#elderly-scrolls

@elderly-scrolls Honestly I don't even know what happened. One moment it was a slow day at work and then suddenly I had a full page of Ozys

oh my god you picked the most difficult ones for both of my kids thank you here we go please enjoy my uses of inconsistent tense and narrative and absolutely incredibly long run on sentences and utter abuse of italics 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕   also the star got… a little out of hand…

The High Priestess: When has trusting their instincts paid off for your character?

With the pack, it was easy, it was hunt-eat-sleep-play-survive and sometimes the food was there and sometimes it wasn’t but it was easier; easier than waiting in the shadow to pick the crumbs off the floor, easier than forcing herself to stay awake to listen for Mother coming home and to slip out the door if her steps were staggered or just wait and hold her breath if the steps were steady and hope that she would miss the black moods that came and came and came and never left, easier than fixing herself again and again with broken noses and busted lips and bruises. So it was easy. Stay with the pack. Survive. Take care of them and they take care of you. Keep away from the humans and the human moods and the human fists and boots and quick sharp words that burrowed into her like a tick and festered. So she stayed. And the first winter- well, it was winter, but they were relatively lucky, and it was nothing that a good pile of pups on either side of her wouldn’t help with, and second winter was not as good as the first and her boots had finally given up the past summer and so she almost lost some of her toes a couple times, but that was fine that was still better than before, you see, better than what she had. And then the third winter came and even before it had hit in the valleys below Kestrel was waking herself up by shivering so hard and the trouble with direwolves is they’re big, yes, even bigger than you’re picturing, so they can’t exactly pile on top of you when the cold bites and the wind snarls and your teeth chatter so hard you can’t even think so then you stumble out the cave trying to stay moving and then down the mountain you go cause it has to be warmer down there it has to be, the snow hasn’t hit yet. So down she went, and sometimes she wasn’t even sure if she was walking anymore and she didn’t know if her feet were still her feet or if they had snapped off from the cold but there was a cabin and a man in the cabin and she knew that humans came with fists and boots and words that swirled around her head and stayed and never went away but she knew she wanted to survive, she needed to, so she crashed through the door of the cabin and collapsed by the fire and the man had been lying in the bed and he just stared at her. And Kestrel waited and waited and waited for the fist or the boot or the angry words to come at her but the strange man just stood up and slowly, slowly, put another log on the fire and pulled a blanket off his bed and dropped it beside her and closed the door just enough that the wind didn’t come through quite as strong but there was still a way out if she wanted to, he didn’t lock her in and eventually, Kestrel must have stopped shivering because she woke up in the morning, warm and with warm food waiting on the floor beside her. 

The Sun: When does your character sit back and enjoy themselves?

Kestrel does, admittedly, have trouble sitting back and enjoying something. The last time she really relaxed was in the mountains. Tala had thrown her head back and howled and they had heard the pack, and Kestrel had wanted to go right then and there, but of course, they had to wait, the hafling and the teifling and the elf had to sleep and then they had to break camp in the morning and gods, they took so long to wake up and get on with the day, Kestrel was near vibrating out of her skin with excitement by the time they finally got on with everything, and her and Tala kept on darting ahead up the mountain and having to stop and wait for the others. And they finally got up there and three of the wolves had pupped and Kestrel actually felt herself wanting to smile as the clambered over each other to investigate the new thing on two legs, all paws and ears and tails, and Kestrel felt something in her relax the hold it kept and temporarily uncoil and it was like she could breath deep for once.

Temperance in Reverse: When has your character felt overwhelmed?

Ali had only lost him for a second, just a moment, in the crowded street, but her little brother was hungry, they all were, work had been thin this winter, and plagues had swept the country, and always they blamed the Travellers and had driven them away with thrown rocks and guards with spears to prod the slow along. And Ali only looked away for a second, just to look at the goods in the stall, that was all, and it wasn’t his fault, he was just a little kid, and he hadn’t had a sweet in months and months, and he only just wanted to look at the bakers sweets, but looking had become a hand reaching out to touch, but the guards were right there and they grabbed him and kicked him and kicked and kicked and kicked until his breath rattled in his chest and he coughed up blood onto one of the guards boots and she had been screaming and crying as one of them held her by her hair and she couldn’t help and it was her fault, hers, and she carried her little brother back to the caravan she felt little and lost and useless and they cried and cried and they sang the song of mourning that night and she swears she knows the sound of heartbreak now.

The Star: When has your character been most hopeful?

The first time her goddess touched her, Ali was only 14.  She had wandered off from the main camp where they had set themselves just a little ways off from the crossroads, and gods… was she bored. She had crossed to the other side of the road, and technically, if she shuffled sideways and sort of crouched, she could still see the tops of the wagons, so she wasn’t in trouble. Besides, she wasn’t a little kid anymore, she was almost grown up thank-you-very-much. And grown ups could take care of themselves. Of course, grownups also had chores and fires to build and dinners to cook and sometimes the sheer mundanity of life on the road made Ali want to scream. She shuffled another few paces into the undergrowth, worming her way through the tightly grown bushes and only tearing her shirt a teeny little bit. She swore under her breath. Her mother would make her sew that. 

“I can fix that for you if you want.”

Ali nearly levitated back into the bushes at the sound of the female voice.

“Oh, sorry, my fault, I thought you knew I was here.”

The halfling girl was young, she looked about Ali’s age, maybe a little older, with road worn clothes and dusty boots.

“Um. Hi. Are you a Traveller?”

The halfling laughed. “Sure am.”

“Sorry, not many halflings take the road.”

“Don’t worry about it.” The halfling looked her over. “Here. Let me make it up to you.”

The halfling pulled from- somewhere… a pouch? She had to have a pouch or something somewhere- a long chain with something dangling at the end of it.

“Here. But-” and she pulled it back from Ali’s waiting hand, “you have to promise me something, and its very important.”

Ali was surprised. Not many people of Dwyrain would ever consider being as open handed as this strange halfling.

The halfling pressed something round into her palm. “Promise me that you will follow where your feet and your heart take you, and that you’ll chase whatever makes your heart bigger.”

Ali stared down at the simple symbol in her palm: a perfect circle, bisected by a gently curving line across the circle and a flame hovering above the center of the center line.