dejatheeinnkeeper

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

"I know that now, I think." Deja steps back only to wipe at her eyes with the back of her hands and square her shoulders. No, she was not just someone resigned to be stuck in one place, not anymore. The Lysaran wilderness isn't an ideal place for her sure, but she's there and she'd gone because she had to go and recover what was left of the little family she'd put together under one roof. "You're the first one I've encountered, but I know they're out there, I can't explain how or why, I just...." One of her hands left Agnes's shoulder to gesture vaguely. A gut feeling, a strong one, and she was getting better at listening to it.

"We are, Deja, and you never needed to tuck yourself away in that Inn," the banshee has always been a marvel to Agnes, something which grew to showing on the surface over time as Agnes began to trust the posse of the Inn further. Where once she'd hesitate or freeze, Agnes is returning the hug, squeezing the banshee, and using her free hand to wipe the tears which fell. "Nylathria, Juneau, we're going to get them back and your presence here is indeed vital for that." A banshee's wail was indeed the true deciding factor of what the wreckage produced, but Agnes was certain they were alive along with many others who'd been taken.

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

One by one her little band of misfits made their way back home and Deja looked up at the stars every night and thanked whoever was up there for bringing them all back to her door. First she'd found Agnes, then Nyla, and she'd be lying if she wasn't panicking about the little blonde, but in her heart of hearts, she had known she was alright. Still, relief rolled off of her as she entered the garden, the key to it swinging by a loop that was tied around her waist with a thin lace scarf in place of a belt. "Well I'd certainly hope it was like that when you found it." A knowing smile spread across her lips and she knows Juneau is not one for affection, she's down specifically on her list of people that she knows she can't get touchy feely with. Deja still walks right up to her and reaches down to pick up the rake. "I was hoping you'd show up again." I missed you, I am glad you're here.

who: @dejatheeinnkeeper where: The garden at the back of the Stumble Inn when: A little less than a week after the captured folks make it home notes: let me know if you need changes

Juneau had stuck out several days of the celebration in Haven honoring Aurea’s fight against the Kossith, the excitement in the air compounded by the homecoming of those captured such as herself. Haven still didn’t feel like home to her, and as she returned to the grounds of the Stumble Inn, it didn’t feel like home either. Thus far, she had avoided the room she and Alder had once shared. She had no idea if it was still hers so to speak. She hadn’t necessarily stopped to think about it either, instead heading to the garden she had been working on. The key Deja had given her was long lost, but hopping the fence wasn’t difficult for a novice thief to hop to gain access. 

Where she had expected a dried out, neglected weed patch that would demand she start from square one she had found a mostly tended to garden. It took little guesswork to know that any new saplings and blooms had been installed by Agnes, not quite to Juneau’s specific plan for the garden but still well executed and in balance with the work Juneau had accomplished. While most of the plants managed to remain resilient in the time that they hadn't tended to–a very attractive characteristic of a plant in a world that seemed to threaten to end every several months–there were a few patches of weeds and desiccated, dead plants who couldn’t quite cut it. Juneau worked silently to remove them, finding comfort in the work. Her focus on the garden quieted the memories of the Dreadnaught. 

Before long, she heard a key turning in the lock on the gate, and the squeaking of the gate door swinging open. She turned to look, still crouched on her heels expecting one of two people: Deja or Agnes. When she saw Deja approaching, she cheekily raised her hands as if caught by some sort of authority, the hand rake she’d been using falling with a dull thud beside her. “It was like that when I found it,” she defended herself as if discovered in the middle of some sort of crime. She hoped her unserious greeting would ward off any sort of overly-sentimental reaction from the innkeeper to see her there.

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

They stand there a moment and Deja finds herself matching her breathing to Nyla's, a manual thing she has to do. Her lungs don't work, they haven't worked for years, and yet she remembered being young and stressed and running around the inn after taking on more than she could chew. 'Take a second to breathe, baby.' Is what her mother had always told her, and in the moment she is taking the advice literally. She can't feel any warmth from Nyla's body, but she can feel the weight of it and it is there and it is solid against her and after counting down in her head for sixty seconds, Deja sniffles. Leaning back and her brows furrowing, the rest of the inn falls away, responsibilities could be handled by someone else for the evening, this was more important. "Are you alright? I can have a room ready for you in seconds. You must be so tired." The woman who had taken so much care for her and her business, Deja was hellbent on returning it after all of this time. It was Nyla's turn to rest now.

Nyla isn’t only close to Deja but her acenectors, she remembered when deja’s grandmother had told her she was pregnant. The inn was more than just that to Nyla, it held so many special memories, too many for inaction. More people knew now then back that Nyla was especially savvy with gold, so providing the funds was the least she could have done. Nyla hissed only slightly as the woman smothered her within her hold. “Oh sweetheart, you know I'll haunt the world with you.” Nyla didn’t leave it long till her head was pressed against the others in the hold.

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

Person: @agnesisolda Location: Touchdown Lysara The moment she'd seen the woman, she was in her arms. Mostly on account of her own small stature. And because she was a step away from just burying her face in the bartender's chest and sobbing. "Hi." There's tears in her eyes and because of that, Deja keeps her mouth shut for fear of anything coming out that was akin to a wail. They're happy tears though as she takes a moment to reunite. "We're a long ways from home." Despite that, Deja had left the inn anyways, hellbent on being part of the recovery crew.

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

Person: @nylathriasoulseer Location: They're home ur honor When she'd started repairing the inn, Nyla had been the first familiar face to step forward. Someone who'd known her parents, someone who'd been a patron for years, and even with them gone, Nyla had still shown up for her. She'd shown up for the girl who'd been shot in what was essentially her backyard, the one who'd been left just a spirit. It wasn't just the loss of Juneau in the garden or Agnes behind the bar that'd scared her, it was the idea that pillar of support, that shining beacon of hope that she'd had all these years, was gone, that'd gotten her on the road. She'd lost enough family by blood, she wasn't about to lose those she'd found.

Tears tracked down her cheeks, her arms enveloping the woman who'd always been there for her. "I thought you were gone." She says, voice barely above a whisper.

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

Sitting up, Deja looks more clearly at the woman before her and she can't say that she's not looking for a little guidance herself at this point. Chewing on the inside of her cheek, she looks to the woman with her big eyes and she sits back behind her desk and she exhales. "Mind some company?" Her brow quirks upwards, the fingers of her right hand gently tapping the oak desk's surface as she tried to think of the risk assessment. Every day since everyone had shipped out towards Haven again, Deja had been looking for answers. Answers or some kind of reprieve from the constant feeling that for as full as the inn was, her home was empty.

“My god is not revered within these lands,” Veseniya stated. At least not enough to have any sort of temple or church that she knew of. Mimir had been a popular entity in Iskaldrik, but she had heard few whisperings of the god of wisdom outside of the orthodox sect she had grown up in. The innkeeper’s question was direct and specific, there was little room to talk about it, and Veseniya was bound by the confines of honesty. “I wish to pray to an ancient god of wisdom, to beseech him for guidance or advice.” There! That was the truth of it, no flashy occult shows, no sacrifices, nothing but a plea and prayer. She laid a few additional gold coins down on the desk. Perhaps that would be enough to convince the woman.  

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

Person: @blightedmikhael Location: Travelin' "They're all leaving, aren't they?" Mikhael, like a lot of people she knew, was going towards Haven and if Deja weren't on some kind of personal mission, she'd go with. But their paths will diverge at some point in their journey, he'd go to Haven and she'd....Desperately try to get ahold of this Fyren person. It was for the people of Haven though, for all of them in Lysara, if she could find something in a vision or a dream that would help them all, she'd be really doing something.

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

Go to Haven? Go to Haven? Her? Deja blinks not once, not twice, but three times, before her incredulity turns to realization. It would be the first major event since she'd gone on The Road, since she'd really come into her own with her power. There was help she could offer those in Haven surely, and yet the inn was full of people going that way or leaving that way. "I haven't seen her." Her voice is quiet as she thinks of the blonde amongst the flowers in the garden. Juneau had taken her mama's garden and made it into something beautiful again and it meant more to Deja than she'd ever outwardly admitted to Juneau. It wasn't unlike her to just come and go, but the fact that there'd been complete silence from her.....Deja had a sinking feeling about it. "I can.....I can see the future, you know." Stubbing her cigarette a little on the glass ashtray on her desk, her lips are quirked into a frown. "That's something that I wish I could do for everyone there, if those assholes make it through Haven....." Her lips purse. "I've been trying to find somebody to help me with it in hopes I can see something, Nyla gave me a name of a friend of hers, but I also haven't heard anything from Nyla since Progress Day." That's a big weight in her stomach, a hard rock of anxiety that something could have happened to not just Juneau, but Nyla as well.

The unspeakable owlbear in the room was growing larger by the second and Agnes loathed the feeling entirely. Both women could reflect the grit of ground glass on a good day, and here they both were, scurrying around the abysmal truth of what was set out before them. "I'm heading to Haven in a few days, I'd like for you to join me, but I also would understand if you chose to keep an eye on the Inn; hope Asael and your friend show up. But I will not sit around and allow the Kossith to take anybody else," there was the chilling reminder of what a banshee's wail represented, and the gut-wrenching notion that if Deja were to accompany her to the werewolf city that they'd likely hear such wail.

"What of Juneau?" It was as if something in her mind clicked, recalling how the garden already seemed to shift into an under watered and wilting state again, meaning that the blonde girl had not been present for a few days at most.

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

"There's plenty of churches around these parts." She's still squinting, unsure what to make of the woman before her. There's something stiff about her, not in a bad way, more....Awkward, formal, like she's not used to talking to people. That's fine by her, and yet she often finds these types to be up to something. "What are you praying to?" Deja sighs and it's in exasperated defeat, because this woman and her big eyes were something she couldn't just turn away. Times were tough, she was missing members of her staff, she could use a little prayer herself at this point.

The innkeeper was right, and her pointing it out was precisely what Veseniya had hoped to avoid. It was unsurprisingly that she was unsuccessful, and as a druid attempting to lie her way out of it was not an option. “I am told many of the things I say and do are ominous,” Veseniya replied, aptly skirting around the question by her own standards. She stared back at the woman waiting to see if her efforts had yielded the results she wished for. Her head canted to the side, her eyes narrowing. She certainly wasn’t a witch. “I believe my intention is closer to a prayer,” Veseniya responded, able to do so because, to her, it was the truth. “I have gold,” she said, emptying her fist on the table and sending a handful of gold coins clattering about until they felt at rest on their sides. “And I will not make damage, or leave a mess.” 

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

"You realize how ominous that sounds?" There's a playful lilt to her tone as she looks up from the vast expanse of paperwork before her. The best thing about her job was meeting the patrons, making herself part of whatever grand journey they were on in some small way. The worse part was the paperwork that came with stocking a kitchen and bar and keeping the laundry done and the rooms clean and- "If you're some witch looking to use this site for some ritual, absolutely not." Deja couldn't do that again, the last time she'd let a witch who'd decided to use a room as a workshop for spells, she'd had to redo the front room. She's down several staff members, she can't keep up with something like that.

who: @dejatheeinnkeeper where: Ye Olde Stumble Inn when: Perhaps a week or so into our friends' captivity on Kossith Kruiselines? notes: Let me know if you need anything changed my lil clown

A promise had been made to herself that she would never turn her intention and time back over to the god Mimir. This self-directed vow was made in her earliest days in the Arches, decades before her wandering would end and she would cross back over into the world a century later than she had initially entered the Arches. Of course, Veseniya could never have known what dire times she would rejoin the world under. Now, it felt that breaking that promise to herself was worth its while. 

Veseniya did not know if the other inhabitants of Caer Glas would understand her intentions. Then again, they might not have even cared. Regardless, she sought a location where she would not be disturbed, and a quiet inn at the edge of town presented itself to play the part. She stood nearly as silent as the grave she hoped to disturb at the front desk of the Stumble Inn, ignoring the clattering of hard, wax candles against one another in her pack. She hoped none of the candles had broken. “I am in need of a room,” she stated simply. Then, after another thought. “And a book of matches.”

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

"No." Deja did not smoke inside the establishment, she had rules, she had regulations, she followed them herself because she had to set an example for the rest of the staff. But there in her office, when she was going over paperwork and inventory, making sure everything was done for the evening, she had a cigarette in her hand. And when she was incredibly stressed, and considering the amount of people she should have in the house versus those that were actually there.... "Asael and I were together for a bit at Progress Day, thought he was gonna be hanging around Eterna for a while. But I haven't heard from anyone." Lips pursed and smoke trailing from the end of the long cigarette dangling from her fingers, she looks at Agnes and she knows they're both feeling the same foreboding vibe. "A friend of mine hasn't reached out to say he made it home alright either." Adrian knew better than to ignore her.

starter for @dejatheeinnkeeper.

where: the inn or somewhere private my dear deja is

when:  current timeline

note: my DEJAAAA MY DEJAAAA

A banshee was always at the cynosure of death, trouble and ailment the calling card that would provoke such cursed wail from their lips. Deja was Agnes' first stop to check in, to formulate any sense of what had happened; on a vulnerable, emotional sense, Deja was her family, but on a shallower regard, if Deja sensed trouble, all of Agnes' own would be confirmed. Nylathria was gone, some semblance of a cursed whisper confirmed that it was something unusual. The Kossith had overturned their frangible sense of restoration on Aventia, they had claimed it as theirs entirely, and with that many had been taken. She was certain Nylathria was amongst them, and she had a haunting feeling Freydis had been too. The bracelet they'd been attuned to, she could sense a great deal of pain until it snapped off into nothingness, until she could not feel anything any longer of her friend.

With little time for a composed greeting, Agnes let out a weary sigh of relief, "Gods above, Deja, you're alright." Worry set in as she glanced around the inn, barren and quiet, missing many familiar faces, "Have you spoken to them?" Juneau, Asael, Zeliha; any affiliated with the inn who'd come to be a part of this misfitted family.

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

A blade is something she hadn't ever thought she'd pick up, but the sword she'd picked up from that giant's grave on the road had her curious. Why shouldn't she be a sword lesbian? She could move, her footwork was graceful at least. The thing was balancing the weight of the weapon in her hand. When he offers a correction, Deja nodded and rolled her shoulders back, put more tension there and tried to focus.

Her eyes watched Seraphiel's own sword, how he seemed to use it as an extension of his arm. One moment it was there, the next it was but mist on the moors. Before the road, Deja had watched everyone use magic with wide eyes. She still did now, but it she could now marvel and it sank in that she could do that. "I was out of the house on some errands. I've been trying to do more of that. I went on a bit of a trip a while back," She relaxes her elbow and pivots on her heel to spin around, sword in hand, just getting used to the feeling of it. "You ever get visions? Not just intuition, but like sleepwalking." Maybe if he knew something, she could try to see where half of her little family there at the inn had gone.

who: @dejatheeinnkeeper

where: outside her inn

notes: banshee pals catching up

“Don’t lock your elbows,” he murmured as he guided Deja’s stance with a light touch to her shoulder. “You’re not trying to stop the blow. You’re shaping it.”

His own blade carved a lazy arc through the air, the motion fluid, almost casual—too graceful for how dangerous it was. He twirled it once and let it dissolve into mist, falling back onto a worn stone bench nearby

His gaze slid toward her, unreadable at first, but there was a flicker beneath it—curiosity. Concern, perhaps.

“I stopped by last month,” he said lightly.. “Your staff was hopeless. No idea where you’d gone.”

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

Deja perks up a bit at the sound of that and she makes a mental note. While there were wards on the property, she didn't have anything particular to her room. Before this big six month excursion that had apparently taken no time at all, she hadn't really thought of herself as something magical. Now she knew that she wasn't just a spirit, she was something, could do something aside from just sit at the inn and do maintenance or laundry or bartending. "No, but that's something I should look into, and I'd love to meet him. I've been trying to think of anyone I can contact that might know a bit more."

Nyla wasn’t knowledgeable about dreams in the slightest, her own often confused her and left her feeling lonely the morning after. But the stars spelling out her name must have ment something even if it was internal feelings. “I know an Elvhen who knows a lot about dreams, he’s called Fyren he can be very direct I don’t think he’ll spear your feeling though sweetheart.” Not everyone knew Fyren is a pink dragon and Nyla wasn’t going to be the one to put her friend in danger even if it was Deja by giving that specific piece of information out. “Have you tried any protective wards at stave off the nightmare.” Maybe a dreamcatcher could work?

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

Person: @adrianvoll Location: Outside Dragon's Draught She was giving herself days off now, going into the city not just for supply runs but to just....Go. And that meant she made a list of things she wanted to do and people she needed to check up. It was easy to get into any of the other bars in Eterna, Dragon's Draught wasn't just a bar though, it was classy and so she looks to Adrian beside her as they step through the door, the crowd inside full of all of those that'd flocked to the city for Progress Day. "Adrian Elizabeth," He is pretty, but he's rugged in a way that feels really Iskaran to her, but it's endearing. Like he's a lost puppy with those big brown eyes. "we are going to celebrate a different type of progress. Self progression and sheer resilience in the face of danger." Amen.

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

"Asael, sweetie." Deja was at wits end with the amount of people coming in and out for Progress Day. Was she happy for the business? Absolutely, but keeping up with the demands were proving to be difficult and if the brooms stopped breaking that'd be one less problem. "You can just mend the brooms." She can't get headaches and yet her fingers pinch the bridge of her nose anyways as she takes a deep breath.

who?: @dejatheeinnkeeper , @vuldak-juneau , and/or @agnesisolda where?: the stumble inn when?: progress day

Asael hadn't done this kind of manual labor in a while, but he really didn't think he'd gotten that much stronger. His strength training must've been paying off because this was the fourth broom he'd accidentally broken since the Progress Day crowds began pouring in. Sure, one could blame his bubbling rage that had been stilled years prior when he first started taking odd jobs in the lower city, but Asael would say that his thick forearms essentially turned the brooms that he pushed across the floor into twigs beneath his grip. "Dammit, I need another one," he barked as he threw the splintered broom into a nearby closet with the other cracked failures too weak to be weileded by him. "All these people staying here keep making a mess, so I'm gonna need some stronger brooms if I have to keep cleaning like this. Go find me another."

[dejatheeinnkeeper]

Zeliha Saye, The Flight

She rings like a bell through the night And wouldn't you love to love her? She rules her life like a bird in flight And who will be her lover? @zelihatheflight