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Topic: Stare into the Night Q&A
Subject: Told you...
I was rusty...
M.
Posted on 2016-09-28 at 23:13:40.
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Topic: Stare into the Night Q&A
Subject: Indeed...
Eol is magical.
I'm here alright. Bear with me though, I'm rusty as hell, not to mention a crazy busy mom of three kids, and a husband who is almost like a kid... 
Good to be back though.
Got to go read up on everything now, try to get back into my snarky kitty mode again. :MEOW:
M.
Posted on 2016-09-28 at 22:23:47.
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Topic: An Appeal for Awesomeness
Subject: Well not as exotic as some of those...
But the kids are super excited about drawing pictures on some cards to help cheer up another kid. So we'll get MO covered for him.
Best wishes for him and his family. Poor little Charlotte is in a cast right now and that's breaking my heart, can't even imagine what Andrew's mother must be going through...
M.
Posted on 2016-06-09 at 15:05:35.
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Topic: The Death of the Inn?
Subject: Hello there...
Yep I am another one of the Golden Age members who has all but disappeared around here.
It has taken me a little while to even respond to this, mainly because I haven't been sure what to say.
For years I logged on here daily, I found a wonderful little home to explore my creativity, I met amazing people who now populate my Facebook feed. But then life happened, kids and moves and general adulthood. I have tried to come back occasionally, checking in and hoping to maybe find a new game, but it never stuck like it had in the past. I point no fingers.
I understand everyone feeling saddened and nostalgic about this, I too grieve for the young carefree days of constant posting.
I also agree with sentiments that this site simply cannot stand up to the changes in the internet around it, and that that has dealt the site a hard blow. I also know from my own experience trying to run a blog that keeping up with everything is a HUGE job. Olan has done his best, and I totally applaud all of his efforts, but without dedicating his career to this site this was inevitable.
Sometimes we are simply pulled in too many different directions.
I hope that some of you can pull together and keep the site going, but it's a selfish plea that I also know I will be unable to offer much help with.
I thank all of you for every post and every PM that over the years has inspired me and brought smiles to my life.
Posted on 2016-02-19 at 14:01:58.
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Topic: WWII Horror LFP
Subject: Hmmm...
*tentatively raises hand*
If Dick is still open... I could probably be a Dick. 
Thinking of trying my hand at some RP again, and this might be a good place to start.
M.
Posted on 2015-06-05 at 22:20:38.
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Topic: Hi again
Subject: Addy!
Hey there. I too have been pretty absent... kind of on the same path. 2 kids, husband got a great job and then lost it, and then got another great job... we are finally settling in.
I might try to come by more often too, been wanting to sharpen my writing skills and this is of course the perfect place to do it.
Hope to see your face now and then on the roll.
*hugs*
M.
Posted on 2015-05-21 at 11:15:44.
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Topic: Add On Story. Fill in 3 words!
Subject: What else...
the rabbit hole.
Posted on 2014-07-20 at 03:51:27.
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Topic: Olan's WDW Trivia App
Subject: cool
Well I have an android so guess I am not that useful to you at the moment, but I know how much you love Disney so this sounds like a great project for you!
M.
p.s. We need an app for the Inn... you know to check game status or whatever.
Posted on 2014-07-17 at 02:10:40.
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Topic: I could use some people's opinions...
Subject: Well...
I cannot think of any real life examples of an actual medal awarded to a soldier for the number of kills, at least not official ones. However there is a strong history of unofficial medals being awarded to units and/or individual soldiers for their prowess at killing. Collecting body parts (ears, toes and scalps are common) of your victims, tattoo's, and other ways of marking the number such as painting the enemies flag on your plane for each one you have downed, or etching marks on the handles of weapons.
I would say that if your military is very ferocious and intent on maybe say genocide then a medal might work. But I would probably come up with a more 'unofficial' way of marking kills for your soldiers.
M.
Posted on 2014-06-17 at 02:00:40.
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Topic: Happy New Year to all
Subject: Happy New Years!
I will be spendingmine quietly at home with a sick baby. That is what mommies do. Hope everyone else has a good and safe night.
M.
Posted on 2014-01-01 at 00:01:15.
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Topic: Ice Storm 2013
Subject: Oh no
Bad ice... bad...
Glad you have a safe warm place to hole up though.
Will send lots of good, and warming, thoughts up North.
We were in the 60's this weekend, so when all the weather hit it did drop temperatures but we just got rain, lots and lots of rain...
Have a wonderful Christmas, hopefully in your own domicile (but a hotel isn't the end of the world either, we did that one year my mom put Christmas lights in her carry on (back in the day when you could) and decorated a plant in the hotel to give us the feeling of the season )!
M.
Posted on 2013-12-23 at 15:30:14.
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Topic: Prelude - Fates of Fortune
Subject: Recovery
Heavy darkness was giving way to the murky grey of dawn when Cayrimisa finally got back to her feet. Leaving the congealing leftovers of her stomach on the cobbles she began to make her way to the building she was currently laying her head at. A few short blocks over she stepped onto Wharf Way, which was just beginning to stir at this early hour. Not wishing to get any further attention drawn to her she painfully tugged her hat back on her head and began sulking her way down the familiar road. No one paid her any mind as she had hoped and soon she turned onto a side road down near the docks.
The building to which she headed was a large factory. Two stories tall with ‘Vergel Sea Port & Fish Factory' written on the side in blue paint. The main floor was a large room where the workers diligently pickled small fish in large clay pots before they were shipped out the back dock all over the empire, the signature blue ‘V' painted on their bellies. The upper story, most easily accessed by a skeleton staircase running along the outer wall was used for storage.
Cayrimisa clamored up those stairs and pushed open the thin door, it was never locked as she had found out only a few weeks before and the storage room appeared to hold nothing that was regularly used. Inside the old crates that filled most of the space were still cloaked in shadows. One of these shadows held the blankets and a handful of personal items she had brought with her, into this one she sank.
Laying down was too painful and so she propped herself up in a sitting position and tried to come to terms with what had transpired this past night. Across from her a bucket sat on the floor, directly under a weak spot in the roof, it would capture water when it rained, currently it was only catching those first feeble rays of dawn.
-Well you have done it now,-
Her voice spoke the truth. The tips of her ears were finally gone, it was something she had been thinking of doing for a long time, but it was not until last night that she had finally gotten up the courage to do it. The donor of the blood soaked coins was her inspiration.
There were few free elves in this city, or in any city in the Braudian Empire to be precise. Those who had not been wrangled into slavery generations ago after the great wars usually stayed clear of the human settlements. Of the population of free elves few were newcomers to the city, a new elven face amongst the crowd drew attention and suspicion. Hers was a new face and she had certainly been gaining a lot of unwanted attention in her first few weeks here.
The first few encounters she easily sidestepped and went on with her way. The encounter earlier did not go as favorably.
Cayrimisa had rolled into Drasnia with a collection of tapestries, blankets and other woven trinkets that she had been hoarding for months before leaving the tribe. Expenses in Drasnia proved to be more expensive than she had anticipated and the price of her wares had likewise been less than expected. The last set of napkins had been sold and she had used the profits to get a hot meal and a few glasses of hot mulled wine in a tavern. One last legitimate meal, from that moment on her life in Drasnia was bound to take a more criminal element. So she had stayed until late and spent every last coin she had earned.
Shuffling back toward the fish factory she happened down a dark alley.
"Hey! I see ya there," a large male voice broke through the quiet darkness.
She turned, lowering her head so the brim of her hat would cover most of her face as she tried to get a glance at the man summoning her. He was a brute, a large bald man with tiny eyes and massive hands. Obviously the man had some money, but little taste, the outfit he wore was made of expensive materials but in colors and cuts that would have made the upper crust balk. The club and the coil of thin rope protruding from his belt would have further raised eyebrows in the nicer sections of this town. In this part of town it simply meant that he was a hunter. Not the kind that shot arrows into deer out in the forests of Vaharon, but the kind that prowled the cities looking for runaway slaves. He would bring the slave back to their owner if they could be determined or to the Ministry of Properties if they could not. They were thus delivered, alive or dead it made little difference, and the hunter would receive a reward for all of his work. To differentiate between the free elves and the enslaved elves the Empire devised a brand to mark the unfortunate souls. Many hunters carried branding irons, and were known to ‘create' slaves when no honest ones were found. Seeing one behind her made her heart quicken in her chest. She would not be sent into slavery just a few months after leaving the tribe.
"Just heading home," she tried to imitate a local accent, failed and hoped that at least it would not sound too elven in origin.
"Home, now just where would that be, bunny?" The man strode confidently toward her.
Inwardly she winced, he had discerned her elven heritage all right. "Got a room, down by the docks,"
"Yeah? Which inn? I'm staying close to there, maybe I could walk ya home, dangerous city at night ya know?"
"Valhyne. And I think I'll be alright, thanks for the offer," and she tried to turn and leave.
"Oh no ya don't!" He cried and tried to lunge his large figure her way.
Cayrimisa was one step ahead of him, having dodged many attacks by elves that were might lighter on their feet than him. Immediately she dropped to the ground, spreading her arms so her cloak billowed out around her and would not tie her up as she made her next moves.
The hunter too far into his lunge to change course pummeled into the space she had just filled and began to arch into a fall over her. Just as he brushed against her hat she pulled the dagger out of her boot and jerked it up toward the hulking shape above her. The strike was by no means targeted, but it was effective. The dagger dug along the shadow until it landed in a cursing pile just behind her.
Springing to her feet Cay turned and eyed the man laying in the mud. His bright blue vest was cut and a trickle of blood was already seeping into the fine material. The slash was across his ribs though and she knew she had not penetrated any of those, it might leave a nasty scar he would forever have to stare at but he would live. She pounced on him then. Digging a knee into his groin, and enjoying the high squeal it made him expel, and using the other knee to press against one of his arms. Fingers danced along his belt and the vest, searching for anything worth stealing. A small leather bag near the gash she had administered held coins and found its way onto her belt. And another satchel on his belt contained the Bedine branding iron she had so feared. This too was secreted into her possession.
She stared into his face for a moment, twisted with pain and surprise. Hate and envy welled up inside of her as she looked into his small dark eyes, the sweaty skin turning blue in the moonlight, round pudgy face and even rounder ears. Then she spit into it.
"I'm not an elf, you got that? Not an elf and certainly not a slave," Her message given, and hopefully received, she got back up and disappeared. An hour later she was opening the door at the apothecary's, determined to get rid of at least one trait that she shared with those squalid sniveling elven bunnies.
Time would tell if the drastic measure would actually have any effect on how the rest of the world would see her. However, she felt already that it had changed how she saw herself. It was as if those two tiny bits of pointed flesh weighed several pounds as she suddenly felt lighter now that they were gone. It was as if she had shed at least one part of the heritage she had been cursed with. Despite the pain she could not stop herself from smiling at the thought.
The night had given her more than a lighter load, there was the chance that her life could now go in directions she never thought it would. With great care she lifted the small book out of her cloak and fingered the cover delicately. Magic. She would have to use the guttural elven tongue to get it started, but perhaps if it could give her the power he promised then it would be worth that. After all she could always wash the bad taste of that language away with a glass of wine.
Tonight she had gotten away from the hunter, but eventually her luck would run out. Preparing herself to face whatever was going to be thrown her way would be smart.
There was also the prophecy of the man, a great love, she shook her head at the thought. No one would ever find her worth loving. Nor did she really desire it, living out her life alone was best. That was probably just some cunning little carrot that the elf had dangled in front of her, assuming that she like all women would desire a mate and that she would then bend to what he was suggesting. He had misjudged her, as so many had, he had only needed to tempt her with the promise of overwhelming power over others. There was nothing else in this world she desired more.
Noises from downstairs let her know that the work day had begun. Workers would soon be cracking open large crates of fish brought up from the docks and begin packing them into the clay pots along with the vinegar and other seasonings that they would ferment in.
To start practicing magic she would need a place to stay, to really stay. A place to gather her tools and feel safe and secure. Her eyes drifted toward the floor and to what she imagined went on below her and as she closed her eyes and began to drift off into a sleep she wondered what it would take to empty the factory out so she could make this place her own personal sanctuary. Dreams and plans for her future overcame the pain and soon she was asleep.
Posted on 2013-12-21 at 03:54:58.
Edited on 2016-05-04 at 09:40:07 by Eol Fefalas
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Topic: Fates of Fortune World Building Q&A
Subject: Yay!
Swimming in Fates? More like drowning in it... happily!
So a quick question to start things out. Mith'ganni... what are the capitalization rules on this word? Always capitalized, only at the beginning of a sentence or when talking about the tribe vs. a person...?
M.
Posted on 2013-12-20 at 02:31:23.
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Topic: Prelude - Fates of Fortune
Subject: Mutalations
"Lets get on with it then..." she muttered, feeling oddly numb right now which might be for the best.
Without another word the elf went about preparing for the upcoming 'surgery'. While in her chair Cay began her own preparations. She removed the hat from her head, a snake of braided chestnut coiled around her crown. Those half elven features shimmer in the golden light thrown off by the fireplace. For one last time she strokes the slight points that her ears come to and then closes her eyes as her hands come to rest on her lap. Carefully she begins to control her breathing and lets her mind begin to wander to a safe place, falling into a trance to help with the pain she knows is coming soon.
A forest of red and white trees grows around her. Dimly she is aware of the cloth being placed on her left shoulder, and a bit of smoothed tree limb wedged into her mouth. There is a tug on her left ear. One tree comes sharply into focus, its own limbs stretching high above her toward a naked moon. Then it happens. A stab of pain threatens the trance she has built as it tears into the upper curves of her ear. The pain is excruciating and small tears begin to well in her eyes, but instead of screaming she bites down harder on the bit in her mouth. She had anticipated the pain, however she had not anticipated the wet popping noise that accompanied it as the cartilage broke under the pressure of the scissors. Grimaces left her throat. She could feel the elves fingers pulling at the separated bit of flesh, the point of her ear brushed up against her hair and the scissors slipped further into the groove there before they again bit down and finally cleaved the tip of her ear. The trance finally broke as she realized that she could no longer feel the tip of her ear, that had always brushed against the softness of her hair, not even over the flame of pain that burned on what was left. A soft squishy noise thudding on the floor beside her told her where that small part of her had gone. Moments later the skin that was left, slightly slack now that it could fully give into the pull of gravity, was pulled up by the tinge of a needle and drawn toward the skin on the backside of the ear. Through the burning fires she felt the tugs and pulls as he started stitching her ear back up. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she worked on regaining her forest, the trees there were being licked by blue flames, crackling and smoking as she watched on. The forest fire grew and grew into a scorching blaze as the elf moved to the other ear.
Minutes later the forest lay in cinders at her feet and she could feel the cooling touch of a poultice being smoothed over her fresh wounds and then soft silken batting pressed over that. A strip of linen encircled her head, keeping everything in its place for the healing process to begin.
Slowly she opened her eyes, the amber sparks in them gone muddy with the effort to contain the pain her body suffered. The bit fell from her mouth and down to the floor where the bits of her ears had gone.
Looking pale and sick the elf stood before her, his hands stained a bright red. An off white cloth was draped over them, also bathed in the sanguine color, two little stumps of flesh the edges curling and crusted with drying blood lay in the middle.
"Burn them..." the two words were small and frail.
He simply nodded and wrapped the linen around them before tossing them into the fire, turning his head and closing his eyes as he did.
The transaction was done, now she only had to leave. It took her a long trembling time but finally she managed to rise, stuff her hat into her belt, traverse the few steps to the door, collected the book with the rose on its cover and stepped back out into the dark cover of the night. She barely made it one block before she finally gave into her body and sunk down into an alley, squatting there in the fetid puddles as she leaned forward and vomited between her feet.
Posted on 2013-12-19 at 20:05:26.
Edited on 2016-05-04 at 09:38:05 by Eol Fefalas
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Topic: Prelude - Fates of Fortune
Subject: But of course not my dear...
Magic he had said. Spells, incantations, curses, power. Magic was something she had known about all her life, being raised by a tribe of elves. There were shamans in the tribe, healers, priests, dream readers, even a woman devoted to love potions. She had been personally hurt by magic as a child in the form of punishment by the adults or bullying by the children, they had then healed her with magic. Magic had been used to protect the members of the tribe, and it had been used for daily tasks as well. The practice of the art had always been forbidden to her though, the shamans had all proclaimed that her impure blood made her incapable of the delicate practice. Not that she had ever wanted to. If practicing magic could only be done by the elves she would have nothing of it. But what if that was all wrong?
They lied to you,
The little voice that had been guiding her life for sometime now spoke up again. Perhaps it was right. If this man could see something in her, something powerful perhaps, might the shamans she grew up with have seen it too. They might have seen it and feared it. Squashing her talent before it could even begin to flourish. If the arts were not elven, as they always claimed with great pride, then what right had they to discriminate?
Her eyes danced around the room, looking over the implements of magic all around her, listening to them to see if any began to sing to her. Perhaps there was an omen of some kind that would cry out to her and tell her if what this man was saying was true, or if it too was just another cruel lie she was being told. Oily bottles, little curls of drying parchment, dried herbs, dusty books, nothing sang to her. Until her eyes happened upon a certain small leather book, tucked neatly into a small crevice near the door. Elven lettering in silver danced along the supple cover, spiraling around a red and white rose in full bloom. Her heart nearly stopped when she saw it there. That rose. She had been making that rose for most of her life.
The tribe she had been raised with were known for their tapestries and she had been allowed to pick up that art. They all signed their names to their pieces, and Cayrimisa had chosen the rose as her signature. Something about that flower had always called to her. The bright red of the petals, so much like blood, the lovely full symmetrical bloom, the thorns that covered its branches. Not many other elves connected with the rose especially the more domestic and lovely rose. Some of the more wild variations were found in elven art, but rarely the rose she had chosen. It took too much care, pruning, feedings and constant attention. Such a plant was more akin to humans, who settled down and grew gardens. Elves, the ones not forced to tend to those gardens, were travelers who found beauty in the way nature caused things to be on its own. Seeing her sigil on that book made the decision for her.
This is all very interesting, but what are you going to do right this minute?
The voice called out to her and reminded her that she did have to say something to the elven man sitting in front of her. Admitting that perhaps he was right and that she did need to consider magic as a course of study was not something she looked forward to doing. There was more going on here than just the issue of magic,
"You have the sight." Flinging her gaze back onto the elf before her. "You knew I was coming tonight."
Bright blue sparks lifted up from under his lids and he gave her a slightly sad look now. Without another word he shifted the books on the table, hiding under them was a small leather bag, carefully he procured a set of heavy scissors, a fine bladed small knife, a curved needle and finally a spool of waxy looking thread. "I even saw what you would ask me to do,"
The teasing aspect to his tone was gone and she too felt more somber now that the implements of the surgery were laid out so plainly on the table.
"Then tell me. If I take this path, this path you have laid out for me, what will come?"
A pause then, "Blood, pain, death, suffering," the man's lips curled into a disgusted snarl as he shook his head slightly.
She blinked and before she could think further on this nasty prophecy she furiously demanded an explanation, "Then why!? Why send me on this path if it will only bring me these things? Why not send me down some other path?"
A sigh escaped his lips and he turned his eyes to the fingers rubbing the runes on his fingers, "I ask myself the same question, over and over again, there is no good answer, melamin."
Anger was welling around her, starting to spark little lights in her vision. "Would you stop calling me that!!"
"Hmm? Oh, melamin? I'm sorry, I do not know your name, only what he calls you. Or will call you."
"You knew I was coming but you do not know my name? You knew what I wanted done but not my name? And what do you mean, what he calls me?"
Pinching his fingers together tightly, "Let me clarify. I do not know who you ARE. I only know who you may be. If you take this path you will someday encounter a man, and I have seen you as he will. To me your name is melamin because he uses that word for you, and with such sweetness and tenderness that it has nearly broken my heart to hear it whispered in my dreams," Firelight flitted across his face and for a moment Cay is almost certain there were tears welling on his bottom lids.
"But, you said blood, and pain," Her own heart was pounding now. Nothing was making sense anymore.
"There is that. And love." Finally his eyes rose to hers and he spoke with great seriousness. "All of the paths open to you are soaked in blood melamin. That is who you are, there is no getting away from it. I have long suspected that you would not be a good woman, and now that you are in my presence I know I was right. But only by going down this path will you meet him. All those other paths, soaked in blood, you will walk down alone."
"But," whispered tenderly into the small space between them, "who is he?"
Shuddering as the question is finally posed he shook his head. "I know not. All I know is that he too is dark and blood soaked. He would have to be to love you in such a way. But I do not see him, I only see you, through him. I fear that the joining of your paths will start Drasnia down a nightmare from which we will only awake from with your deaths."
Compelled now she grasped his runey fingers in her own, voice rising sharply. "Then why!? I beg of you again. Why set me down this path?"
The old elf shuddered as a leaf in breeze. "I cannot help it. After seeing the depths of his love for you, I simply cannot beg you to go down a path where you end up alone. I should. I should not have said a word about magic, better yet I should have locked my door tonight and gone for a drink around the corner chanced this meeting between us to never happen, but I couldn't.
"I know you saw the book. Take it when you leave. I will do what you have asked, I will take your payment for it, and you will leave. And don't ever return. Think on what I have told you, seek the stars for guidance, en'sina aa'Seldarine poikaya amin."
Posted on 2013-12-19 at 02:34:24.
Edited on 2016-05-04 at 09:33:37 by Eol Fefalas
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Topic: Prelude - Fates of Fortune
Subject: Prelude - Fates of Fortune
((OOC: I have been working on cleaning up Cay and Nyx's story before they begin their work tailing Kat, here is the progress. Enjoy.))
Drasnia
10 Years Earlier
The night that had settled over the great city of Drasnia was as thick and heavy with impending doom as it was dark. Those who had even the slightest gift of premonition tossed in their beds until they could stand it no longer and then went to the window, staring out into the inky darkness as if waiting for the world to end. As the sky slowly turned ashen and then exploded with the brilliance of dawn and nothing seemed to have transpired they sighed in relief and went back to their lives. The night would forever stain their thoughts though as they wondered what calamity was avoided. Little did they know that nothing had been avoided. Events transpired that night as they had been fated by some dark power that while seeming small and insignificant at the time would have a profound effect years later on all of the Braudian Empire. For this would be the night that Nyx Shyndyn would first lay eyes upon Cayrimisa Etellenya.
Two amber colored eyes flitted up toward the darkness behind that rose above their mistress. For a moment she thought she had caught the slightest flutter of something from up there. All that greeted her, however, was the distant flicker of stars that peeked out behind a thin veil of clouds. She squinted a moment and looked at those stars a bit longer than she had meant to. The small diamond-like specks seemed more distant and muted here in Drasnia. It was if they had purposefully pulled themselves away from the city, perhaps the very heavens were disgusted by the city.
This was not altogether surprising she mused to herself. Drasnia was not a pleasant place by many measures. It sat on the western edge of the Braudian Empire, a large tumor surrounding the fetid smelling ports that kept it well nourished. Like any so called civilized area of Braudia it was officially governed by the humans, although there were tales that once it had been shining mecca for the gnomes. Any gnome with enough drink in them would proudly take responsibility for the lighthouse that illuminated the port and the system of walls that helped protect it from the violence of the seas beyond. But that was a history that had long fallen from the official histories of the humans. They had rewritten nearly everything after the wars, and to suggest that anything other than human minds and the back breaking work of the lesser races, usually under slavery, created anything in Braudia was blasphemy. Most of the other races had pressed back when the humans began their demanding sweep over the known world, the elves giving them their hardest fight, but in the end their force was not enough and everything fell. Elves felt the yolk of this new regime the most of all due to their strong defiance.
It was that yolk that Cayrimisa had hoped to shake from her own shoulders by coming to Drasnia. This dream was much harder to attain in real life than she had originally planned. A truth that was just settling over her, and was further punctuated by the metal disk that weighed so heavily in her hand at the moment. The stars that had pulled back from the vile city reflected in the near tears that welled up in the corners of her eyes just then, as for a moment she wished she could join them. She wished she could find a way to get away this world that had been nothing but cruel to her, perhaps most of all she wished she could get away from herself. Such a wish could never come true though. So with a deep breath she pulled the tears back and set her sights back on the streets before her, the large brown edge of her hat casting a wide shadow across her face and hiding the determination to bring this city to its knees before her.
She made a very interesting figure as she marched through the winding streets that scarred Drasnia. As best as she could figure she was somewhere near thirty years old. An age that for a human was nearing middle age, but for an elf was barely out of adolescence. As she was neither elf nor human and yet both at once that left her hovering in a space that was near adulthood. She walked with the simple grace and arrogance that spoke of her elven blood, but not with the height that normally accompanied it. A slender figure was artfully hidden beneath the peculiar clothing she had adopted, oversized boots, thick striped leggings, a dress that was more like a burlap sack, a dirty mens shirt and of course the large frumpy hat that topped the look off. Somewhere under that hat a pile of auburn hair had been piled, but few ever saw more than a few loose strands of it. Just as the public was also not often privy to the slight slope of her ears or the gentle tug that lifted the corners of her eyes. This was how she often dealt with the blaring truth of her half-breed blood, by hiding the signs of her elven heritage.
If those elven features she so despised were passed down from her father or her mother was something she never knew. Etellenya was the "name" she had been called by most of the elven tribe that had raised her. The name was more a variant of the elven word for "foreigner" and that was mostly accurate. She had simply been found, wrapped in a blanket, nearly frozen and starving on the side of a road by the vagrant group of elves, not more than a few days past her birth by all accounts. The high quality of the blanket she had been wrapped in was the only clue about her parentage she ever had. Beyond saving her life she was not offered many kindnesses by the tribe that she grew up with. A fact that helped to plant and then nourish the seething hatred of elves she was now nurturing into a full blossom.
To coax that sharp red flower out of its bud she would first need to visit an apothecary who was said to perform any number of unscrupulous surgeries for the right price. The pocketful of blood stained coins in her pocket she hoped would be enough to convince him to do what she wanted. Soon she would find out.
Just ahead a plank of wood dangling from a nearly rusted chain had the following printed in faded blue elven hand:
Fallaner
Fallana qualmellie, en'quenat, en'fea, ar'en'nowellidol
Eldalie ar'Human
(Healer, Healing your agonies, of body, of spirit, and of mind, Elven and Human)
She wrapped her thin fingers around the handle and pulled on the door, half expecting and perhaps half hoping that the door would be locked and that the apothecary would have already called it a night, and she would have to work up the courage to do this again tomorrow. The door creaked open under her pull however and the warmth that was inside began to spill out against her face. Golden light flickered in a fireplace across from the door, the obvious source of the heat. Between the door and the fireplace was a small room with stone walls and a roughly cobbled floor. Books, potions, furs, and trinkets of unknown usage piled atop a few wooden tables and bookcases. The only table that was not completely littered, if you did not count the tankard of ale, five books and what looked like the horns of a goat atop the oil cloth, was the table centered in the room. Around that table four chairs were squared, and in one of them a hunched over elf sat, his face to the fire and back to the door. His long straight platinum colored hair was pulled into a braid down his back, a dark purple ribbon woven into the plaits and a lovely silver clasp tying up the bottom of it. He wore a dark brown robe and other than that Cay could tell very little about him yet.
As the door opened a soft bird whistle resonated through the little room and the elf shifted slightly in his chair, letting her know that her presence was known. Cay looked around, but could not find a bird amongst any of the clutter in the room, at least not one that was alive enough to make that beautiful chirp, the one hanging upside down by it's talon in the steamed over window seemed incapable of this feat. It occurred to her that it was likely an enchantment on the door that made the sound and her lips twisted a little bit. Leave it to an elf to use the sweet sound of a bird as an alarm to his abode.
"This is a late hour for visitors, melamin." His voice rasped, obviously that tankard of ale on the table was not his first of the evening.
She narrowed her eyes and let her hand stay on the handle of the door. "I need some assistance, perhaps from you, but not if you call me that."
He turned in his chair, a pair of bright blue eyes shone despite the ale and pierced right through her. "Someone does, why not me?"
Immediately she felt nausea sweep through her midsection and a wave of vertigo to go with it. Something was happening in this room, it was palpable, but exactly what that was was beyond her comprehension. "No. No one calls me that."
The bright blue eyes blinked and then a smile crept onto the elf's face. He was starting to show wrinkles around the corners of his eyes and mouth, but otherwise he carried the same smooth ageless features of all the elves, with their thin lips and nose, the slight tilt to their eyes and the unmistakable turn to his ears. "I stand corrected, no one calls you that, yet." His eyes flitted to the steamed window, looking beyond the dead bird and out into the darkness of the night she had just stepped out of. "One day though, I feel there is one who might, and perhaps he is closer than you would care to know."
Cay gripped the handle tighter, getting ready to flee as she also tried to keep the floor from slipping out from under her. "Stop speaking in riddles old man. I am here on business. Do you want my business or not?"
His smile deepened. "Oh, I think I do, I think that assisting you will prove to be a very interesting exercise. Don't you?"
"I'm not sure I know what you mean." But she felt more at ease now that the discussion was on what she came in for.
"Not important for now. Please come in and we can discuss what you wish for me to do tonight." He waved his hand toward one of the empty chairs, a thin hand with long pale fingers, decorated with as many rings each bearing elven runes on their faces.
Cay let the door close behind her and stepped into the room, feeling the warmth of the fire wrap around her as she slid into the chair. Once down he adjusted his own chair so they were facing each other squarely and then looked at her waiting for her to begin. With effort she cleared her throat and began to recite the statement she had been long rehearsing in her mind, going over in detail what it was that she hoped to achieve this night. The apothacary listened quietly, his blue eyes dancing and his fingers mindlessly caressing over the runes on his rings. When she finished she too sat, waiting for the expected response, "why by the Gods would you want to do that?" She had an entire sermon worked up to spit back at him the moment it left his lips and she was almost trembling in anticipation of that question. But it never came. Instead he sat there, looking her over a moment longer before finally speaking.
"An unusual request," He began, and she edged toward the front of her seat, "I am unsure how to price such a procedure. Did you have something in mind?"
The words she had prepared stuck in her throat, a wad of angry bile that seemed to have no where to go. Fire crackled beyond their little play and the moments ticked by. "Yes..." the word finally found a way around the maze stuck in her throat. From the inside of her cloak she pulled out the little bag of coins that she had just taken off the slave hunter. Her fingers tried to tug the oily string that held it closed but they fumbled over the knot uselessly.
Without a word the elf reached over and took the bag, he undid the knot and spilled the coins on the table. The blood that streaked across the fronts of half of them caught the light of the fire and seemed to glow like rubies. She watched as he reached out and ran his finger across one of them, the blood immediately turned dark on his skin.
"Yes I think this should do," He muttered and then wiped the stain onto the oil table cloth.
"Good. And lets get this clear, I don't want any of that Elven magic use on me. Is that clear?"
His brow rose, "Elven magic?"
The fuzzy feelings she had been experiencing since she walked in were washed away with a surge of indigence, it felt good to finally feel angry again. "Yes... is that clear?"
"I am a bit unclear about what Elven magic is exactly." He said shaking his head.
"You know what I mean, magic, all magic, it's all Elven. And I don't want any of it, not for the procedure, not for the healing. I'll handle the pain, I'll handle the wound... just no magic."
"Since when was magic Elven?" He asked simply, ignoring the rest of her prostrations.
Her head shook in exasperation and she sighed, "Since forever. Everyone knows that, now can we please get back onto the subject here?"
"No. Not yet. Let us not be in such a rush to mutilate yourself. I am still stuck on the fact that you seem to think that magic is elven. Do not other races use magic, gnomes and dwarves for instance?"
She sank back into her chair, giving into to this little sidestep toward her goal for the moment. "Sure, they know a few basic incantations, enchantments barely, and most of which are said in the Elven tongue, so obviously they were taught the trick by elves." Then with a sideways look into the fire she muttered quietly, "And it is not mutilation, it is improvement..."
A wave of his hand dismissed her mutterings and he went back to the meat of his discussion. "Not exactly correct melamin."
Snarls crept back over her face. "You know I really don't care."
"But you should. Magic is strong with you."
The snarls intensified immediately. She rose out of her seat and stared down at the older man. "You know I have killed one man tonight, for mistaking me as an elf," gesturing toward the blood stained coins as proof, "do not make me do it twice."
He looked up at her, unmoved by her sudden threat. "You did not kill that man, maimed him yes, but killed," shaking his head, "no. Nor will you kill me. Instead you will sit down and you will listen to what I have to say, quietly from here on out. When I am done we can get on with your little procedure. Until then sit and learn something, and know that what I have to say has nothing to do with blood, not yours, not mine, or any other race for that matter."
Cayrimisa found herself sitting back down as ordered, feeling dizzy and fuzzy again.
He went on as soon as she was settled, "Magic just IS. It has always been, you see, since the first stars breathed life into the world, perhaps even before that. Perhaps it was around when the world was little more than a pile of rocks floating under a dark sky. And someday when we have all died and the plants and animals reclaim all of this, when they die and the world returns to the dark desolate place it began the magic will still remain. It crackles unseen by most in every crevice of everything. It is beyond anything that your mind has ever considered. More powerful than you can dream of. Once everyone knew it. The elves, the humans, the gnomes, the dwarves, the orcs... it did not matter, each of them had it in their lives, they knew it, they practiced it, the lived with it. But over time things changed and some began to achieve things without magic and slowly they began to forget. Humans have mostly forgotten all of it, only a few even dare to believe that they could lasso it. Only the elves kept it in their memories, and thus it is through them that we can still access it. But it is not theirs, and I do not believe that they hold the only gateway to it, I believe that if one became good enough one could channel it through other means, but at the moment the elven ways are the only way known to start. Like all things on this world some people are born with a gift for it. As some people are born with a gift for cooking or building, some are born with a gift for magic. This has nothing to do with their race... I have met gnomes and dwarves and even a human or two that carried this gift. But being born with a gift is not enough. The gifted cook will not accomplish anything if he is never put in a kitchen. So it is with magic. But given the tools and with enough practice the gifted can accomplish much. Just as you could. You," he reached over then and took her hands in his own, "are greatly gifted in this matter. Attuned to the working of magic in ways I have not seen in some time, you would have to find it though... find the magic and work with it... and then..."
He closed his eyes then and let her finish that thought for herself.
Posted on 2013-12-17 at 20:16:40.
Edited on 2014-12-22 at 14:01:28 by Eol Fefalas
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Topic: Zombies in Chicago: Chapter 2 Recruitment
Subject: jumpy!!
Whoo! I had a basic char submitted, will look at her again. this is just the way i would like to celebrate the beginning of Walking Dead.
M.
Posted on 2013-09-06 at 01:28:09.
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Topic: Your Top Disney Movies?
Subject: in noparticular order...
Great Mouse Detective
Bugs Life
Little Mermaid
Aladdin
Sword in the Stone
And yes this is very hard, especially since Pixar joined the Disney family....
M.
Posted on 2013-09-05 at 13:15:08.
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Topic: You can't keep a good elf down...
Subject: I heard a rumor about this....
*Pounce, facelick*
And everywhere that Eol goes, Eol goes, Eol goes
Everywhere that Eol goes
His Meri's sure to go.
M.
Posted on 2013-09-04 at 13:29:42.
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Topic: New Season of Walking Dead!
Subject: A little late to the conversation but not the show...
I've been obessively keeping up with the show this season...
And last night was a bit rough... especially considering my current situation (only 8 months pregnant myself haha). But I handled it better than I thought I would. Like Eol I knew it was coming just not sure how.
Personally I'm really intrigued to see how everything with the Governer is going to work out. I found the plot line with him in the graphic novels to be really compelling, and as they aren't being fully true to those (which is okay as it keeps me guessing all the time) so seeing how it turns out here is going to be really interesting.
I'm also thrilled to have Michelle in the cast now, she's always been one of my favorite chars. Hot bad*** chick with a sword... I may be straight but still *swoon* 
M.
Posted on 2012-11-05 at 19:32:30.
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Topic: Totally Random Thoughts
Subject: Yes yes...
We know you have a swollen head Eol... tell us something we didn't know.
M.
Posted on 2012-11-01 at 23:18:14.
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Topic: Zombies in Chicago: Chapter 2 Q&A
Subject: Too long I know...
I think I am going to try this out. Although I've only got two months before this latest baby arrives (if she arrives on time that is )
Working up char information with the bossman.
M.
Posted on 2012-10-25 at 21:56:04.
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Topic: Zombies in Chicago: Chapter 2 Q&A
Subject: Boss!
You killed Amber! 
But if the invite is still open for me I might have someone new to join in the group. I'll PM you my current thoughts, although they aren't fully fleshed out yet...
M.
Posted on 2012-10-25 at 18:09:37.
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Topic: ^ < V game
Subject: Cake anyone?
^ I am an opera singer
< I stand on painted tape
V It tells me where I'm going, and when to throw my cape
Posted on 2012-09-19 at 14:32:36.
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Topic: Avast, mateys!
Subject: Hey I just woke up... give a girl a break ;)
Posted on 2012-09-19 at 14:29:59.
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