Dreams' Cracked Cradle
30th of Neth 4707 A.R. (Absalom Reckoning)
Fine parchment lies on a stone shaped to purpose with ink and stylus beside them, but other than providing a place to write you're left unsure of what sort of help you can be. The most you can say of the caves of your birth is that you were glad to see the back of them, though now come into power it's easy to daydream of what you'd do if you returned.
No, what would you even want from them? "Maybe I am a good person to talk about resentment with," you say, half to yourself though clearly heard.
"You don't have to..." Mina looks guilty and maybe a bit like she'd be glad for the excuse not to write yet.
"I'm just here to listen," you shrug and grab a stool to sit on, leaning against the smooth stone wall of the cabin.
It seems to have been the right thing to say as she starts to explain: "If the walls and the castles of the nobility are what keep people from danger, from beasts and brigands and worse, than the Church of Pharasma is the rock around which many of those lives are built, cradle to grave. And to be close to that, to serve the lady, is seen as being as great an honor as it is a sacrifice. Always the scales..." Mina sighs, lost in thought. "They say Barstoi used to be a lot better when the Holy Mother was young, before the war with Ardeal and Vrano, before count Neska came into his own. He has his own scales, you see, and they are finely balanced indeed. Each spring the taxmen take all they can from the land, no more but certainly no less. I've seen it with my own eyes, the fear in the eyes of the villagers that any traveler on the road might be a thief or worse, a spy for the count, there to report that they've been cheating on their taxes. For the Monastery of the Blessed Rest, its people did everything they could to stay behind the walls were it was safe, where law and custom protected one from being bound to the land."
"Slavery?" you ask surprised but then curse yourself, remembering how you'd first met Mina. She doesn't need the reminder.
"
Serfdom. You know, before I saw Andoran I would have said that's nothing like slavery, a serf wears no chains and may go about their life on the land to which they belong as they wish, but now, especially once I read that book Gorok got from the Eagle Knights, I'm not so sure it isn't just being more sneaky about it. Anyway, as I was growing up things just got more and more crowded, especially in the winter. Then come spring, orphans find reasons to stay and acolytes are given new positions rather than moving on. I didn't really may much attention to it. Then one day, it was around late Neth like it is now, sermons started getting
very pointed. The idea of all these orphans taking up the knotted staff of a mendicant..."
"Gained traction?" you borrow a dwarvish term. Ture there's a limit, you know, to how many people one can stack in the chamber before those who step on each other's callouses too often pull a knife on each other, not to mention they'd run out of food from wherever this place was harvesting its crops.
Mina nods, picking up the thread of the story again. "The one way to be sure you wouldn't be 'encouraged' to take to the road would be to have the blessing of the Lady of Graves, to channel holy power. Since I was a girl I could call on it, light and see magic, pass over the earth and leave no mark, hide my face behind another's, though as one girl told me that's only because my own face was so strange."
"She didn't
just say 'strange'," the words are not a question.
"No." For a long while Mina is quiet, no sound but the sloshing and sliding of the water against the hull. "The other children were scared of me, scared of unchancy things. The world is filled with beautiful things like elves and phoenixes and naiads and sprites and winged-horses, all the books said so, but you don't see many of those in Barstoi, mostly it's just the monsters left over from the dark times and the things that come over the river from Numeria. But even those aren't the worst, really. All of Ustalav, from the lake to the mountains, dreads the legacy of the Tyrant's Reign, and there was my mother come out of the Dead Lands with me swaddled, barely a few months old at the door. For the longest time I told myself she was Desnan and my own little magics a sign of Lady Luck's favor. I guess in a way I was lucky, I was offered a chance to stay since I was quiet and studious if not necessarily clever..."
You swallow a laugh, poorly. "You do remember dissecting that hell-book for insight yesterday, yes?"
"I don't think the sisters would approve of
that kind of wit," she brushes away the compliment. "The others were not happy with me that night. They said some things... they said some very
nasty things that I won't repeat since they were just scared and angry. I decided to go after all, but I couldn't bring myself to go as a Mendicant of Pharasma. This is going to sound silly, but it would've felt like
failure. So, since Desna was near to my heart, I took to the road with a prayer to her, just another traveler. The sisters took that as a slap in the face, adding insult to injury beside the fact that I choose to leave when I didn't have to. Sister Eloise, who'd been... who was my favorite teacher said I'd come to a bad end. I was angry, I said 'well then at least I'll come to come to
some kind of an end instead of just running down the clock like you all do, scared of your own shadows.' So... that's it, I'm not sure what to write. 'You were right, I got enslaved by wicked men, then wicked dwarfs, but then I got lucky again?', 'I'm sorry for not being more grateful,' or maybe just 'Was my mother a hag?' Is that why you were all scared of me?'"
Seeing your no doubt bemused look she reminds you. "That's what Breolia called me, during the fight you know, 'hag's get'? And then the swaithe called me sister..."
What advice does Kori give?
[] Mend bridges if that's what you want, but consign no important questions to paper that will pass through who knows how many hands before it gets to its destination
[] It's your story to tell, as much or as little as you wish, though if you want my advice, snitch on the little shits who pushed you to leave, they've probably been thankful you've gone all this time
[] Write in
OOC: The default options are a mix of caution and vindictiveness because this is Kori and he didn't have a lot of positive social interaction growing up, but if you guys want to write in something else feel free to. People can and do rise above their first impulse when giving advice.
