Taalia Giovanni

Taalia had listened to the tale of past tragedy and heroics, a moment of self-reflection understanding that one day, in the distant future, her life would be a similar little tale. It was easy to lose oneself to self-pity and to think that all the world's bad fortune was arrayed against them, but when one considered the historical ebb and flow of calamity and windfall, they could gain strength knowing that out there, somewhere past or present, were those who had it worse and yet endured and perservered.

It also presented a new threat to her attention: orcs.

Taalia had never really had many dealings with the greenskins, though she was not unfamiliar with them. There had been a fair share of the brutes toiling beneath the whips of the Skaven, where their fortitude and simplemindedness made them good workers, but their irresistible thirst for a fight often saw them leading short-lived, but brutally violent revolts. Likewise, in Tilea, they had not been a particularly noticeable threat, at least in her region of the land where pirates, mutants and brigands were the main culprits of menace and destitution. However, she had heard tales from those regions closer and more adjacent to the mountains, beautiful little vestiges that had to be tough and hardy against the occassional orcish raid spearing out from the jagged tops of the snow-capped crags where the greenskins built their ramshackle homes. The shepardess didn't want to think of the anxiety such a constant menace would pose to her mental well-being, for after escaping slavery she had found enough to worry about in the rearing of her sheep and pigs and shielding that which she held dear from trolls and pirates. But orcs too?

Hmmm. She recalled the passing moment when they sailed over the mountains that separated Tilea from Bretonnia, where they had first seen Sir Briant in his desperate moments, and Taalia had put a lead shot right through the forehead of a particularly sizeable orc that had been threatening the knight. That is how one confronted such beasts; with heart, faith, steel and gunpowder. She had demonstrated as such once again during the skirmish with the goblin wolfriders, the image of the blunderbuss raking their ranks still fresh in her mind.

And so, with the founding tales of the land still fresh in her mind, Taalia took first watch among the lightly wooded forest that surrounded the bleak and empty castle ruins perched above them like some silent icon of a bygone age. She still remembered the last derelict home besides which she had camped, or at least one that had seemed empty at the time. The weapon the spirit had dropped was still in her possession, and as a precaution to their current proximity to another potential hotspot of spirits the shepardess had seen fit to add its scabbard to her belt in the unlikely event that its use was necessary. Better to have and not need, than need and not have, after all.

Speaking of necessities...

Taalia smirked to herself when she caught a glimpse of Briant and Bella through a brief moment of visibility through the entrance to the tent. The shepardess had received the secret words from her friend, uttered in hushed and excited whispers one might expect from a giggly school-girl, as her Tilean companion ad spoken so highly of their knightly escort. He was so handsome. He was so brave. He had a beating, warm hearth beneath the muscle of his body and the steel of his armor. His gallantry and skill must be exceptional, for he had fought off the two remaining orcs, slain them and scaled down the mountain, after all. Taalia pondered briefly on the twists and turns life took, and it made her smile thinking that perhaps Bella's rotten luck with her parents, only to meet her and travel through Bretonnia, could possibly lead to her hand in hand with a famed knight of the realm.

But she still didn't care for that thin moustache. Grow a neat beard or go clean-shaven, Taalia thought.

Turing back to peer at the soft fall of snow curtaining through the sparse woods in which they camped, Taalia exhaled a plume of vapor in the chilly night air, but nevertheless found herself warm and content. Until, that is, she noticed Milo's absence.

Wishing to draw her cat up onto her lap and absentmindedly pet him, the shepardess pivoted her head about, worry soon gnawing at her nerves as the feline's vacancy grew more apparent. Standing up, peering about, it didn't take Taalia long to find the little catpaw tracks leading...towards the derelict ruins.

"Damnit Milo!" Taalia hissed under her breath.

Looking back at the end, a pang of guilt knotting up in her about needing to briefly lead or disrupt the budding affection, Taalia knew that she had to do the latter, even minimally. She was on post as lookout - she couldn't abandon it without warning. What if something came wandering through the woods at such an opportune time, however unlikely?

Exhaling, leaning forward a little as if her physical movements would soften her intrusion, Taalia spoke gently towards the tend, her tone clearly sculpted as if to believe only Briant would be awake and that Bella would be asleep.

"Sir Briant - Milo had just gotten lost, but I see his tracks; I will return in a few minutes once I retrieve him!"

There. That was enough. She'd done her part.

Turning back and looking at the trail before her, Taalia inhaled and trudged forward, her boots pressing into the snow as she went after her cat.