She's off near the opposite end of the long common room from the Outskirters, an overview map of the known lands spread out before her on a solid table, anchored in place by an assortment of her things. She'd come here after rumors of a jewel, one she glimpsed displayed on the mantle - and she's spent the last little while talking to the innkeeper.

Answering his questions, first - weather, road conditions, the state of the market in various cities, soil quality, food storage...

And now it's time for him to answer hers.

He examines the map, identifying the village's location with some wonder. She smiles a bit, asking him questions about his gem. Where he found it - embedded in a tree cut down ten years ago - where the tree was (using another, more local map), what direction he was facing (he saw the Eastern Guidestar through the branches), what time of year it was...

She relaxes as the conversation goes on, staying friendly - and happy she's getting this much. She usually doesn't, about events a decade gone.

She nudges the man to show her the gem, still embedded in wood, and then the mantel piece, a solid beam cut from the same tree all those years ago. She attracts a small crowd when she climbs up to count rings and compare ring widths to the wood around the gem. She answers their questions readily, explaining what she's doing, how she's coming to her conclusions - forty three rings, from the center of the tree to the raw edge, and the grain around the gem most matches the fifteenth ring, so the gem and the tree came together in the tree's fifteenth year, being cut down twenty eight years later, ten years ago... So thirty eight years, give or take a few, since the gem met the tree.

Elsewhere, the ring around the Outskirters breaks enough for questions - one of the men, with a shaggy red beard and burly arms, laughs as he pours wine into a local's cup. "Stories!" he exclaims. "We have more than enough of those! I'm not surprised you'd ask - " he leans companionably into the man's space - "Living in such soft lands as these. Good wine, good ale, someone else's tales..." The local man laughs, too. 

The idea of a story drew more people in, naturally, heads turning more curiously than warily towards the group.

Delphinium lets her attention be drawn as well as she climbs down from the stool she'd stood on to examine the mantel with a local farmer's help. Her conversation with the innkeeper is hardly urgent, after all, and he seems to have gotten distracted by some of his clients anyways.

And she does love a good story.

The Outskirters argue among themselves briefly, about which story to tell - soon enough they settle on a tale from the month before, when a troop of goblins beset their band - leading to the death and pyre of one of their number, Garryn.

The arguing over who'd tell it best is a bit longer, but is more teasing than heated - a cry quickly goes up for a woman named Bel to take over the tale.

The woman looks indecisive for a moment, then rolls her eyes and stands, climbing onto her chair so she can tower over the listeners (being rather short, herself, though still built powerfully). She shows no trouble with keeping her balance, and is dressed in a fairly typical Outskirter fashion - goat skin boots, leather pants, sleeveless shaggy shirt, a cloak made of the stitched together skin of dozens of small animals. She gazes up at the low rafters, apparently thinking.

Hot.

Delphinium can appreciate a pretty girl, especially one with a good sense of theatrics.

She wanders a bit closer, leaning against a wall.

The woman gestures, and the ring around her - and a bit past - falls quiet.

"Silence and silence; the battle stilled.

The outcome delivered, foes dispersed:

Garryn's gift. His was the guidance,

Warrior's wisdom, and heart of wildness."

Her poem winds on, and the silence around her deepens, jumping first to the Steerswoman's part of the room as those around her notice Delphinium's interest. Her own voice rises, confident, in turn.

"The sun sank, urging us speed,

For in deep darkness, fire calls to Death,

To furies fouler, more fearsome than Man - "

Delphinium listens, enraptured, until the innkeeper distracts her.

She keeps half an ear on the poem while she tries and mostly fails to convince the innkeeper to let her take the gem - flat, blue, slick, shot with silver and strangely iridescent - back to the Archives with her. Mostly unsuccessfully.

The cadence of the woman's story changes, voice rising and strengthening for a climatic moment - "Faltered finally, felled by this sword - "

She straightens, tapping the hilt of her sword, gesture throwing the edge of her cloak back - revealing, for a moment, a belt of silver holding flat blue gems, at the base of her rough shirt. 

- Oh.

Delphinium cuts off her conversation with the innkeeper, handing his single gem back, and starts cutting through the tables and the crowd around the Outskirter, winding closer as the poem draws to a conclusion.

" - held by this hand. So passed horror."

Her tale finishes - obvious from the change in her posture. Murmurs of appreciation from her audience and table pounding from her friends surround her as she climbs down, with an entirely unnecessary hand from a local dairy girl. Still, Bel grins at her, commenting lightly on the girl's strong hands. The girl blushes and winks, and invites Bel to discover what else about her is strong - 

Bel laughs, looping an arm around the girl's shoulders, tugging her down to sit next to her at the table.

Delphinium approaches.

"Warrior?" she calls. "I would like to speak with you, for a time."

She looks over, curious but not offended. "You're doing it."

"I noticed your belt..." she begins.

"Yeah?" she says, leaning back and smiling, and showing the belt off again. "My father made it. Not another one like it, if that's what you're after."

"Not quite..."

She raises an eyebrow.

"I'm a steerswoman," she says, by way of explanations. "Your belt's curious, and I had some questions."

"Oh! I've heard of you steerswomen. You can't lie, right?"

"We answer all questions asked of us, truthfully, unless we're banned from speaking to someone. In turn, others must answer us truthfully."

"And if I asked you about the defenses of nearby towns?"

"I'd ask you questions until you refuse to answer me, and at that point ban you from ever being acknowledged by a Steerswoman again. I'd answer your questions before that point, exactly and precisely to the letter of what you asked me. And I would inform those towns you might be coming."

"Smart enough. And keeping to your principles is good."

"Something I strive for." She regards Bel, gaze keen.

"You're not as bad as most around here."

"I don't know, I like most of the people around here."

"You're a strange woman, then." She smiles. "I won't hold it against you, though."

"Thank you for the consideration."

"That's me. The pinnacle of consideration and grace."

"Certainly some of that."

"A good many more things, too."

"I'm beginning to see that."

"Perhaps you have some actually useful smarts buried under all that book learning, then," she teases.

"A great effort to maintain, but worth it."

"I'd agree wholeheartedly."

She laughs. "I'm curious about what other sorts of smarts are useful." Grin. "Self improvement is a must, after all, to keep ahead of my competition."

"And what if you haven't impressed me enough to just tell you?" Slow grin. "If you're smart, you can probably guess a lot of it..."

She hums. "Of course, guesses should be well considered..."

"I'm interested to hear it, either way."