#nevervember2024

She's always been a scrawny kid, the type you can imagine getting into all sorts of trouble later in life. Bruises everywhere, scratched knees and elbows, eyes lit up with curiousity, hair more resembling of a little bird than an elven kid. However, getting to witness the rascals' group antics has always been more of a silent pleasure than real trouble to most in the village.

All mentions of West Harbour have contained at least a word of the stench, the grime, the damp; so it was no surprise to anyone to find its children adventurous and, to put it in the simplest of ways, bored with the place. Bored with being locked out from the outside, which has always sounded so, so interesting in the adults' stories. Bored with all of the work that no one could escape, bored with the wood, the mud, the same faces seen every single day.

And so, they ran around whenever they could, first dressing up with scraps to be famous wizards and powerful knights, then doing other silly things which, through the years, might have become more seemingly civilised and similar to mature behaviour, but in reality? That was both copying and coping. Their hearts never stopped longing for the power and the views, the intrigues they missed and the things they could be doing, if they had been born anywhere, but here.

And yet, it was home. It was family - or, maybe it would be more proper to say, a bunch of really weird families stuck together. It was sweaty bodies resting on the cold, wet grass. It was the militia men singing loudly into the night after drinking one too much, or maybe, one that was just right. It was Retta with her strong kids and dogs, the omnipresence of Starlings. Tarmas shouting at his girls, to a cautious observer never truly angry, but proud. Merring's melodic chants rising with the sun. Georg greeting everyone on his way to everywhere. Daeghun and his intimidating presence, making them feel grounded. Safe.

For all that was worth it, when the scrawny kid was no longer a kid anymore, that is when she started to realise it. One day, she was going to be given a reason to miss all of this. Maybe a good one, or maybe a really bad one. It came to her while watching the militia trainings, while stuffing her face at Bevil's house and petting his domesticised wolves, in bed. It was just something that she couldn't quite shake off.