Nohria's grandmother had used on her husband, but Nohria had added some other things that would make Dannarr fall asleep before her heart stopped, so she wouldn't suffer as she died.

Dannarr might have been all right despite being jailed, yet she had taken the poison a mere four days later because she feared cracking under questioning; feared the guards would try to brutalize her to get what they wanted. But surely Lord Zathris and Lady Benani would never condone such a thing. They were incompetent, and dangerously stupid in Zathris' case, and blind in Benani's, but outright cruel? More criminal than the criminals she ran with? No, Nohria didn't believe that. Ancients, she missed her sister in arms. She missed all of them.

So Nohria drank for Dannarr, for the bandits, for herself. She drank to drive back the inevitable decision she just knew was hovering on the horizon and coming closer with every hour. Then, in the mornings, she gave herself a double-dose of her own hangover cure, and repeated the cycle until stress drove her back to the tavern.

Maybe something would change and untangle her from this mess, and set her back on course. But Nohria decided not to count on that. She might not like it if it actually happened.

Last updated on the December 23rd 2016

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Lost.