Easting Wilds - In the Shadow of Elms

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Copper Dragon
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Re: Easting Wilds - In the Shadow of Elms

Postby Copper Dragon » Sat Oct 01, 2016 8:50 am

The ready Forestarm, Amberdrake's patient eyes - alas! - would see the lantern-bearer approach, but soon turn direction, away from him. Was he seen? Was his elven nature perhaps apparent from afar and a reason for the man to turn away?

Similarly, the beautiful Paladin Rannie Marrinson's watchfulness seems to bear no fruit in the inns of Sarshel. Has the red-cowled man that they have been seeking evading her cunningly and deliberately? Or was he simply gone?

Indeed...

...It seems that while Aleira has beseeched such capable aid, that aid could no longer be given. Something happened; perhaps the Ranger pair, Aleira and Garvin, have already been able to inform their alert helpers that a conclusion has been found.

If not through the Rangers, then perhaps through the rumours a tenday or two after they can learn why their efforts bore no fruit. For down, down south, somewhere between Filur and Red Bluffs, a pair of bodies were found by alarmed peasants. The bodies were washed ashore from a broad stream near where cattle grazed. A pair of bodies, yes: a man with a fur coat the colour of the most crimson blood, clutching a lantern in his death grip; and a mile farther down, a corpse mangled by wildlife and wearing the remains of padded armour.

Alas that bandits roam the wilderness robbing and murdering travellers like that, and tossing their bodies down the rivers.

But perhaps this hints at a tale that has come to an end; whether it was a satisfactory or conclusive one or not, is up to each and their own.
Plays:
Artemis D'Assanthe, Dawnmaster
Udhana, the Kinless
Dhovainithil, Silver Elf
Jhasira of the Bai Kabor, Dawnbringer (deceased)

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ljuslek
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Re: Easting Wilds - In the Shadow of Elms

Postby ljuslek » Tue Oct 11, 2016 12:32 pm

She had been taught so much by the old man whose memory she now struggled to see clearly; his learning had come not through forceful lessons or stern words, but through patience and trust. Aleira's conflicted remembrance echoed the wisdom and the warmth of her mentor, but also the startling sense of satisfaction that had run like a shiver of cold down her spine as she heard the bodies of the men that had been his bane tumbling down a rushing stream of icy water. How fortunate then that something more substantial than the bodiless and conflicted memory that humans could muster remained of her teacher; that there was something of his to touch. That there were words of his to read when the absence of clarity became too noticeable, too hard to bear. She often sought solace with the stanzas of prudence and faith shielded between the richly embellished panels of the tome that had no doubt been the work of the old man's life, and that would now become the work of hers. Perhaps in time she would even know what writings to add to the pages who still remained blank.

Now however, the ranger's mind wandered where she sat, the leaves of parchment graced with her mentor's wisdom forsaken in favour of thoughts that wandered toward the old man had taken neath his wings. What had become of him, had he spent the silver he was given on drink in Filur only to stray back towards a life of brigandry? A fleeting worry to be sure, but a sincere one no less.

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Danuvis
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Re: Easting Wilds - In the Shadow of Elms

Postby Danuvis » Tue Oct 11, 2016 5:15 pm

Grief came in greater and lesser amounts. Long, overwhelming pain from the depths as he lingered in the grove. Tickling, silent tears as he sat against an elm tree, picking up the bear hairs from his clothing. Sudden pain when he thought of all they would never do again. No warm lump at his back as he slept. No following her about like a shadow anymore. He'd never touch her raggedy ear again, never see her small, scarred tail blur at the happiness of seeing him.

Bittersweet thoughts kindled his heart at the goodness of that bear. How she'd loved him from the very start. Lierra said to think of the good. That Nanuq would want him happy. He tried.

True heartbreak he held at bay as best he could - thoughts of what it would mean to her mate to lose his companion, and their cubs to lose their mother.

Eventually he had no tears left. The hour was late, black and silent, and a memory drifted up from another lifetime.

When Garvin was small and lost his little dog Patch to the wolves, Miss Vask found him crying by the gargantuan oak tree. She settled down beside him, not at all deterred by his hateful, wet-eyed look, and spoke gently to the wafting grasses ahead.

“Some day - a long time from now, mind - when you've as much grey in your hair as me and you've lived a long life as best you can make it… Well, some day you'll pass on. And on that day, little Garvin, you'll see your Patch again. You'll pass over the bridge and he'll be sitting there in the grass good as gold waiting for you. His nose will twitch 'cause he'll smell you first, and when he sees you? Oh, he'll run. Oh, how he'll run! He'll wag his little tail and run the fastest he's ever done because he loves you. He'll be barking and jumping and in your arms again 'cause it's the place he loved best in all the world.

He's there now, waiting for you in the meadow, patient as can be, and not a thing can hurt him there, for it's the sweetest place there ever was next to being with you. All his hurts are gone.

You'll see him again, little Garvin. Cry your sorrows out now, for you've a while to go before that day and you'll badly miss him til it comes, but you remember the meadow. You remember Patch among the flowers, happy as he ever was, watching for you coming and how glad he'll be when you do.”

In his exhaustion and sorrow, he shifted back to his young, childish self of the distant past; innocent and clueless as to the nature of the world, he thought Nanuq was with him now. Huge beside little Patch. And her ear was better. Her tail whole. Her scars gone. Whole. Happy. She'd see him and barrel to meet him with Patch darting along beside her.

Some day. After tonight Garvin thought it would be someday very soon. It gave him comfort.

He heeded the call of slumber underneath the canopy, his unconscious, vulnerable form exposed to all in the glade, not a single thought spared to his own well-being; such was the toll of all that had come to pass. He had yet again taken care of the land and its denizens, offered it solace, justice, and now at a cost greater than duty and devotion; was it now its turn to protect and comfort him? Would the fey show themselves again, but this time to a guardian burdened?

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Copper Dragon
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Re: Easting Wilds - In the Shadow of Elms

Postby Copper Dragon » Sun Oct 16, 2016 1:03 pm

He heeded the call of slumber underneath the canopy, his unconscious, vulnerable form exposed to all in the glade, not a single thought spared to his own well-being; such was the toll of all that had come to pass. He had yet again taken care of the land and its denizens, offered it solace, justice, and now at a cost greater than duty and devotion; was it now its turn to protect and comfort him? Would the fey show themselves again, but this time to a guardian burdened?

Perhaps.

Perhaps it was a dream instead...

Would it matter? Does fact carry more weight than belief, on the lap of the Earthmother?

Around Garvin Culdrake, the cold wintry branches bent and rustled with the chill wind. A dry dead leaf brushed over his cheek - though perhaps in the cold it was hard to feel it at all. The grove seemed silent and asleep, deeper than any tears could stir.

Soon, it seemed as though a leaf-crowned head rested on Garvin's shoulder, and as he sat against the tree, arms warm and bark-like in texture wrapped themselves around him from behind. It smelled of autumn around him; autumn that was healthy, welcome, rightful, rather than sick and dead.

Morning would greet him warmly but most definitely alone...

Such was a Ranger's path in the end, wasn't it?
Plays:
Artemis D'Assanthe, Dawnmaster
Udhana, the Kinless
Dhovainithil, Silver Elf
Jhasira of the Bai Kabor, Dawnbringer (deceased)

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Obsidian Sea
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Re: Easting Wilds - In the Shadow of Elms

Postby Obsidian Sea » Tue Dec 20, 2016 10:47 pm

After the High Dawnlord returns to the city, Aryen Caladras goes another way.

Her path had gone north, and east, to meet the steadfast city gates that held the skeleton of a city within. He went west, and south. This time, his path would not lead him away from her for long. But when he had seen the lights in the sky, and heard the thunder that marked The End Of The 7th, Aryen had changed his course, which was first a reflective pilgrimage to this place. But he would keep his word, and not long be gone before he would return to the city. His place at present felt as though it should be among people for whom he had some care. The Silverwoods ... they did not need him now. And this place--?

A haven of a few strong trees, assembled as though they had walked across Faerûn from every direction to meet around that icy pool of water, in that peaceful green glade. It was the place where his story with Malvina had begun, but it was not all for her that he had returned. It was for himself: to truly step into the emotions he had then felt, pushed away at the time by the physical activity he had made for himself in taking Malvina away, and saying his farewells to his Elven ally, Celith Galiner.

It felt different here, too. Just like the city. He began to wonder if all of Impiltur had undergone some transcendent shift. Or was it him?

Aryen Caladras stoops by a particular tree, putting his hand to the base of the elm's trunk, between the ridges of the roots that protrude up from the earth. Calloused fingers brush the soft wood into which the boy had gone. He thinks of Malvina, by Goblins dragged into the hollow of another tree, like some macabre reimagining of what had happened that day in the shadow of the elms.

The grove was silent now, and the boy was not there. He was somewhere else. Somewhere away from the cruelty of Daemons; the loneliness of hungry nights; the anguish of long distances between loved ones. He was somewhere that Aryen, in all the smallness of his creativity, could never imagine. Neither for the boy, nor for himself was he sad. It was not that he suppressed tears, it was that he didn't need them now. He would not drink deep of the once-coveted elixir of grief. The boy would never know those pains; and he - Aryen Caladras - had a place among. He felt them with a poignancy, and so away from them and from the friendships he had forged he would not turn. But he could shoulder them differently now. They were a burden he chose to carry; not an aching in his heart. The grove was silent, and the elm tree did not yield to the touch of his hand. So he speaks softly, standing, and smiling down at the base of the tree.

"Okay."
Heomar Bloodstone

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Aryen Caladras
Tristan Thalavar
Nathaniel Askovar
Elizabeth van der Lowe


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