Quoted By:
Marea Orlios, your mother, peeks out from the storeroom curtain at the slave’s bell ringing. She gasps and rushes out, kissing you on both cheeks and squeezing you in a tight hug before unleashing the torrent of words you’ve come to expect of her.
“No letters, no word! You were taught to write, yes? Where have you been? You have lost weight! Who are these?” your mother abruptly shifts her attentions to your companions. She pays only cursory greetings to Harlor and Noren. She has seen them before if only in passing. Her focus in more upon Joslyn and Ellyn. “And I know I taught you better manners, did I not? Introduce them.”
“Lady Ellyn Duntreow and Lady Joslyn Meadows. I found them in the Stepstones. The girl is to be ransomed. Ellyn is my paramour,” you explain as if discussing. Your mother can barely contain her excitement and immediately begins fawning over Ellyn. The Meadows girl with her simple hair and timid disposition is all but ignored. Or it is just that you have never brought a woman home before. Your last flame was wary of the attention. Ellyn fumbles a curtsey at the beginning of the fawning, made all the more awkward by the unfamiliar length of her garb and your mother insisting on kissing her cheeks. Mother continues in a stream of Tyroshi before you talk over her to remind Ellyn does not speak it.
“No? She must learn. Does she not want to? The poor girl is so shy! Is she not pleased by you? Do you not give her gifts? No jewels. I like her hair,” mother says.
She repeats the last in the common tongue of the west to Ellyn’s thanks. Her accent is heavy, and she would likely miss some nuances is speech, but you think they can at least communicate. Mother seems to think the same and begins her fawning anew.
“Might we not rest before you nag her for her entire life story? Where is everyone else?” you ask.
“Am I not enough for my sweet little boy?” she pouts.
“Of course you are. But where are they?” you repeat.
“Your father is… out,” Mother vaguely waves. “I do not know what he does with his days. He will be back for supper. Varelio is with him. And the others…” she brightly excuses herself from Ellyn to step over to the door leading to the backyard gardens and yells unceremoniously for the others to join her.
