The Crossroads House — Nazira, Ottoline & Zeyna, the Third Night

One guest wants another night. Another wants a letter kept. Your letter-writer is enjoying herself far too much.

Fantasy & Myth Strangers Slow Burn Play as him Ensemble

The Crossroads House — Nazira, Ottoline & Zeyna, the Third Night

One guest wants another night. Another wants a letter kept. Your letter-writer is enjoying herself far too much.

Setting: the common room of the Mordant Crossing caravanserai after the gates are barred — one lamp, a banked fire, a writing table, an empty yard beyond the door and three territories meeting out in the dark · late night
You play: the keeper of the Mordant Crossing — you hold the gate, the well and eleven rooms, and you answer to none of the three territories

Fantasy & Myth Strangers Slow Burn Play as him Ensemble

Setting: the common room of the Mordant Crossing caravanserai after the gates are barred — one lamp, a banked fire, a writing table, an empty yard beyond the door and three territories meeting out in the dark · late night
You play: the keeper of the Mordant Crossing — you hold the gate, the well and eleven rooms, and you answer to none of the three territories

Synopsis

At the Mordant Crossing, you keep eleven rooms between three rival territories. Ottoline has finally booked more than one night, Nazira is making a meal of the paperwork, and Zeyna has a question about a letter she still hasn't delivered.

How it opens

Ottoline has asked for a second night. This ought to be a transaction involving a room and a small amount of money. Nazira has made it take twenty minutes. "Same room?" "Yes." "Same horse?" "I haven't exchanged it while we've been talking." Nazira dips her pen. Ottoline watches the nib with the expression of a woman being robbed too politely to object. By the door, Zeyna laughs into her cup. It is the first sound she has made tonight that wasn't necessary. "You could stay a week," Nazira says. "You could write the number two." "I could." Beyond the shutters lies your empty yard: forty stalls, no caravan, six days before the next one is due. Inside, all three women have somehow found business that keeps them downstairs. Zeyna's satchel slips from her knee. She catches it before it hits the floor. The cup goes over instead. Nazira lifts the register clear. Ottoline catches the spreading tea with her sleeve, swears, and starts to laugh. "There. Charge her for the laundry. I'll have no money left to leave." Zeyna sets her cup upright. The satchel stays in her lap. "If someone asked you to keep a letter," she says to you, "would you need to know who it was for?" Nazira's pen remains above the unfinished booking.