Description
Nose-to-tail, a coyote is a bit longer than she stands, but they share the
same wiry frame and hungry face. Two dark eyes hold the slow tension of
water droplets on bare rock, flipping from gleaming to a flat black as your
angle of sight, or hers, changes. Her hair - mostly grey, with the odd
coppery strand - is bluntly cut, but there is some evidence of an attempt at
styling: it appears to have been brushed recently and gathered over to her
right side. It is fairly clean, too, or at least cleaner than the rest of
her, as if she only had access to mirror from the face up. Below the neck it
becomes harder to discern which marks are bruises, which are dirt, and which
are the remnants of last night's dinner creation.
The evidence suggests she is no master seamstress: where it seems she has
bothered to make repairs you see only a series of hastily-tied knots lashing
one scrap to another. Perhaps she values adornment more than fine
stitching - though far from expert craftsmanship, the small chain of blue
stones around her wrist shine softly, and a leather-wrapped parcel tucked in
her bag is covered with colorful beadwork.
Role
By chance
Added Wed Oct 27 15:55:38 2021 at level 10:
I'm no gambler, really. Not unless you count my brother and I guessing how
many rocks would fall out of the ore-cart on its final turn out of the
mines, and that was a long time ago, anyway. The biggest wager I've ever
made was that I could win a footrace down to the end of Abedim, and all I
lost on that bet was the cost of one of Zada's pies.
People say these cards are just chance - or worse, they call it a game. Not
only are they wrong but I think they're actually trying to be wrong. They
wanna think that brain they got in their head is making all the choices, and
the right ones too. Or they're just scared to know anything of their future
further ahead than their next meal. I don't know for sure. But they haven't
steered me wrong yet.
***
I don't think my mother was stupid, just tired, when she told me not to
wander down to the docks. She would've known that the last thing you tell a
headstrong child like me was to avoid a place unless it's the first place
you want her to go. She was just tired from yesterday's labor and pre-tired
from the hours of work yet to come. She was cleaning houses then, and the
kind of people who hire housekeepers aren't the kind of people who are
gentle with foreigners, which we most certainly were, and it didn't help
that she was cleaning toilets and kitchens and even chandeliers in houses
built for people almost twice her height.
So of course we went straight to the docks, my friend Asdi and I (my brother
said he was too old to play with us now, though later as I recounted my
adventures I could see he wished he'd been more flexible on this point).
Sometime after eyeing the shiny but surely counterfeit baubles for sale and
fighting the gulls for scraps of fried fish I walked backwards into a man,
almost falling into his lap. He was sitting on the pier, motionless, his
face level with mine as I stood. He didn't look like one of the desert folk,
but then again he didn't really look like anyone who comes from any place.
I'm guessing he came in on a ship or was there looking to leave by one.
I apologized the way children do - quickly, and without eye contact - and
began to rejoin Asdi, but the man grabbed my wrist firmly. "I have a gift
for you. It might help keep those wayward feet in check." He pulled out a
small oilcloth bundle and gingerly unwrapped it, swatting my hands away when
I tried to help. Inside were 12 cards, one side grey, the other intricately
painted with unfamiliar scenes. "Draw one at a time, or two, or three. They
may tell you something new, or something you already knew but pretended you
did not."
I asked what he wanted in payment and the man seemed to laugh at some joke I
couldn't hear. "I think the wind deserves a new name," he said. "Do you have
one I can use?" I whispered the first nonsense word that came to mind in his
ear and ran away, now my turn to giggle, clutching the bundle of cards in my
greasy fried-fish hands.
Water Wheel
Added Fri Oct 29 09:29:23 2021 at level 11:
When I say my Dad was proud of his work I don't mean to suggest he was
talented, just that he was proud to be working at all. It gave him a
purpose. It's not like there was much skill involved anyway - anyone with
and arm and a bit of sense can lift a pickaxe and hack away at rock all day.
It didn't crush his spirit, but I can't say the same for his body. Back then
they didn't think much about safety in the mines, and with enough children
born every year to ensure new workers the older ones were considered
expendable. Some of my schoolmates were pulled out of lessons early for
their first ride down the lift. In their dusty, oversized uniforms they
looked almost like ghosts.
So like water eating away at stone, I saw my Dad worn down year after year
until one day his patience had worn away too and that's when he decided
Cragstone was no longer home. We traded the cool, dark, and known for the
burning, brilliant, and exotic. The rooms we rented in the desert city were
cheaper for being windowless, but the owner didn't know we'd have paid a
premium for the familiar comfort of being hemmed in by stone walls.
Dad's body had been broken mining ore, but he could still use his hands, so
he found work at the jeweler's. He wasn't a fine craftsman by the standards
of our folk, but the folks in Hamsah didn't seem to know the difference.
With what he brought home and what my mother earned as a cleaner we made do.
We got our own little home after a year, though my parents hardly ever had
time to enjoy it, and I spent my days out in the streets with friends
anyway.
Thankfully my father's eyesight dimmed before his hands began to tremble.
For a year he could keep up with his trade by memory and touch, and didn't
suffer the indignity of seeing first-hand how sloppy his work had become. By
now he'd learned to enjoy the sun, spending his retirement days in a chair
in the courtyard.
He was in that very chair the day my brother told him he was going back
home, back under the earth, back to the mines. My brother may have been
tired of the desert and tired of scraping by, but like all young men he had
plenty of energy for headstrong mistakes. Dad was furious, and hurt, but he
let my mother say the words, though they both knew it was wasted breath.
***
I shuffled the deck while he finished packing. "Let me see what the cards
say for you." I pulled one and glanced at it quickly. "Never mind," I said.
"It's just silly nonsense, right?" He reached for the card in my hands but
was summoned away by our mother in the other room, worrying about whether he
had enough food for the journey. I looked again at the card in my hand: the
Water Wheel. The circle turns, always repeating, powering the mill stone
which grinds, grinds, grinds everything into dust.
Circle of Spears
Added Mon Nov 1 15:35:09 2021 at level 12:
I'm not an idiot or a brute, mind you. I did well enough in my lessons but
just couldn't be cooped up inside a schoolroom anymore. As we got older,
most boys didn't think it seemly to spar with me, being a girl and all, so
the only practice I got with a blade was working at the butcher - and
there's only so much you can learn when the opponent doesn't fight back.
I only started learning my way around combat once I left Hamsah. Some
silk-trousered, oiled-hair, know-nothing son of a merchant got it into his
head to organize a trading expedition and needed hired swords for the trip.
So I told little lies about my age and experience and accepted paltry wages
for a chance to get out of town and onto the road.
Sadly, the expedition wasn't as thrilling as advertised - really just a
chance for this wastrel to show off his finery and spend his father's money
throwing back a few too many drinks in Seantryn's finest and not-so-fine
drinking houses. And we in the hired crew weren't really there for
protection. Depending on how many drinks the merchant's son had in him, my
purpose was apparently to look tough, to look pretty, or to be the silly imp
who thought she could fight, just part of his exotic menagerie.
I should have quit the day we arrived but the so-called traveling dignitary
liked to remind us often in slurred words that he owned us. No payment until
the expedition was complete, no way back across the sea to Hamsah, and no
kindness expected from Seantryn guardsmen toward a runaway in breach of
contract.
There were true warriors in the crew, skilled and patient, whose informal
training proved to be the only worthwhile part of the experience. However
much our employer wounded our pride each day, we had a small chance of
regaining some of it sparring in the few off-hours granted to us. By the end
of our journey, I felt confident enough to stand my own against any bandits
in a fight.
It's such a shame, really, that our crew were just out of earshot when
rogues did finally attack the caravan mere leagues from home...
This misadventure taught me two things: First, I was not skilled in the art
of war but I was eager to learn. I hungered for the tension, the way
seconds became hours, the company of others who don't care where you came
from or how much you have but only how you hold a sword. And second: never
again would I agree to suffer such indignity in work for another. I had seen
it break my parents, I assumed it would break my brother too, and now I had
tasted it and spat the vile taste right back out.
The Circle of Spears: At the bottom of the card, multiple staves are stuck
straight into the ground. Behind them stands a child. Trapped? No - as your
eyes travel up these spears become tree trunks. Not a palisade, but a
forest, in whose canopy you see fruits and birds of every color. Not a
prison, but a home.
Planting seeds
Added Fri Nov 12 17:16:40 2021 at level 32:
I've been a city girl all my life, so I spent my first weeks as a sentinel
discovering how to better handle myself outdoors - learning which mushrooms
are safe to eat, trying to step lightly through the woods, practicing my
swimming strokes. And though I laugh just thinking about it, I might even
try my hand at a little garden. After giving me quite the startle, this
funny little thief - Hegwi was his name, I think? - offered me a golden
sunflower, delicate, just about to bloom. Oh, I don't think there was any
romance in the gesture, just a gift of friendship, he said. From one
survivor to another. I'll probably end up killing it but if it does survive
I promised I'd plant the seeds and return someday with a nice bouquet.
Moja brought me back home - Cragstone, that is - in a roundabout way. He
said he had some armor for me, though I wonder if he killed a svirfneblin to
get it. I don't know this burrow warden in particular but if he was anything
like the ones my father worked for I might say I'm sad I didn't get to do it
myself. I didn't see my brother down there, or at least I don't think I did.
Everyone in the mines looked the same. Tired eyes, covered in grime. I could
have asked after him, I know I should have, but I think I felt safer not
knowing.
I've learned that the branches of the Tree are wide, taking in all types.
The singer Rinn - a perfectionist she says, not a putterer! - seems somehow
weary and sprightly in equal measure.
The giant Horanja, who thinks living is only for the strong. I'm still not
sure if I'd be welcome in the new world he wants to create.
Mahrah never tires, and bears her burdens like an ox. Maybe evidence that
faith can carry you forward even in lean times.
No idea what any of them think of me. They probably wonder how I can get
myself into so much trouble (and I mean a LOT), so quickly, on such tiny
little legs.
The Child Soldier
Added Fri Nov 12 17:23:42 2021 at level 32:
It's been a few weeks since I last consulted the cards. But with one
Harbinger on an unburnt pyre, and a new Harbinger's melody carrying on the
winds, I feel restless, eager to move but unsure where to head next.
The card in my hand today is The Child Soldier. Old enough to ask questions
but too young to know heartbreak, the boy on the card adopts a warrior's
pose, shaking his sword at an invisible foe. A bright red plume tops an
oversized helmet - it's not clear he can even see straight ahead, never mind
walk under the weight of his armor. He looks silly, but there's no doubting
his courage.
(I'm sure if I showed this card to Rinn she'd ask me if it was a self-portrait.)
You know, I didn't come to the Refuge because I heard the cries of the
wilderness, or uncovered an ancient prophecy, or watched my favorite forest
hewn by axes forged in Akan, or anything like that. I came because I needed
to escape the lust of coins, and because I couldn't bear to see others
enslaved by it. Sure, nothing beats the beauty of dreaming under a sky full
of stars, but it's hard to sleep deeply knowing that the bodies of so many
are being ground down for the profit of a few. So like the kid in the
picture, I'm ready to run headlong into battle against the merchants and
taskmasters whose cups are filled with the blood and sweat of those who
labor for them, and raise my weapon against the mercenaries and guardsmen
who claim that the law legitimizes all this cruelty. That's why I came to
the Refuge.
But people here in the tree talk as if when She is injured, they feel the
pain. As if fair winds and brilliant sunsets are gifts from Her, signs
meant just for them. They spend their days and nights as if Thar-Eris were
going to return tomorrow, not a thousand years from now. Some days I think
they're fools and other days I wonder if I've just closed my ears too tight.
But am I really any different? I don't claim to hear some ancient voices
every time I pass a running stream, but I sit down on the ground and let
these pretty little picture cards tell me how to run my life? Now who's the
superstitious one?
In truth, I think I'm afraid. Whenever I shuffle this deck and pull out a
card or two, I'm hoping for a little guidance on where to put my feet next.
A choice for now, a choice just for me. But these messages from the Ancients
- if they are real - are on a scale beyond individuals, beyond the span of a
lifetime.
For the first time, I'm not sure what the card means.
Is it telling me to charge ahead with the purity and energy of a child? To
hold fast to what brought me here in the first place, to strike down the
slavers? Or is it a sign that I need to 'grow up,' to recognize that the
enemies are more cunning, the battle more complex than I once thought? I
don't know if these cards contain the answers I seek.
PK Wins
Nov 10, 2021|Lv 31|Mausoleum|Lothi vs 1: [31] Lahitjadi (100%, claw)
Nov 28, 2021|Lv 44|The Grove|Danssha vs 4: [51] Boggz (42%, onslaught of water), [49] Zetnava (8%), [51] Mordos (49%), [44] Lahitjadi (0%)
Dec 1, 2021 |Lv 48|The Spire of the Blood Tribunal|Krislia vs 4: [46] Bosamial (12%), [48] Lahitjadi (39%, searing cut), [51] Rinn (0%), [51] Talyst (47%)