A Visitor from Terrasen [Indefinite Hiatus]

The Hospitality of Winter

They continued along the road all afternoon on the hunt of the Fae, Rhys looking for tracks and trying not to expend his power into the world as as people would most certainly sense it. That would be very problematic if the Night Court's presence known in the Winter Court, two and two would be added together and Kallias would be in trouble for recruiting help.

The pair then spent the last 2 hours of their walk in darkness as night fell early in the constant winter days, however Rhys was the Lord of the Night, so he guided them through it with ease. The village he had sensed before, rather remarkably had streetlamps along the road which passed, around a dozen buildings, mainly houses and a larger building that looked a bit like an inn along with some kind of pub-restaurant facility for travellers.

Celaena pressed ahead of him and confidently entered the pub, holding the door for him with a wink before turning to survey the room. It reminded her of so many places she had been before in Erilea, and it eased her aching heart to know there were establishments like this wherever she may end up. A waitress/bartender was wiping down an empty table and there was clearly some kind of cook working away in the back kitchen.

Rhys watched Celaena's face turn to a grin as she took in the relatively small space, and saw the two other groups in there eating. There were a pair of male mercenaries or maybe hunters, and a slightly drunk looking group of friends, made up of two females and a rather short looking male.

The mercenaries were in a corner but the trio sat in a table in the middle of the warm room, Celaena made a beeline for the table between the two groups, beaming at them all as she went. "Hiya!" She plopped down at the table and started chatting to the two females, who fortunately seemed to be lacking conversation. Rhys halted the waitress and dipped his head to quietly ask her for two hot meals and a bottle of wine. She gave him a tight-lipped smile which looked more tired than impolite and went off into the kitchen in the back.

Rhys then settled himself where he could see everyone and gave the two males in the corner a pitying smile as Celaena then turned her assualt of friendliness onto them. The behaviour between Celaena and Rhys made it pretty clear the moment he sat down, that they were not together. At seeing this the two mercanaries suddenly seemed a lot more interesting in talking with her, as did the younger looking female.

"Well I'm Lillian, it's so nice to meet all of you!" She practically gushed and got all 5 of their names, "It's just so cold here, I keep saying we should go somewhere warm next but he just keeps dragging me north!" Celaena rolled her eyes exaggeratedly at Rhys to start her infiltration into their sources of information.

The mercenary who had a rather nasty scar across his cheek gave her a smile, "Well you'd better keep an eye out you two. You both seem nice enough travellers but niceness isn't going to save you from that rogue!" He gave them a hearty nod and took another swig from his glass, the smell of the alcohol burned Rhys's nostrils but he just gave them all a polite smile.

"Oh people keep talking about him!" Celaena leaned forward towards them eagerly. "Have you two met him?"

Sensing his companion was going to need a bit of space to work her charm, Rhys turned to the group of friends and gave them a sympathetic smile as if to apologise for Celaena's loudness.

"So are you three heading north or south?"

He held a polite conversation with them, nothing too interesting but a pleasant small talk to pass the time. Rhys kept half his attention of the other two patrons in the room and his own companion.

Celaena was asking questions behind the guise of a young female who just wanted to know everything about the local area.

"You have met him?! That's so cool! What did he look like? Did he have that wolf with him? I've always wanted a wolf myself, they must be so fluffy!" With an eager smile, which caused Rhys to wonder if he would be able to see through her if she turned her talents on him, Celaena awaited their response.