C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
The chronically-sleepy Amie Mothwax has a tendency to appear stoic and emotionless, eyes blank and unfeeling. She speaks relatively little, and when she does, it's usually flat in its affect. You could be forgiven for thinking she has no emotions at all.
Which, of course, is quite far from the truth. She has an emotional range that's plenty broad, just as much as anybody else. What she doesn't have is a particularly good way of displaying that range. While those that don't know her wonder if perhaps she's been abused and that's why, that couldn't be more wrong. She's just...like this.
---
"I love you so much, my little light."
It feels like it's been a lifetime since then.
"Oh wow, Shysca, did you bake that all on your own?"
Like a whole world has come and gone in the time it took to blink the memories back behind her eyes.
"Of course daddy is proud of you, my little light. How could he not be?"
...Had it really only been ten years?
The cool morning air smelled of the past. Of early morning dew and early spring frost. Of strawberry pastries and pinecones, and the wide bank of the river. It smelled of the stones that she used to skip over the gray water. She breathed deep and closed her eyes, savoring this old simple joy, and all thoughts of guilt and redemption evaporated like mist in the sun as she walked lightly through Ardenfel like a great weight was gone, like she'd never known it was there.
As she walked, she saw the children that she knew so well. Danyl on the other side of the street. Lyndii would be reading, probably, even on a day like this. A kind of foolish pleasure seeped through her as she smiled. Mary walking in the other direction towards her and her heart swelled. She opened her mouth to call out when another smell undercut the blissful haze.
Smoke?
She blinked, and the world was suddenly a blur. Fire. Steel. Screaming that she didn't realize was her. She looked around frantically and found everyone gone except Mary. And as soon as she started towards her, her hands ignited in searing pain. She looked down in panic and found them livid with a seething white radiance that soon spread over the rest of her body as she fell to the ground, twisting in agony. She looked up, trying to find MARY again through the white light,a nd onl y f oun d h e r s e l f-- | C H I L D H O O D I N A R D E N F E L D
C H I L D H O O D I N A R D E N F E L D
Mr. and Mrs. Yarrel and Talulah Celicantha (but please, call her Lulah) were fond of calling themselves the best bakers in Ardenfel. And they were very, very good at it; people would walk from the other side of the village to avail themselves of a fresh hot loaf, or a fruit pie baked to perfection. They were masters of their crafts; and though they were small town bakers that obviously didn't know how to make the delicate pastries that you might see in the big city, they were no less skilled for it.
But then everything changed, once their daughter was born.
Even Lulah didn't know that she had elven heritage. And Yarrel certainly had no idea at all; having hair that pale was unusual, but not impossible, obviously. Not until Shysca's birth. The hair that later grew on her head could be excused just like the mother's. The slightly oddly-colored eyes could be played off in any number of ways. Every odd quirk of her appearance could be explained away, save one. There was no getting around the sharply pointed ears. And Yarrel did not appreciate the idea of there being elf in his family.
Talulah loved Shysca enough for both parents, and made sure she grew up knowing that she was loved. But as she aged and her elven traits became more distinct, well, Yarrel grew what you might call...distant. He didn't grow violent, not until she was ten or eleven, when Talulah started to take ill. But moreso he just...neglected her.I t was like she'd lost her dad. Or, more accurately, like she'd never had one at all. Like she was a ghost to him. And so her mother's kindness became the most important thing in her life, and she began to mantle it. From that point on, she tried her best to be something like a mother--or, more likely, an older sister--to all the other kids in Ardenfel, or at least the ones she knew. After all, maybe if she acted like mommy then daddy would listen to her, right?
No. Obviously.
Once Yarrel started hitting her, that smile came less often. But, given she was in her double digits, that certainly wasn't the worst thing that would happen soon,would it?
Because then, the bandits came.
L I F E A T T H E O R P H A N A G E
L I F E A T T H E O R P H A N A G E
In the Landeil orphanage, though...the smile came back in full force. It needed to be. She knew these kids. She'd played with them in the street. She'd patched them up after they'd scraped their knees. She'd heard them talking about their parents. She knew those kids; she loved those kids.
And what those kids didn't need was another person crying.
They needed someone they knew to turn to, she thought. She didn't know what the family who owned the orphanage were like when she first got there, so, quite simply, she devoted herself wholeheartedly to making everyone's lives better. She threw herself into it and didn't look back. All smiles, all the time. She comforted Mary when she had nightmares. She tried to talk things through with Teth, even when she didn't want to listen. She spent hours around Danyl; he always seemed to lean on her so much, after all. She spent a whole year like that. It wasn't a particularly good life. It CERTAINLY wasn't a comfortable one. But it was all that she needed in the end, right? Even after Mary ran away, leaving Shysca's hands and lower forearms marred with a large and encompassing burn that turned into a painful scar, even then, she kept trying. There were still kids that needed her help.
But then the Church of the Virtuous Mother stopped nearby.
She didn't know much about them. Didn't know anything, really. But just out of curiosity, she went to listen to the sermon. Just once wouldn't hurt, right?
And then Shysca was transfixed. She fell hard, and fast.
All thoughts of responsibility fled her mind as she heard them preach, and she felt a fire stoke in her heart. After the sermon, she approached them and explained: she had just come to hear them speak, she felt as though she'd been born anew. She lived in the nearby orphanage, could she leave with the and join the Church? And they acquiesced and lifted her out of the orphanage to return to their monastery with them, and live her life anew.
O N W A R D: A N E W P A T H
O N W A R D: A N E W P A T H
It was in the Church of the Virtuous Mother--a monastery high in the mountains, a long way away--that Shysca first learned of the Divine Aeter, the grand embodiment of all light and purity in the universe. And though she had some doubt at first, she became something of a zealot in a relatively short period of time. The Virtuous Mother and, by extension, the Divine Aether became beloved in her eyes. An idol.
And the problem with idols is that you stop really thinking about what they're doing.
Over the past ten years, there are numerous times that Shysca, using her newly-learnt holy divine magic, 'brought nonbelievers into the Divine Aeter's light' in the most permanent way possible. Things that she would've balked at not long ago, she barely noticed, she was so thoroughly indoctrinated into this cult. It was like she had only half a mind of her own. Word has begun to spread about her, slowly spreading through pockets of people: stories of the wrathful black-clad cleric with the burn-scarred hands.
Though...she did keep one secret from the Virtuous Mother. When Mary had fled the orphanage, Shysca had seen horns on her head. She'd seen the phantasmal flames that had writhed around her in her sleep back then. She knew that there was something demonic going on with her. She should report it, and she should be brought into the Divine Aeter's light. But...
But she couldn't. It just felt wrong.
Not long ago, she remembered something that she'd nearly forgotten. Old friends. A promise to meet. People--children then--whose faces she could still see ever so clearly in her mind's eye. And as she thought about their smiles, she felt a revulsion rise in her throat.
Would they ever smile at her like that if they knew that she had killed?
With no warning to the Virtuous Mother, she dropped the amulet that marked her as a member of the Church into a mountain chasm beside the monastery, replaced her black church robe with a dress of pure white, then fled off into the night to return to her old home, see the old faces. Perhaps it is only when she does that she'll resolve the crisis of faith that swirls inside her skull, and the horrible nightmares that have again to begun to plague her will perhaps abate.
The Church is behind.
The road awaits. |
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