Characters:RavenLogs/AA Mom

At last, dutifully and less than enthusiastically, Raven goes in search of her mother.

The inn stands where she expects it. Curiously, it's quite busy, with people sitting in the courtyard, under the scrubby trees. There are more horses than usual, and she sees her mother's scullery-maid fetching water from the well.

Raven stops short at the sight, and mutters, "Huh." Busy, she wasn't expecting - not this busy, anyway. It suggests that things have changed around here, which doesn't make her want to go inside any more than she did before. At least the yard is the same - and the scullery-maid, who might just know what's going on.

She changes direction slightly, heading for the well and the maid instead of the front door. "Need help with that bucket?" she asks casually when she's in speaking range.

The girl smiles and looks up, ready to flirt with the handsome sailor offering her assistance. "That depen-" She stops for a second, recognizing Raven. She drops the bucket and screams, and runs back in the kitchen door, yelling about "ghosts in broad daylight!" Apparently the broad daylight is the most offensive part of Raven's re-appearance.

Raven watches her go, trying not to laugh. Thanks to the Admiral's warning, she'd kind of expected to be thought dead - but a ghost with nothing better to do than offer to help with chores? Chores it probably couldn't do anyway, being a ghost and all? It's too absurd to not be funny.

She picks up the bucket - no point in getting the girl into unnecessary trouble after scaring her - and strolls towards the kitchen door. If no one intercepts her before she gets there, she'll enter.

Before Raven gets to the door, it opens and her mother is standing there. She's somewhat more care-worn and somewhat more disheveled than Raven remembers her. She's holding a wicked looking butcher knife, the one she always kept sharp but never used on food. Her eyes are wild, and she also takes a second to register the scene.

She lowers the knife and steps forward, grabbing the bucket. She spits off to the side, almost hitting a sparrow that hops nimbly away.

"Should've figured. Well, then. And where've you been?"

She doesn't seem to have changed much, other than externally.

Relieved of the bucket, Raven crosses her arms and regards her mother with irritation. "Put that away before you hurt yourself, you demented woman." There are legions of teenagers somewhere that would envy the level of scorn in her voice. "I been out to sea, same as always, just this time something bad went down. Figured I'd come tell you I ain't dead, now we're back."

The bucket is slopped back at Raven's chest. "Fine, you want to fetch and carry, you know where the basin is. You'd best work up a better tale than 'something bad' if'n you're going to show up in Amber now. We ain't seen a ship come in to harbor since the Sundering, less'n we sent it out since then."

She turns and opens the door, with a smile on her face. "Your return is like to make a lot of remarried widows a damn sight nervous." It's not a nice smile.

"Who said I wanted to fetch and carry?" Raven shoots back. "Don't see any point in leaving the bucket there, that's all." She takes it anyway. "And 'something bad' sounds better than 'we got lost', don't it? That's what the truth amounts to. This 'sundering' thing people keep talking about is what knocked us clean off the charts, best as I can tell so far, and we ain't been anywhere near to home until a few days ago."

She eyes the smile suspiciously. "What do you care about widows, married or not? Or is that why you actually got customers today?"

"I don't care none, but it'll make people crazier. People are selling out and moving on. I always get a full house just before a fleet leaves for the new place."

She looks around the kitchen from the door and indicates that the serving maids need to get back to work. It's an economical gesture, but the girls are clear on her meaning.

"I'll go, too. Soon. I have some friends who are making me money in Xanadu. I should be well off when I get there."

Raven snorts as she heads for the basin. "Should've figured you'd have it all sorted for yourself by now. We'll be headed out with the fleet when it goes. And before you start - it ain't my idea, it's orders. Made captain, by the way," she adds, casually. "Field promotion. Admiral says it ought to stick. Not that I expect you care too much."

"Hmf. Captain? Actually quite useful. We pay a third or more of our profits to Captains." Scarlett looks around, and lowers her voice. "You should be more circumspect. Everyone will want a piece of you if you let'em know."

She leans in to her daughter. "I could help you, find you some valuable cargo to take to Xanadu. Small, easily moved items. I have connections."

"I ain't interested, Mother." Raven shakes her head, scowling. "For one, that sounds like you'd be aiming to take a cut, and I ain't about to start giving you money that'd be rightfully mine _now_. And for two, even if I was inclined, I got enough to deal with right now, what with just getting back today after all this time, and all the changes, and us leaving again in two days. Not to mention having orders to go talk to the bloody King when we get to the new place."

She scowls. "Suit yourself. I'm just trying to help you get ahead." She looks back at the common room. "Talking to the King, are you? Just make sure you do it in a public place. Them royals can't keep it in their pants."

"Good advice for a daughter," Raven answers shortly. "Don't imagine it'll be a problem for me. Had one on the Vale for a few days, and the worst he did was piss me off." She snorts and follows the other woman's gaze. "You two would have got on famously. Don't expect I get to say where the King wants to talk to me, anyway. Why the sudden concern? One of the girls get a fat belly from one while I was gone?"

Scarlett snorts. "Before your time, child. We had proper Royals in those days, the kind if you crossed, you'd end up floating to the surface six weeks later. You know about Prince Gerard, don't you? He and his tore up every every tavern and whorehouse in the quarter when them idiot Bellums made fun of his drink." She shakes her head. "He'll never get out of that chair, now, and Amber's poorer for it."

"Aye, I heard. Damned shame, that." Raven shakes her head, frowning.

"I got a bit of the story of what happened from that Marius

character, the one that's apparently a Royal I ain't never heard of before I got stuck with him in Gateway. Enough to make heads and tails of what went on, anyway." With a smirk, she adds, "Don't figure he's one of your 'proper Royals'. That must've been well before my time, or I would've heard something before now. Those girls never were much bothered by telling me things when you weren't around."

Scarlett's eyes dart around the room, and she gives a passing maid a swat on the back of the head to get her to pay attention to the crowd.

"Yeah, after the King came back, he left, and after he died, we only had Gerard, in his chair, and a pack of children nobody had heard of. His, Prince Eric's, Prince Bleys', even Prince Random, who ended up King. They was all laws and councils and not getting anything done. The go out drinking at The Pigeon and think they're radical. Good riddance.

"In my day, when the fleet came in, you knew about it."

"From what I was told, there ain't much fleet left to come in now. Is there something you're trying to tell me?" Raven regards her mother expectantly. "You're being nice enough, for you; there must be something on your mind."

Scarlett has never let her face fail "You've not been annoying me these last six years. I reckon you'll catch up, sooner or later." She turns and, without looking, grabs an urchin who was attempting to slide past her from the kitchen to the yard. She turns the boy around and pushes him back towards the common room, without speaking.

"I done raised you. May not have been the best raising you could've had, but it's done. I ain't gonna slap you on the ass and tell you to clean out the firepit anymore, so what's the--"

Scarlett's head snaps back towards the common room and she heads into it at a quick march, heading towards the fight that's just broken out. She's switched out the knife for some sort of truncheon. Some landsman is getting the tar beat out of him by a sailor. If she still has the same rules, she'll throw them both out to fight in the street.

Raven is hard on her heels. She's helped throw a few other battles out, on other visits - it's a familiar territory, one that doesn't involve her mother being oddly nice and doesn't involve being squealed at by maids. Besides which, if that sailor is one of hers, she'll have to deal with it anyway. Better now than later.

She'll let Scarlett take the lead for the moment.

Scarlett doesn't pause as she enters, hitting a sailor behind his knee with her truncheon. He drops the knife he'd been holding and falls, clutching his leg. On the far side of the room, two men are fighting, a local and a sailor. From the shouting, it's about money, not about girls.

"Enough!" shouts Scarlett, using her truncheon to try to beat her way into the circle of shouting men that is currently surrounding the combatants. The room could erupt if the victim has friends. The sailor certainly does.

Shouting first, then breaking heads. "HEY!" Raven bellows, in an authoritative voice much more fit for the deck of a ship. "Sailors, drop weapons and toe the line! The rest of you lot, sit down and shut up!"

If this doesn't stop things, she starts grabbing shirts and shoving people out of the way forcibly.

It starts so well. Raven's sailor, Fudge, who was in the middle of it, drops the tankard he was going to hit the local with. So

It would've continued going quite well if the local hadn't used that as an opportunity to drive a hard left to his gut.

The room erupts and Scarlett goes in swinging with the truncheon. It's remarkably efficient. She swings and her girls pull the people off the ground and throw them out the door. It doesn't seem like they care much if they get hurt or hurt anyone once they hit the paving stones.

Raven sighs and shrugs slightly. It had been worth a try.

She returns to making her way across the room, heading straight for the original fight with an eye towards breaking it up or throwing it out. Anyone that gets in her way gets either a fist or something off the nearest table to the head. Just not furniture - she had to pay for the chairs she broke last time.

Raven finds Fudge curled up in a ball, clutching his belly. His assailant is nowhere to be seen, having either fled or been thrown out of the tavern. Clean up is quick, the common room is soon empty, and there doesn't seem to be a fight going on in the street. Scarlett picks up the gambling money from the floor, including several pouches. "That'll pay for the loss of revenue they caused tonight."

The tavern looks much more like Raven remembers it, empty. The same towheaded child sticks his head out from behind a pillar and reaches for a half-loaf of abandoned bread. Scarlett reaches behind her and swats him.

"Max, I already told you to go to bed!" The head disappears, along with the bread.

She turns back to Raven. "Your brother."

There's an extended pause. "Well," Raven says finally. "You was busy while I was gone, weren't you. I got all sorts of questions now, and here I was thinking we'd just about run out of things to talk about again. Let's start with the easy one. Full brother, or do we get to start a whole _new_ game of who-or-what-did-Mother-sleep-with?"

She laughs. "It's not your business who I sleep with, as it ain't mine what mistakes you make now. But I ain't see your father in many a year. It's not like a woman who does what I do keeps the same looks as she had before she had whelps."

Which turns out not to be very true. While Scarlett is a bit unkempt and dirty from the fight, she hardly looks any older than when Raven was wearing the clothes Max had on.

"Heh." Raven shakes her head. "Wouldn't be my business if you'd ever given me a straight answer. Are you really suprised I had to ask? And I ain't playing that game." She picks up a half-full mug and inspects its contents as she speaks. When she realizes it's the same stuff her mother always serves, she sets it back down again. "You're the same as you always were, save for this being halfway nice to me thing. And the kid. This one _actually_ a boy?"

She nods. "Far as you or anybody else knows, yes." Scarlett starts gathering up the mugs letting the dregs spill onto the floor.

Raven is clearly less than enthusiastic about that answer, but she drops the subject. "What was it you were saying when the fight started? Then I'll get out of your hair, since you seem to want to wash your hands of me."

She snorts. "Don't overrate yourself, Captain. Saying about what? I was mostly interested in keeping them idiots from killin' Shatter, who is also an idiot."

"A few of my lot were in that mess," Raven points out. "Not that I mean to argue about some of them being idiots. We was talking about why you're being nice, for you, to me."

"I'll take your lot's money same as anyone's. You going to pay the bill for the damage they done?" Scarlett gestures to the broken furniture. There were always bills sent out after damage like that, although Raven has no idea if they were ever paid.

"As to me and you, What do you expect, me to tell you to comb your hair and stand up straight? You spent years tellin' me you didn't want no mothering and that was fine with me, I wasn't any good at it. I recon any child who makes Captain in the Amber Navy has be raised well enough. Anyroad, I recon you'll tell me why you came here soon enough."

Raven regards her in silence for a moment, and then laughs. "And yet you had another one," she says drily. "Be interesting to see how this one turns out. I might pay, assuming it's reasonable. I saw the fight, same as you; I ain't going to consider anything I don't think one of mine broke. Got to find out from the Navy if that's mine to pay anyway, since I don't rightly know. As for why I'm here..." She shrugs. "It's the dutiful thing. I been gone, now I ain't; I'm supposed to check in on relatives and the like before they ship me off somewhere else. It'd look funny otherwise, wouldn't it? And I got enough other stuff going on without drawing attention to funny things I do."

Her mother snorts, then looks her up and down. "Sounds like you need a wife, my girl. If you're expecting to be a dutiful child now, you ought to be more open to my ideas, or else you should dutifully set up your mother in her tired old age."

She pauses. "Did they give you all your back pay?"

"Started the ball rolling on that," Raven answers, briefly. "And I only said it had to look dutiful. Some of your ideas ain't as hot as you think, and I thought you said you _was_ set up. You ain't taken it into your head that we got rich out wandering around, have you? 'Cause we didn't. I can get you and the kid on the Navy's list for moving, however long that'll take."

She scowls. "My ideas is fine. Did fine by you, they did. And you're richer than you think, if you've got five years back pay coming. They paid it all out to the Army that went to Chaos. We all made lots of money while that lasted.

"I'll take that Navy berth for moving. I can't afford to pay to get a priority on the private ships."

"I'll get your names on the list. Don't know how long it'll take or what it'll be like or anything." She snorts. "You probably got a better idea than I do on that kind of thing right now than I do, right? Seeing as how you've been here the whole time. Don't imagine you'll get priority just because I just got back, though."

Scarlett shrugs. "Navy berths are better than others. They'd rather get them there in one piece than deal with the paperwork of losing someone. If you're sailing to Xanadu, expect your ship to be full to the waterline. From what I hear, expect half your sailors to decide they've had enough of the sea when you get there, too."

She looks around. "It's supposed to have whatever it was this place lost when the King died." She laughs, mirthlessly. "That helped my business, it did. All of the sudden most places were dumps."

"The admiral mentioned something about that." Raven shrugs. "I'll find out in a few days, I guess. I ain't going to be surprised at all to have some of the men decide to go back to dry land. We've been stuck at sea long enough for even itchy feet to want to stay put for a while." Whether she feels that way herself or not, she doesn't say.

Instead, she looks around the room, shoving her hands into her coat pockets, and finally settles her gaze back on her mother. "You didn't think I thought you had plenty of custom now just because I'd been away, did you?" She snorts. "Figured it had to be something that weren't anything you did. I guess I ought to be getting back to the ship before long, unless we got anything else to say to each other."

Scarlett scowls. "You go back to minding your business and I'll go back to mine. And don't forget that berth. Your brother needs it."

"I said I'd do it, didn't I?" Raven answers shortly. "I ain't going to forget. I imagine I'll see you again after you get there, but don't expect me to be in a hurry about it."

Scarlett straightens the chairs for a second time. "Suits me."

[OOC: anything else or are we getting to end of scene here?]

[OOC: Nope, that's about it. Raven is vastly less amused with her mother than I am and is more than ready to leave.  :) And aside from stopping to get her kin on the Navy's moving list and finding out whether she's responsible for damage caused - neither of which I feel any burning desire to play out - I think I'm out of agenda for Amber as well.]

The Navy tells Raven that since her ship was unscheduled, she can take her kin now, if Raven would like. Perks of being a captain, apparently. They'll also investigate the claims of Scarlett, but if she's gone to Xanadu, they wouldn't have to pay...

[Right-o, then. Shall we fast-forward to departure date? Two days hence, you're due to ship on the tide. Hopefully you'll have a full complement of sailors aboard by then. And some passengers. Start a new thread the morning of. Anything else to take care of on dry land?]