Obscene Symphony

Prized Bride (A New Beginning)

Hey, if any of you end up getting accidentally pinged to a thread called Obscene’s Scratchpad, just disregard. It’s where I put my post WIPs and though I try not to do pings until I post here, sometimes I forget XD

No peeking!

Obscene's Scratchpad

Lienna Orhneaht

_{Interacting with: Amalia Solair @Belle}

Lienna had just opened her mouth to reply when her new companion, Amalia, was rudely interrupted by a sobbing Earth Gem. She watched their exchange with her head high, remarking that while Amalia was kind and generous for consoling the girl, she herself might not have tolerated such hysterics so easily.

Amalia gave the girl a lovely speech about perseverance and positivity, and Lienna couldn't help but notice that it sounded somehow rehearsed, as if Amalia herself had been repeating the words to herself as well as others. No doubt she had, but Lienna couldn't blame her; she did the same with her own favourite proverbs. They were good teachings in any case, if a bit idealistic.

"Be still," Lienna hissed to the girl, "You think the gods have abandoned us? Tell me: when the sun sets, do you lose faith in the morning?"

Lienna reached for her cup, focusing her gaze on the food before her but still directing her words to the girl. "Where I come from, the sun goes down for months at a time; if we lost faith in it, we would never survive the night."

Leaving the girl to quiver in Amalia's arms, Lienna turned her attention back to their former conversation. "A pleasure, Amalia. My name is Lienna. I'm from Hima, in the farthest reaches of the North." She offered Amalia a half smile and a glance as she reached for a bun with a sweet-looking glaze. "Forgive me for mistaking you, you look so much like a Northerner I could have sworn you had to be one."

"Besides," she continued, grinning darkly, "You couldn't have been from Hima; you're much too pretty to have survived."

She took a bite of her bun nonchalantly before continuing, having to pause a moment as she struggled to chew, and using the time to scope out the table for any herbs worth steeping.

"And yes," she continued when her mouth was no longer full, "Of course I pray, though mainly to Naia. I mean no disrespect, but I've found her wisdom to be the most potent. Of course..."

She paused and called the water in her cup to her, smirking smartly and twisting it in the air like a ribbon over the table.

"...I may be biased."

Summary

Lienna is a little harshly realistic with the crying NPC, and makes a dark joke before continuing Amalia's conversation and doing a trick to reveal her element.

Short n' sweet, baby.

Prized Bride (A New Beginning)

@WeepingLiberty youtube.com/watch?v=JNsKvZo6MDs

Prized Bride (A New Beginning)

@Belle How could I resist?

Prized Bride (A New Beginning)

Lienna Orhneaht

_{Interacting with: Amalia Solair @Belle}

Spring was always such an odd time in the North, especially as far north as Hima. It was the "morning of the year-long day," as the locals called it; the six months of constant night that were the winter were yielding to the dawn of spring. However, spring was of little comfort to the people of Hima. The winter's cold had yet to release its frigid grip, and the only real buzz surrounding spring was the greatly anticipated return of daylight.

It was proof that the world kept on moving.

For Lienna, nothing really changed. She woke up early, as usual (although without the sun to serve as a reliable timepiece, "early" was a relative term), stoked the fire, and started preparing the morning tea - all very quietly, with practiced ease. Soon, she had two small cups of herbs steeping, just in time for her grandmother to wake up on her own.

She didn't say anything. Lienna didn't either. She just handed the frail old woman her tea, and sipped her own silently in the morning gloom. Their days of cheerful morning talk were long gone.

With tea finished (and after having coaxed something into her grandmother's stomach) Lienna tucked her grandmother once more under her mountain of furs to go back to sleep. Sleeping seemed to be all she did these days, but at least it kept her from wandering.

"I'm going to town, Uma," Lienna whispered, pulling on her boots and strapping snowshoes under them, "I'll be back soon."

Her grandmother made no response. It was just as well; Lienna hadn't expected any.

---

"Ten pieces?" Lienna crossed her arms. "Absolutely not. Five."

The walk to town wasn't too long, but the fresh snow made it arduous. However, tiring as it may have been, Lienna reached town before too many people were awake to glare at her. Still, she had kept her face securely covered, both against the biting wind and the prying eyes of onlookers, as she made her way to the local butcher's.

"The winter was hard," replied the butcher, unhelpfully. "The price had to go up."

Lienna rolled her eyes. ”Really?” she challenged, ”Strange, I saw no shortage of elk.”

"Don't get smart with me," the butcher replied, "The price is ten. Take it or leave it."

Lienna scowled at the butcher, and snuck a glance over his shoulder at his wife, who sat in the back of the igloo cutting meat into long strips. She was short, stout and oddly proportioned, with a lumpy face and bulbous nose, and she kept sneaking disdainful looks at Lienna.

Crossing her arms, Lienna crinkled up her nose and stared for a moment at the various dried meats the butcher had to offer. Truth be told, the dried elk she was after did look good, but she knew that the price would lower back to five pieces the second she left the igloo. Such was life in Hima; the community was strong and close-knit, which made it easy for them to unite against you.

Finally, she grew tired of her battle of wills. "Fine," she sighed, defeated. "What will five pieces get me?"

The butcher glanced at his wares, thought for a moment, and replied, "About two pounds of dried seal."

Lienna groaned inwardly. Seal was tough and gamey, but it was cheap and fatty and would hold them out for a little while. Exasperated, she pulled her purse out from the folds of her furs, fishing out five round pieces of amber. She handed them to the butcher, along with a small sack to fill with her purchase.

By the time she left the butcher's, Lienna expected to see more people out and around, going about their morning chores and appreciating the new sunlight. However, when she emerged, the town was eerily empty. Even the people she'd seen on her way in had made their way back to their homes. Items such as bags and tools lay in the street, and the contents of a sack of spruce needles flew underfoot in the frigid wind. It looked like people had left in a hurry.

Turning around slowly, Lienna expected to see a pack of arctic cats or a large bear, or something of the powerful and scary sort that usually sent the residents of Hima into hiding. What she saw instead, she would have gladly traded for a nose-to-nose meeting with an angry bear.

It was impossible to miss; the large black carriage and tall, black-clad figures atop it stuck out of the otherwise white landscape like a fire at night. It lumbered through the snow like a lumbering monster, stopping every now and then as the wheels struggled against the snow. The beasts pulling it were clearly not suited to Northern conditions, and the beasts driving it were no better.

Reapers.

Lienna nearly dropped her bag and backpedaled, wide-eyed and frantic, to the nearest igloo, only to find it blocked by a still-hardening barricade of ice. One by one every nearby igloo in the village shut her out, leaving her exposed in the square, open to the wind and the Reapers. She wasn't surprised, of course. Many of these villagers had drowned their own daughters as babies to avoid the horror of the Reaping; it stood to reason that they didn't want anyone else's daughter dragged out of their homes either.

All Lienna could do was stand there and wait. To get home, she would have to pass right by the Reapers, and even if she could outrun them, where could she go? Back to her grandmother's igloo? They would only follow her there and punish her for running. There was nowhere else to hide: It was nothing but ice fields all the way to the black forest on the horizon.

So she waited.

They arrived quicker than Lienna would have guessed, cursing the cold and everything that lived in it. Stopping mere metres from her, one massive Drakkan hopped down from the carriage and approached Lienna, closing the distance in just a few strides.

"Uncover your face." He ordered.

With a trembling hand Lienna complied, and with a gloved hand the Drakkan roughly took hold of her jaw, turning her face this way and that to examine it. Once he had, he nodded and grunted to his partner, "She'll do."

As soon as he released her, Lienna hurried to cover her face once more, as even that brief exposure to the wind had left it stinging. She didn't know what else to do; what just happened barely registered.

"You have one hour to gather your belongings and say your goodbyes," boomed the Drakkan, "Which way is your home?" It was more of a demand than a question.

Lienna blinked, and slowly looked around. Home was almost an hour's walk away in this snow. By the time she arrived, she would barely have time to wake her grandmother and say goodbye before she was torn away, and that wouldn't do. She had more important matters to take care of if she was to be leaving.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she pointed to the butcher's igloo. "That one."

If the Drakkan had noticed that she had just been barricaded from every igloo in the area, he didn't care. He simply nodded sharply and barked, "Go on then, and be quick about it." He turned back to the carriage, muttering, "Fucking wind."

It took a second for Lienna's feet to move, but soon she was throwing her fists against the wall of ice in the igloo's entrance, giving a push with both her magic and her hands and breaking in. Before she was even all the way through the short tunnel, the butcher's wife started shouting, "No, no! You get out! I won't have those beasts breaking down my walls to get at you!"

Despite the wife's protests and the comically small slivering blade she brandished, Lienna pushed into the igloo. "Stop!" she shouted back, hands outstretched defensively, "Naia's love, woman, relax! They've already chosen me!"

She sank to her knees, then, onto the fur-lined floor. "Naia's love," she repeated, voice much softer now. Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes and her throat burned. "I've been chosen..."

The butcher and his wife said nothing, and for a moment Lienna could only look down at her mittened hands in shock. The gravity of the situation was beginning to hit her, and a million thoughts raced through her mind.

Snapping out of her reverie, Lienna sniffed and wiped her eyes urgently with her mitten before looking back up at the butcher. "I need your help."

The butcher opened his mouth to protest, but Lienna stopped him. "I'm not asking you to hide me, or help me escape," she reasoned, "I'm only asking for your kindness."

"You know my grandmother is ill," she began, "She can't take care of herself. She relies on me. Without me to take care of her, she'll die." She pulled her purse once more from her coat and put it on the table between them. "This is all the money we have. Take it - I don't need it anymore. But please, speak to your father about her. I know he sits on the village council, he could help her. You could all help her." She made a point to look at the butcher's wife with that statement.

They didn't particularly like her, sure. The whole town could have said the same. But there was little more heartbreaking to a Water Gem than to witness the loss of one's memories, one's wisdom. Stories and knowledge lost to the ages were enough to arouse fear and pity in even the most judgemental of them. Lienna was confident that every Hima resident would agree: the loss of one's mind was far worse than the loss of one's life. She prayed they would take pity on her grandmother.

The butcher thought for a moment, glanced to his wife, and reached for the purse. "Very well," he replied, tossing the bag behind him, "Consider it done."

Lienna almost burst into tears, and stood up to take the butcher's hand. "Thank you," she professed, "Naia blessed, thank you."

She turned to leave, but the butcher stopped her. "Wait," he stated, "Give me your bag."

Hesitantly, Lienna handed over the sack that he so recently had filled with dried seal. The butcher turned, rummaged for a moment, and turned back again, returning the bag to her somewhat heavier. "For your trip," he stated.

Lienna welled up once more as she took the bag, and nodded her thanks. She could barely muster a breath, but the butcher seemed to understand. He simply nodded as she made her way out.

She emerged to find a Drakkan, a different one than had examined her, waiting outside. Just as she stood, his companion appeared, murmuring, "Not a single other one worth a damn, can you believe it?" Peeking around his massive figure, Lienna saw various faces poking out of the entrances of various igloos, watching with morbid curiosity.

The Drakkan looked down at her, and then her sack. "Is that all you have?"

Lienna swallowed hard. "Yes."

"Come on then." The Drakkan grabbed her roughly by the arm, not that he'd needed to, and dragged her to the carriage. Lienna didn't fight. She didn't even look back. The only thing she looked for as she was shoved in the carriage and carted away was the dot of an igloo on the horizon.

~ /// ~

By the time they reached Shadow Worth, Lienna was elated. Not about their destination, of course, but because she could finally get out of that wretched carriage and plant her feet on unmoving ground.

The trip from Hima to the Spine had taken fourteen days. Fourteen. Days. Two weeks of her life, spent cooped up in a dark wooden box, fighting down waves of nausea as the rickety thing pitched to and fro over every bump. Over the first day or so she had wept - how could anyone not have? - but the tears soon dried up. She hadn't been sure if she was crying of sadness for her old life, or fear for her new one, or something else altogether. Truth be told, her heart wasn't in it. To her, it almost felt like she cried because that was what people did when they were ripped from their lives and thrown into slavery. That was what was expected. The most appropriate response, surely.

It wasn't that she wasn't sad, or scared. Of course she was. She'd heard the horror stories of how Gem Brides rarely lived through the season once in the grip of their captors, how the Drakken loved pretty things because they loved to see them break. She also hadn't been able to say goodbye to her grandmother, which would have crushed her so much more if she thought her grandmother would have understood the situation and cried with her. But honestly, Lienna thought it better this way. This way, her grandmother wouldn't have to be distressed, would be taken care of, and probably wouldn't even notice her absence.

As for her former life, there wasn't much to mourn. She loved her grandmother, of course, but taking care of her was a heavy burden, and allowed for little else than constant care and vigilance. Lienna's life at home was a job she did out of respect, and out of the debt she felt she owed her grandmother for taking her in as a baby. Still, the job killed her a little every day. The pain of looking into her grandmother's eyes, which once had shone with such wisdom and love, and seeing no recognition, no sign of clarity, was like a spike in Lienna's heart. Watching her struggle to dress or feed herself with hands that had once deftly made water fly and shadows dance made Lienna's gut twist. Truth be told, she had mourned her grandmother years ago; the body she had taken care of until now was but a cruel shadow of a distant memory.

The rest of the ride had been nothing but a chore, bumping through various countrysides, weather getting hotter all the time. Lienna had marvelled at the grass and flowers and trees as they pressed southward, but the bucking of the carriage eventually redirected her attention from the wonders outside the window to keeping her food down. When finally they reached Shadow Worth, Lienna welcomed the mountain wind and cold like an old friend and pressed on into the castle of her own accord (under the eyes of guards, of course), eager to put as much distance between her and the carriage as possible.

She stood stoically through the speech, relatively unperturbed (she'd heard it all before in stories, and the truth of it all hadn't quite yet sunk in) and allowed herself to be herded into a room. Once inside, she stripped down eagerly, did what she could to wash off the past two weeks and changed into the plain grey clothes provided without protest. Perhaps she might be hesitant to shed her furs if her journey had been shorter, but after two weeks? She was ready to burn them. Clean clothes, then, were a welcome commodity.

Exhausted from travel, Lienna wasted no time getting to sleep. The relief of being able to stretch out in a room that didn't sway and jerk or move at all overcame her dread of the days to come, and for the first night in two weeks, she slept soundly.

~ /// ~

For the first time in years, Lienna didn't wake up on her own. Instead, she was jerked quite rudely from sleep by the pounding on her door. Once more (though less happily, having resented being torn from her slumber) she followed the herd of teary-eyed Gems all the way to the dining hall, where tables were made up with foods she'd never seen or even learned the names of.

Even having been able to sleep soundly and wearing clean clothes, Lienna was still too irritated from the trip to bear sitting next to any of the many sobbing girls around the room. Instead, she scanned the crowd for a less crowded space, until her eyes landed on a flash of white among the sea of grey. Intrigued, Lienna made her way over.

It was a girl (obviously), with stark white hair and pale skin much like Lienna's, framing a set of vibrant blue eyes. Lienna took the seat across from her, taking small portions from whichever dishes looked most foreign. Surely many Gems present were seeking out familiar foods, but Lienna had grown very tired of the salted dried meat of her homeland and was eager to try something juicy and colourful.

Plate full, she glanced up at the girl opposite her, icy lilac eyes meeting her blue ones. "Excuse me," she asked between bites, "Are you from Maanku?"

Summary

We get a snapshot of Lienna's life before the Reaping, her negotiation for the ongoing care of her grandmother, and her hellishly long trip to Shadow Worth. Her night is uneventful and she sits across from Amalia at breakfast, intrigued because she looks so much like her.

If you read Lienna's sheet, you'll notice that the family situation in this post is different than the one in her sheet. Don't worry about it, I'm just re-vamping her backstory a little and have yet to re-write the sheet. Just take the information in this post to be canon! :D

Prized Bride (A New Beginning)

@Animus Hello Animus! I’m afraid we’re closed to new characters right now, but if you’re keen we can put you on a waiting list ^_^

Obscene's Scratchpad

Lienna Orhneaht

_{Interacting with: Amalia Solair @Belle}

Spring was always such an odd time in the North, especially as far north as Hima. It was the "morning of the year-long day," as the locals called it; the six months of constant night that were the winter were yielding to the dawn of spring. However, spring was of little comfort to the people of Hima. The winter's cold had yet to release its frigid grip, and the only real buzz surrounding spring was the greatly anticipated return of daylight.

It was proof that the world kept on moving.

For Lienna, nothing really changed. She woke up early, as usual (although without the sun to serve as a reliable timepiece, "early" was a relative term), stoked the fire, and started preparing the morning tea - all very quietly, with practiced ease. Soon, she had two small cups of herbs steeping, just in time for her grandmother to wake up on her own.

She didn't say anything. Lienna didn't either. She just handed the frail old woman her tea, and sipped her own silently in the morning gloom. Their days of cheerful morning talk were long gone.

With tea finished (and after having coaxed something into her grandmother's stomach) Lienna tucked her grandmother once more under her mountain of firs to go back to sleep. Sleeping seemed to be all she did these days, but at least it kept her from wandering.

"I'm going to town, Uma," Lienna whispered, pulling on her boots and strapping snowshoes under them, "I'll be back soon."

Her grandmother made no response. It was just as well; Lienna hadn't expected any.

---

"Ten pieces?" Lienna crossed her arms. "Absolutely not. Five."

The walk to town wasn't too long, but the fresh snow made it arduous. However, tiring as it may have been, Lienna reached town before too many people were awake to glare at her. Still, she had kept her face securely covered, both against the biting wind and the prying eyes of onlookers, as she made her way to the local butcher's.

"The winter was hard," replied the butcher, unhelpfully. "The price had to go up."

Lienna rolled her eyes. ”Really?” she challenged, ”Strange, I saw no shortage of elk.”

"Don't get smart with me," the butcher replied, "The price is ten. Take it or leave it."

Lienna scowled at the butcher, and snuck a glance over his shoulder at his wife, who sat in the back of the igloo cutting meat into long strips. She was short, stout and oddly proportioned, with a lumpy face and bulbous nose, and she kept sneaking disdainful looks at Lienna.

Crossing her arms, Lienna crinkled up her nose and stared for a moment at the various dried meats the butcher had to offer. Truth be told, the dried elk she was after did look good, but she knew that the price would lower back to five pieces the second she left the igloo. Such was life in Hima; the community was strong and close-knit, which made it easy for them to unite against you.

Finally, she grew tired of her battle of wills. "Fine," she sighed, defeated. "What will five pieces get me?"

The butcher glanced at his wares, thought for a moment, and replied, "About two pounds of dried seal."

Lienna groaned inwardly. Seal was tough and gamey, but it was cheap and fatty and would hold them out for a little while. Exasperated, she pulled her purse out from the folds of her furs, fishing out five round pieces of amber. She handed them to the butcher, along with a small sack to fill with her purchase.

By the time she left the butcher's, Lienna expected to see more people out and around, going about their morning chores and appreciating the new sunlight. However, when she emerged, the town was eerily empty. Even the people she'd seen on her way in had made their way back to their homes. Items such as bags and tools lay in the street, and the contents of a sack of spruce needles flew underfoot in the frigid wind. It looked like people had left in a hurry.

Turning around slowly, Lienna expected to see a pack of arctic cats or a large bear, or something of the powerful and scary sort that usually sent the residents of Hima into hiding. What she saw instead, she would have gladly traded for a nose-to-nose meeting with an angry bear.

It was impossible to miss; the large black carriage and tall, black-clad figures atop it stuck out of the otherwise white landscape like a fire at night. It lumbered through the snow like a lumbering monster, stopping every now and then as the wheels struggled against the snow. The beasts pulling it were clearly not suited to Northern conditions, and the beasts driving it were no better.

Reapers.

Lienna nearly dropped her bag and backpedaled, wide-eyed and frantic, to the nearest igloo, only to find it blocked by a still-hardening barricade of ice. One by one every nearby igloo in the village shut her out, leaving her exposed in the square, open to the wind and the Reapers. She wasn't surprised, of course. Many of these villagers had drowned their own daughters as babies to avoid the horror of the Reaping; it stood to reason that they didn't want anyone else's daughter dragged out of their homes either.

All Lienna could do was stand there and wait. To get home, she would have to pass right by the Reapers, and even if she could outrun them, where could she go? Back to her grandmother's igloo? They would only follow her there and punish her for running. There was nowhere else to hide: It was nothing but ice fields all the way to the black forest on the horizon.

So she waited.

They arrived quicker than Lienna would have guessed, cursing the cold and everything that lived in it. Stopping mere metres from her, one massive Drakkan hopped down from the carriage and approached Lienna, closing the distance in just a few strides.

"Uncover your face." He ordered.

With a trembling hand Lienna complied, and with a gloved hand the Drakkan roughly took hold of her jaw, turning her face this way and that to examine it. Once he had, he nodded and grunted to his partner, "She'll do."

As soon as he released her, Lienna hurried to cover her face once more, as even that brief exposure to the wind had left it stinging. She didn't know what else to do; what just happened barely registered.

"You have one hour to gather your belongings and say your goodbyes," boomed the Drakkan, "Which way is your home?" It was more of a demand than a question.

Lienna blinked, and slowly looked around. Home was almost an hour's walk away in this snow. By the time she arrived, she would barely have time to wake her grandmother and say goodbye before she was torn away, and that wouldn't do. She had more important matters to take care of if she was to be leaving.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she pointed to the butcher's igloo. "That one."

If the Drakkan had noticed that she had just been barricaded from every igloo in the area, he didn't care. He simply nodded sharply and barked, "Go on then, and be quick about it." He turned back to the carriage, muttering, "Fucking wind."

It took a second for Lienna's feet to move, but soon she was throwing her fists against the wall of ice in the igloo's entrance, giving a push with both her magic and her hands and breaking in. Before she was even all the way through the short tunnel, the butcher's wife started shouting, "No, no! You get out! I won't have those beasts breaking down my walls to get at you!"

Despite the wife's protests and the comically small slivering blade she brandished, Lienna pushed into the igloo. "Stop!" she shouted back, hands outstretched defensively, [color-baa7c7]"Naia's love, woman, relax! They've already chosen me!"[/color]

She sank to her knees, then, onto the fur-lined floor. "Naia's love," she repeated, voice much softer now. Tears threatened at the corners of her eyes and her throat burned. "I've been chosen..."

The butcher and his wife said nothing, and for a moment Lienna could only look down at her mittened hands in shock. The gravity of the situation was beginning to hit her, and a million thoughts raced through her mind.

Snapping out of her reverie, Lienna sniffed and wiped her eyes urgently with her mitten before looking back up at the butcher. "I need your help."

The butcher opened his mouth to protest, but Lienna stopped him. "I'm not asking you to hide me, or help me escape," she reasoned, "I'm only asking for your kindness."

"You know my grandmother is ill," she began, "She can't take care of herself. She relies on me. Without me to take care of her, she'll die." She pulled her purse once more from her coat and put it on the table between them. "This is all the money we have. Take it - I don't need it anymore. But please, speak to your father about her. I know he sits on the village council, he could help her. You could all help her." She made a point to look at the butcher's wife with that statement.

They didn't particularly like her, sure. The whole town could have said the same. But there was little more heartbreaking to a Water Gem than to witness the loss of one's memories, one's wisdom. Stories and knowledge lost to the ages were enough to arouse fear and pity in even the most judgemental of them. Lienna was confident that every Hima resident would agree: the loss of one's mind was far worse than the loss of one's life. She prayed they would take pity on her grandmother.

The butcher thought for a moment, glanced to his wife, and reached for the purse. "Very well," he replied, tossing the bag behind him, "Consider it done."

Lienna almost burst into tears, and stood up to take the butcher's hand. "Thank you," she professed, "Naia blessed, thank you."

She turned to leave, but the butcher stopped her. "Wait," he stated, "Give me your bag."

Hesitantly, Lienna handed over the sack that he so recently had filled with dried seal. The butcher turned, rummaged for a moment, and turned back again, returning the bag to her somewhat heavier. "For your trip," he stated.

Lienna welled up once more as she took the bag, and nodded her thanks. She could barely muster a breath, but the butcher seemed to understand. He simply nodded as she made her way out.

She emerged to find a Drakkan, a different one than had examined her, waiting outside. Just as she stood, his companion appeared, murmuring, "Not a single other one worth a damn, can you believe it?" Peeking around his massive figure, Lienna saw various faces poking out of the entrances of various igloos, watching with morbid curiosity.

The Drakkan looked down at her, and then her sack. "Is that all you have?"

Lienna swallowed hard. "Yes."

"Come on then." The Drakkan grabbed her roughly by the arm, not that he'd needed to, and dragged her to the carriage. Lienna didn't fight. She didn't even look back. The only thing she looked for as she was shoved in the carriage and carted away was the dot of an igloo on the horizon.

~ /// ~

By the time they reached Shadow Worth, Lienna was elated. Not about their destination, of course, but because she could finally get out of that wretched carriage and plant her feet on unmoving ground.

The trip from Hima to the Spine had taken fourteen days. Fourteen. Days. Two weeks of her life, spent cooped up in a dark wooden box, fighting down waves of nausea as the rickety thing pitched to and fro over every bump. Over the first day or so she had wept - how could anyone not have? - but the tears soon dried up. She hadn't been sure if she was crying of sadness for her old life, or fear for her new one, or something else altogether. Truth be told, her heart wasn't in it. To her, it almost felt like she cried because that was what people did when they were ripped from their lives and thrown into slavery. That was what was expected. The most appropriate response, surely.

It wasn't that she wasn't sad, or scared. Of course she was. She'd heard the horror stories of how Gem Brides rarely lived through the season once in the grip of their captors, how the Drakken loved pretty things because they loved to see them break. She also hadn't been able to say goodbye to her grandmother, which would have crushed her so much more if she thought her grandmother would have understood the situation and cried with her. But honestly, Lienna thought it better this way. This way, her grandmother wouldn't have to be distressed, would be taken care of, and probably wouldn't even notice her absence.

As for her former life, there wasn't much to mourn. She loved her grandmother, of course, but taking care of her was a heavy burden, and allowed for little else than constant care and vigilance. Lienna's life at home was a job she did out of respect, and out of the debt she felt she owed her grandmother for taking her in as a baby. Still, the job killed her a little every day. The pain of looking into her grandmother's eyes, which once had shone with such wisdom and love, and seeing no recognition, no sign of clarity, was like a spike in Lienna's heart. Watching her struggle to dress or feed herself with hands that had once deftly made water fly and shadows dance made Lienna's gut twist. Truth be told, she had mourned her grandmother years ago; the body she had taken care of until now was but a cruel shadow of a distant memory.

The rest of the ride had been nothing but a chore, bumping through various countrysides, weather getting hotter all the time. Lienna had marvelled at the grass and flowers and trees as they pressed southward, but the bucking of the carriage eventually redirected her attention from the wonders outside the window to keeping her food down. When finally they reached Shadow Worth, Lienna welcomed the mountain wind and cold like an old friend and pressed on into the castle of her own accord (under the eyes of guards, of course), eager to put as much distance between her and the carriage as possible.

She stood stoically through the speech, relatively unperturbed (she'd heard it all before in stories, and the truth of it all hadn't quite yet sunk in) and allowed herself to be herded into a room. Once inside, she stripped down eagerly, did what she could to wash off the past two weeks and changed into the plain grey clothes provided without protest. Perhaps she might be hesitant to shed her furs if her journey had been shorter, but after two weeks? She was ready to burn them. Clean clothes, then, were a welcome commodity.

Exhausted from travel, Lienna wasted no time getting to sleep. The relief of being able to stretch out in a room that didn't sway and jerk or move at all overcame her dread of the days to come, and for the first night in two weeks, she slept soundly.

~ /// ~

For the first time in years, Lienna didn't wake up on her own. Instead, she was jerked quite rudely from sleep by the pounding on her door. Once more (though less happily, having resented being torn from her slumber) she followed the herd of teary-eyed Gems all the way to the dining hall, where tables were made up with foods she'd never seen or even learned the names of.

Even having been able to sleep soundly and wearing clean clothes, Lienna was still too irritated from the trip to bear sitting next to any of the many sobbing girls around the room. Instead, she scanned the crowd for a less crowded space, until her eyes landed on a flash of white among the sea of grey. Intrigued, Lienna made her way over.

It was a girl (obviously), with stark white hair and pale skin much like Lienna's, framing a set of vibrant blue eyes. Lienna took the seat across from her, taking small portions from whichever dishes looked most foreign. Surely many Gems present were seeking out familiar foods, but Lienna had grown very tired of the salted dried meat of her homeland and was eager to try something juicy and colourful.

Plate full, she glanced up at the girl opposite her, icy lilac eyes meeting her blue ones. "Excuse me," she asked between bites, "Are you from Maanku?"

Summary

We get a snapshot of Lienna's life before the Reaping, her negotiation for the ongoing care of her grandmother, and her hellishly long trip to Shadow Worth. Her night is uneventful and she sits across from Amalia at breakfast, intrigued because she looks so much like her.

If you read Lienna's sheet, you'll notice that the family situation in this post is different than the one in her sheet. Don't worry about it, I'm just re-vamping her backstory a little and have yet to re-write the sheet. Just take the information in this post to be canon! :D

Obscene's Scratchpad

Lienna Orhneaht

Lienna Orhneaht

_{Lienna's eyes are an icy pale lilac, and her ivory hair has silver streaks which reflect the light as potently as their namesake. In the right light, her skin glimmers like sunlight on fresh snow.}

Race:
Gem
Age:
20
Element(s):
Water
Height:
5'4"

Bio

Bio:
Lienna was born to a poor single mother outside a Gem village in the far North, where the land never thawed and the sea, a blanket of ice. Though they were Water gems, just like almost everyone in the village, they were outcasts; the harshly logical townspeople thought Lienna's mother a fool for not drowning her child when she showed signs of beauty. They believed that beautiful daughters brought the Drakken upon the village, thus more likely to Reap from them again, and believed that killing a beautiful infant was more humane a fate than the possibility of being Reaped. In hindsight, Lienna wonders if they may have been right.

From the get-go Lienna was taught to be self-reliant, not out of necessity, but out of her mother’s need to have a child who could fare well on her own. Looking back, Lienna figures that her mother saw the Reaping coming, and predicted that she may be chosen. She loved her daughter with all her might, however, and did her best to teach her how to be strong. “A strong woman makes choices to improve her life and the lives of others, no matter what those choices may be,” she’d always said, “A strong woman will never give up, not even when all hope is lost and everything is dark and broken.”

The village in which they lived was very religious, and Lienna and her mother were no different. They held strong faith with Naia, the goddess of Water, patron of Water Gems. Her mother taught her many things about her goddess and her faith, but perhaps the most resounding of her mother's lessons was this:

"Water always finds a way."

This became a mantra for Lienna as she faced life’s natural challenges, but never did she truly understand what those words meant until the Reaping.
On the day she was taken, Lienna shared tearful goodbyes with her mother, and while she loathed the idea of becoming a bride to a monster, her mother convinced her to go willingly. Lienna obeyed, knowing that it would be easier on everyone if she cooperated. However, her mother did leave her one remnant of home: into Lienna’s hands she thrust a tiny ivory statue of an owl with shining amethyst eyes.

Lienna identifies with water in every sense. She has always been calm and as wise as a young lady can be without age to help her, stoic and logical with a slow temper. She has always taken life's challenges in stride, with the phrase in her mind,

"Water always finds a way."

Other:
Lienna has some trouble with reading and numbers, as she never had the opportunity to go to school or access many books. Her preferred use of her elemental magic is freezing water into ice.
Lienna's grandmother made a point never to speak of her mother; she always answered Lienna's pleas for information by professing that her mother had disgraced herself by leaving and wasn't worth speaking of. All Lienna ever learned of her parents came from later in life, when her grandmother would let slip confused strings of words in one of her far-off ramblings.

Adult Content Preference:
I'm open to taking it to PMs if I think it would be fun or add something to her story. Otherwise, fading to black is fine too. If you're curious, just ask me.

Prized Bride (A New Beginning)

Alright! Before we go live, your wise and merciful GMs thought it fit to provide you guys with a post template! See, those of you who have been with us before will remember that this IC can get to a lot of long posts real fast. In our experience of the past three iterations, we've figured out that the following format is the best for making posts easy to read, easy to find, and easy for involved players to be notified of. This format allows people to know exactly which posts require their attention and makes it easier to tell which post belongs to whom when reading through.

Alright, here she is:

---

Name

_{[Title] of [character name] [@"character player"] and [title] of [character name] [@"character player"]
Interacting with: [character name] [@"character player"], [character name] [@"character player"], and [character name] [@"character player]}

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer venenatis euismod ligula, in tristique nunc congue vitae. Proin sit amet neque sit amet lacus commodo eleifend eu eu massa. Vestibulum viverra tincidunt orci a ullamcorper. Aliquam sit amet venenatis eros, non maximus mi. Aliquam id massa a enim consequat iaculis ac sit amet lacus. Pellentesque vestibulum nulla quis nibh cursus, a ornare diam vestibulum. Proin non vehicula ligula, eget interdum ligula. Suspendisse sodales, risus ac pharetra interdum, justo leo aliquam justo, vel molestie risus urna lacinia lectus. Ut aliquam suscipit risus sit amet suscipit. Maecenas faucibus urna tortor, vel blandit lorem rutrum in. Cras sed elit ligula. Cras egestas risus sagittis tortor consequat gravida. Vestibulum purus massa, tempus sed facilisis et, pharetra vitae nunc.

Sed eget nunc nec tortor posuere tincidunt. Ut consequat velit ac venenatis rhoncus. Fusce id consequat libero. Maecenas luctus arcu eget sollicitudin sodales. Nam in nisi eu sapien porttitor tristique. Curabitur a felis felis. Curabitur quis auctor orci, quis mattis massa. Curabitur ac nisi ex. Sed vitae velit ligula. Curabitur eu dolor vitae massa fermentum ultricies in convallis metus.

Summary

[Summary] (If you've read this far, put a "laugh" on this post to show me you have read and understand)

---

Ignore the latin, it's a placeholder for post content. Also, the horizontal lines aren't part of the post format, just there to make this post look neater.

Here's the raw code!

[center][h2][Name][/h2][sub][Title] of [character name] [@"character player"] and [title] of [character name] [@"character player"]
Interacting with: [character name] [@"character player"], [character name] [@"character player"], and [character name] [@"character player][/sub][/center]
[post content]
[hider=Summary] [Summary] [/hider]

Here's an example post!

Lienna Orhneaht

_{Bride of Azilon Dantanath @WeepingLiberty; Sister-bride of Rya Mire @Ellion and Aurora Liesma @WeepingLiberty
Interacting with: Aubree Lamay @Ellion and Azilon Dantanath @WeepingLiberty}

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer venenatis euismod ligula, in tristique nunc congue vitae. Proin sit amet neque sit amet lacus commodo eleifend eu eu massa. Vestibulum viverra tincidunt orci a ullamcorper. Aliquam sit amet venenatis eros, non maximus mi. Aliquam id massa a enim consequat iaculis ac sit amet lacus. Pellentesque vestibulum nulla quis nibh cursus, a ornare diam vestibulum. Proin non vehicula ligula, eget interdum ligula. Suspendisse sodales, risus ac pharetra interdum, justo leo aliquam justo, vel molestie risus urna lacinia lectus. Ut aliquam suscipit risus sit amet suscipit. Maecenas faucibus urna tortor, vel blandit lorem rutrum in. Cras sed elit ligula. Cras egestas risus sagittis tortor consequat gravida. Vestibulum purus massa, tempus sed facilisis et, pharetra vitae nunc.

Sed eget nunc nec tortor posuere tincidunt. Ut consequat velit ac venenatis rhoncus. Fusce id consequat libero. Maecenas luctus arcu eget sollicitudin sodales. Nam in nisi eu sapien porttitor tristique. Curabitur a felis felis. Curabitur quis auctor orci, quis mattis massa. Curabitur ac nisi ex. Sed vitae velit ligula. Curabitur eu dolor vitae massa fermentum ultricies in convallis metus.

Summary

Some latin crap went down.

GM note: If you've come this far, leave a "laugh" on this post to show me you have read and understood ^_^

Please note:

- I know the code seems squished, but if you add line breaks in editing it'll make your spacing weird. Keeping it compact keeps it easier to read and easier to scroll past when you're looking for a specific post!

- Along that same vein, make sure you write your actual post directly below your header code. If you add a line break, the space between the header and the post gets all weirdly stretched out. (I find it helpful to write the post first and the header formatting after)

- To format your post with the raw code provided, just replace everything in square brackets "[ ]" with whatever it says to insert there (like names). (Of course you want to keep those square brackets around mentions to they still work, lol)

- If you're using colours for your dialogue, feel free to apply the same colour to your header text. Some people even like to put their related characters' names in those characters' colours, (for example, in the post above I could have put Azilon's name in blue instead of Lienna's purple) but that's a lot of work and is definitely not required.

- Speaking of colours, you're welcome to use them for dialogue and headers! Just make sure your entire post isn't coloured, and please note that if a GM deems your choice of colour to be difficult to see, you will be asked to change it.

- If you are including multiple different characters' POVs in your post, make sure to separate them with horizontal lines using the code "[ hr ]" (remove spaces) and use the proper header format for each new POV.

- Please make sure that, like the example, the body of your post is aligned to the left.

- Finally, don't worry about mentioning people multiple times. I tested it, and no matter how many times you mention the same person in a post, it still only goes through once.

Alright! If you have read this post and understand, you know what to do. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here or on Discord (Discord will be quicker). Now get hype! Today's the day!

Obscene's Scratchpad

Alright! Before we go live, your wise and merciful GMs thought it fit to provide you guys with a post template! See, those of you who have been with us before will remember that this IC can get to a lot of long posts real fast. In our experience of the past three iterations, we've figured out that the following format is the best for making posts easy to read, easy to find, and easy for involved players to be notified of. This format allows people to know exactly which posts require their attention and makes it easier to tell which post belongs to whom when reading through.

Alright, here she is:

---

Name

_{[Title] of [character name] [@"character player"] and [title] of [character name] [@"character player"]
Interacting with: [character name] [@"character player"], [character name] [@"character player"], and [character name] [@"character player]}

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer venenatis euismod ligula, in tristique nunc congue vitae. Proin sit amet neque sit amet lacus commodo eleifend eu eu massa. Vestibulum viverra tincidunt orci a ullamcorper. Aliquam sit amet venenatis eros, non maximus mi. Aliquam id massa a enim consequat iaculis ac sit amet lacus. Pellentesque vestibulum nulla quis nibh cursus, a ornare diam vestibulum. Proin non vehicula ligula, eget interdum ligula. Suspendisse sodales, risus ac pharetra interdum, justo leo aliquam justo, vel molestie risus urna lacinia lectus. Ut aliquam suscipit risus sit amet suscipit. Maecenas faucibus urna tortor, vel blandit lorem rutrum in. Cras sed elit ligula. Cras egestas risus sagittis tortor consequat gravida. Vestibulum purus massa, tempus sed facilisis et, pharetra vitae nunc.

Sed eget nunc nec tortor posuere tincidunt. Ut consequat velit ac venenatis rhoncus. Fusce id consequat libero. Maecenas luctus arcu eget sollicitudin sodales. Nam in nisi eu sapien porttitor tristique. Curabitur a felis felis. Curabitur quis auctor orci, quis mattis massa. Curabitur ac nisi ex. Sed vitae velit ligula. Curabitur eu dolor vitae massa fermentum ultricies in convallis metus.

Summary

[Summary] (If you've read this far, put a "laugh" on this post to show me you have read and understand)

---

Ignore the latin, it's a placeholder for post content. Also, the horizontal lines aren't part of the post format, just there to make this post look neater.

Here's the raw code!

[center][h2][Name][/h2][sub][Title] of [character name] [@"character player"] and [title] of [character name] [@"character player"]
Interacting with: [character name] [@"character player"], [character name] [@"character player"], and [character name] [@"character player][/sub][/center]
[post content]
[hider=Summary] [Summary] [/hider]

Here's an example post!

Lienna Orhneaht

_{Bride of Azilon Dantanath @WeepingLiberty; Sister-bride of Rya Mire @Ellion and Aurora Liesma @WeepingLiberty
Interacting with: Aubree Lamay @Ellion and Azilon Dantanath @WeepingLiberty}

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Integer venenatis euismod ligula, in tristique nunc congue vitae. Proin sit amet neque sit amet lacus commodo eleifend eu eu massa. Vestibulum viverra tincidunt orci a ullamcorper. Aliquam sit amet venenatis eros, non maximus mi. Aliquam id massa a enim consequat iaculis ac sit amet lacus. Pellentesque vestibulum nulla quis nibh cursus, a ornare diam vestibulum. Proin non vehicula ligula, eget interdum ligula. Suspendisse sodales, risus ac pharetra interdum, justo leo aliquam justo, vel molestie risus urna lacinia lectus. Ut aliquam suscipit risus sit amet suscipit. Maecenas faucibus urna tortor, vel blandit lorem rutrum in. Cras sed elit ligula. Cras egestas risus sagittis tortor consequat gravida. Vestibulum purus massa, tempus sed facilisis et, pharetra vitae nunc.

Sed eget nunc nec tortor posuere tincidunt. Ut consequat velit ac venenatis rhoncus. Fusce id consequat libero. Maecenas luctus arcu eget sollicitudin sodales. Nam in nisi eu sapien porttitor tristique. Curabitur a felis felis. Curabitur quis auctor orci, quis mattis massa. Curabitur ac nisi ex. Sed vitae velit ligula. Curabitur eu dolor vitae massa fermentum ultricies in convallis metus.

Summary

Some latin crap went down.

GM note: If you've come this far, leave a "laugh" on this post to show me you have read and understood ^_^

Please note:

- I know the code seems squished, but if you add line breaks in editing it'll make your spacing weird. Keeping it compact keeps it easier to read and easier to scroll past when you're looking for a specific post!

- Along that same vein, make sure you write your actual post directly below your header code. If you add a line break, the space between the header and the post gets all weirdly stretched out. (I find it helpful to write the post first and the header formatting after)

- To format your post with the raw code provided, just replace everything in square brackets "[ ]" with whatever it says to insert there (like names). (Of course you want to keep those square brackets around mentions to they still work, lol)

- If you're using colours for your dialogue, feel free to apply the same colour to your header text. Some people even like to put their related characters' names in those characters' colours, (for example, in the post above I could have put Azilon's name in blue instead of Lienna's purple) but that's a lot of work and is definitely not required.

- Speaking of colours, you're welcome to use them for dialogue and headers! Just make sure your entire post isn't coloured, and please note that if a GM deems your choice of colour to be difficult to see, you will be asked to change it.

- If you are including multiple different characters' POVs in your post, make sure to separate them with horizontal lines using the code "[ hr ]" (remove spaces) and use the proper header format for each new POV.

- Please make sure that, like the example, the body of your post is aligned to the left.

- Finally, don't worry about mentioning people multiple times. I tested it, and no matter how many times you mention the same person in a post, it still only goes through once.

Alright! If you have read this post and understand, you know what to do. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me here or on Discord (Discord will be quicker). Now get hype! Today's the day!