63rd Ashan, 718
As Ei'ryl cried out for attention, Tei'serin paused to get a clean diaper on her way to get her daughter. She knew that cry. Ei'ryl needed a diaper change, and she would not be happy with any delays on her mother's part. Tei'serin lay her daughter on her back, and removed her swaddling. The soiled diaper was quick to follow. When that was taken care of, Tei'serin used a warm, wet cloth to clean her daughter up, making sure to go from front to back in order to avoid any risk of infection. While she was waiting for Ei'ryl's skin to dry, she hummed a song to distract her. Finally, Tei'serin put a new diaper on her daughter, and put the dirty one in the pile so she could wash them later.
Once she had finished changing her daughter, it was time to feed her. Tei'serin sang softly while nursing her child. She could hear sounds coming from the kitchen, and realized that her mother and siblings were up and getting breakfast ready. Usually she was the one who did that, so it made for a nice change.
After breakfast, the small family saddled up their horses, and made their way into the village. Tei'serin and the children had school, and Dae'nira wanted to pick up some supplies that they were running low on. Sorin, Keiaris, and Meiarin amused themselves by trying to count how many red flowers they could find on the ride into the village. It was a game that they often played together; picking a single thing to look out for during a ride, and seeing how many they could find. The winner of the game had bragging rights until the next round of the game. Sometimes the adults joined in, but mostly, they left the kids to amuse themselves quietly while they used the ride to talk of more important matters, or to finalize their plans for the trial.
The ride was a pleasant one. Clouds lingered in the sky, but it wasn't raining anymore the way it had been earlier in the season. And it was pleasantly warm, but not yet hot the way it would be later in the season. The village had been bustling with talk of flooding in Bayward over the last few trials, but fortunately, they had experienced none of that here.
When they reached the village, Tei'serin handed her daughter over to her mother. Then she and her siblings turned towards the school where the other children would be starting to gather. When they arrived at the school, they were shocked to find that no one else had arrived yet. Now that Ei'ryl was sleeping a little later in the mornings, Tei'serin was able to leave the cottage later. She was usually the first to arrive, but the kids almost always started trickling in soon after she did. This morning they had taken their time on the ride, enjoying the weather, and each other's company. It wasn't much of a delay, but Tei'serin had expected a few of the students to be waiting for her.
As they tied up their horses so that they could graze while school was in session, Jared ran up to them, stopping just far enough not to spook the horses. Tei'serin tensed, eying the man warily. She knew that he didn't have any choice in following Thorin's orders...but that didn't mean that she trusted him, or was happy to see the man. Seeing him outside the tavern he worked in almost always meant trouble for her.
"Jared?" she questioned cautiously.
"I'm glad you're here. I know school's going to start soon, but there's trouble. We could really use your help."
"What kind of trouble?"
"We have strangers in the village square. Not travelers." he added quickly before Tei'serin could question his concern over new people in the village.
"They're refugees...or at least they say they are. I wasn't the first person to find them, so I may be missing part of the story. But from what I've heard, these people lived in a small village just outside Lysoria. Their village was attacked and destroyed, and these people are apparently the ones who made it out alive."
"Apparently...?"
Jared nodded.
"Normally I wouldn't question something like that. I mean...who would make something like that up? And, well...I've seen enough stuff like that first hand to know that it happens."
By which, Tei'serin knew that Jared was referring to the fact that he had seen raids of a similar sort happen before...from the prospective of being one of the ones doing the raiding. So she nodded, and gestured for him to continue.
"But their stories just don't add up. Some of them say that they are the only ones who made it out alive, but others claim that there are more people who escaped out there. And none of them seem to want to tell us who attacked them, or why."
Tei'serin considered Jared's words carefully.
"They might not know, Jared." she said slowly.
"That's true enough. But why not tell us that then, rather than look away, and mumble something unintelligible, or refuse to answer at all?"
Why not indeed? But there were more pressing matters at hand.
"If they are refugees from a village that was destroyed, then surely there must be injured among them?"
Jared nodded.
"The doctor's with them now, doing what he can. But I'm sure that he could use your help if you're offering it." he said.
