Character Sheet
The Mysterious Orphan

Name: Lotte, daughter of Henrik and Anelie
Sexuality: Pansexual
Age: 18
Species: Lamia, Central Lands Human Culture
Level: 3
Class: Hunter
Weapons: Bow, Knife

XP: 2/18

Description: A tall lamia, with short blond hair, and blue eyes, dressed in a protective vest and a noble's hunting shirt. They are muscular, well-formed and handsome, and have slightly yellowish eyes and a forked tongue. Their snake-half is in a forest pattern that helps for blending in, except for the occasional splash of Tyrian purple.

Traits:

Just Devotions (Racial--Human, Central, Cultural)(Level 0): Humans in some parts of the world worship the Gods, vast and sometimes unknowable beings that do grant blessings to those that believe in them, magical blessings. But even the lowliest of the pious knows how to pray to them, how to do the right supplications, how to act in the proper ways. This knowledge can sometimes be put to good use, though the Gods rarely turn their eyes to every little prayer.

Wholesome Farm Looks (Human, Central, Physical, Level 1): Though most of the people of the Central lands, that mass of Kingdoms, Princedoms, Dukedoms, Duchess States, and more, are of course quite poor, they are a hardy, hard-working people, and sometimes this life less beats a person down and more hones them. They have reasonably good looks, and even more importantly, look trustworthy, clean-cut, and otherwise like the kind of person who'd never lied a day in their life or slacked off a single hour, either. This remains even after becoming a lamia, though it is... tempered, obviously.

Snake Eyes (Level 1, Physical, Lamia): You can see in the dark pretty well. It isn't perfect, but the night is not nearly so dark and full of dangers as you expected it would be, for whatever reason.


Forest Wanderer (0, Pre-Class): The forest is a fascinating place for a child, as long as they don't go too far. As one gets used to it, one learns more about its ins and outs, and while some of it only applies to the forest that such a child lived in at first, much of it is quite helpful later.

Forest Eyes (Level 1. Class): As one could have eyes that pick out every tiny detail of the tundra, so can one be used to seeing in the dark forest tracks, possibilities, old growth, traps, and anything else, especially when one knows how to use your ears and nose to aid it. It is remarkable how much you can see, when you see what is actually there.

Hunter's Mettle (Level 1, Class): To hunt, one needs a bow, an arrow, and perhaps a knife for self-defense. Having some skill at them is inevitable, having solid skill at them is admirable, and quite useful.

Steady Arm (Level 2, Class): You have a strong, consistent aim. You're not a superlative archer, at least by the standards of adventurers, but you don't have off moments, and you don't waver from being able to hit your target, even if you're not doing the fancier tricks.

Leave Few Traces (Level 2, Class): The experience of being on one side of the hunt makes you wonder how you'd hide your tracks if you were being hunted, or tracked by hostile enemies, as sometimes does happen in adventures. You've begun to practice how not to be followed in the woods, and perhaps elsewhere.


Mending Knowledge, Basic (Level 0, Pre-Class, Healing Priest): You know how to apply poultrices, and you know the basic ingredients of a number of potions that cure headaches, deal with common pains, put someone into a gentle sleep, and other minor things. You can also bandage someone properly. You are not very good at this, merely adequate... but that's more than what most people are.


Whitlin' Ways (Level 1, Common): A man or woman who knows how to whittle will never want for whistles, or spoons, or any number of goods. It's a useful, solid sort of skill, and one that could be made into a trade. It also makes a pretty decent way to pass the time, and the person who whittles never lacks for a knife in sticky situations.

Penny Pincher (Level 1, General): You know the value of a Pfin, and how to keep from wasting all of your money, even if you're far from a merchant. Money is something you're familiar with.

Steel Nerves (General, Level 3): You've seen enough strange places and done enough fantastic things that you are less likely to panic in terrible situations, and more likely to think things through, however difficult. This doesn't mean you can't panic at all, but you have a grip on those nerves. In battle and danger only, this unfortunately doesn't help at all with social anxiety.


Divine Sense (Level 0, Divine): You can sense when someone is a Demigod, and there's at least the potential ability--though you have not figured it out yet--to try to track people through their divine 'scent.' A person's 'scent' gets stronger as they get more magically and divinely powerful... but on the other hand, you now have a 'scent' of your own, that will allow other demigods to know you for what you are, increasingly as you grow more powerful yourself.

Captivating Eyes (Level 2, Divine): You can sometimes 'catch' people with your eyes. If you're concentrating, they'll find it slightly more difficult to look away, though any sense of threat or danger breaks it immediately, and they'll hear your words clearly, actually listening… or at least hearing them. There's no requirement to listen to them, nor does it seem as if anyone's mind is being altered in any way, but it's an interesting, if bizarre, power, and certainly is a new take on 'lost in their eyes.'

Slithering Shadows (Level 3, Divine): You can blend into the shadows better than you should be able to. At night, and in darker areas, you can seem to shift away from sight. It doesn't work well in a wide-open space, but that little bit of extra secrecy can be very useful as a hunter, and as someone who might need to sneak through various areas.
 
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[X] Take him to court
-[X] Let Lizbeth decide if she wants to take part in that or not. If she doesn't, say farewells here.

Because I kinda feel like this is an important decision for Liz and as is the votes feel like Lotte is making the choice for her.
 
Laur already said this, but to pull back the curtain, we were never planning on anyone being recruitable this early. You'll have choices and options to set up a party later, but the first few quests are solo, and Lotte will have grown and changed and matured before that comes up.

So no worries!

Okidoki.
Well in that that case Lisbeth should be the one making the decision:

[X] Take him to court
-[X] Let Lizbeth decide if she wants to take part in that or not. If she doesn't, say farewells here.
 
[X] Take him to court
-[X] Let Lizbeth decide if she wants to take part in that or not. If she doesn't, say farewells here.
 
[X] Take him to court
-[X] Let Lizbeth decide if she wants to take part in that or not. If she doesn't, say farewells here.
 
[X] Take him to court
-[X] Let Lizbeth decide if she wants to take part in that or not. If she doesn't, say farewells here.
 
[X] Take him to court
-[X] Let Lizbeth decide if she wants to take part in that or not. If she doesn't, say farewells here.
 
[X] Take him to court
-[X] Let Lizbeth decide if she wants to take part in that or not. If she doesn't, say farewells here.

We just freed Lisbeth from somebody else's control. Let's not start immediately making her decisions for her.
 
[X] Take him to court
-[X] Let Lizbeth decide if she wants to take part in that or not. If she doesn't, say farewells here.
 
1:7
Note: You May Have Missed 1:6 because of an error on SV. So if you're like, "What's going on" go back and read 1:6.


1:7

Lotte couldn't say for sure whether she was really that moral a person. Yes, she tried to follow the will of the Gods, and she tried not to cheat others, and she tried to provide for her family, but 'good' people in the stories did grand things that lit up the world around them. She knew she didn't do that, and she only sometimes felt bad for that fact. It was what it was. She tried her best, and her best wasn't particularly special: it wasn't hard to be honest, to be polite when she could, to do her duty as she saw fit. These were less matters of good or evil than… than just learning not to do something so terribly wrong that only a fool could…

All of this meant that she didn't deserve a choice, and the fact that she was tempted at all to make a choice, as if… as if. It was like being under the shade of a dead tree, that feeling in her guts. She'd won, she'd done all of that, but it didn't give her any special authority, didn't make her better than average, certainly didn't give her the right… didn't.

"No," Lotte said, trying to ignore the struggling man near her, muffled and tied up but still dangerous. "I will take him to the village so that they can charge him in the courts." She let out a long, slow breath. A sigh. She only realized in that moment how tense she was, how much the stress had been eating at her the whole time she'd prepared the ambush. "I will do that because it's the right thing to do, and I'm… I know the basic duties that… that everyone has to the world."

The Gods had duties to the world, and so did men, women, children. Everyone owed much. Everyday, ordinary decency was something that, just maybe, Lotte could manage, even feeling as she did now, like a bruise that would never heal, like a rotting carcass drawing flies.

Lisbeth was staring at her, but Lotte didn't let herself see whatever was in her eyes, in the set of her face, in her ears. She didn't want it.

"I… but I will not tell you what to do. I am not your Master or Liege, and even if I was, I wouldn't have any right to command you. I'm an eighteen year old peasant girl, nothing like an authority over right and wrong. You can do," Lotte said, reaching a hand out, almost touching Lisbeth's hands, which were trembling, "Whatever you want. You can come with me, to testify against him, or even to defend him, to accuse me of lying about it. You can flee, you could go into the village and see what they'd do, you could… I'll help you do whatever you want to do, other than freeing him. Even then, you could try to do that if you wanted." Lotte took a breath. "Please, don't do that. But it'd be me stopping you, not me forbidding you."

Lisbeth looked at her, and Lotte looked up to meet her eyes. Then she flinched away from the awe she saw there. Why? How? It wasn't deserved, either way.

"Oh," Lisbeth said, as soft as a prayer. Speaking of, Lotte would have a lot of prayers and offerings to give after this. "Then I want…"

They, all three of them, seemed to be waiting to hear it. Even Lisbeth seemed uncertain about what she truly wanted, but at last she spoke. "I want to leave. If… I'll take anything from the camp that you see fit to give me, but I want the pipes. I can't stand to go with him, to condemn him, save him, or neither. I can't face it, can't understand it, can't justify it." She looked back at the rats, what few of whom hadn't scattered in shock. They clearly had woken up themselves. She looked at them with soft, fond eyes that seemed to tell Lotte--indirectly--that everything was going to be okay.

Lotte hoped it was going to be.

*******

"You can keep all of them," Lotte said. "I don't need coin. That's not why I did this."

Lisbeth frowned, looking down at the pile of coins. They were in his campsite, and he was tied to a tree, unable to shout out, and blindfolded too. Even so, there was a feeling in the air, the knowledge that he was nearby.

It made Lotte feel like she was a bandit trying to split loot, more than anything else.

"Take one. Just one," Lisbeth said, holding up a silver coin. "To remember."

Lotte nodded, not quite willing to fight. She could use the coin, and it could be the brother of the first one, another memorial.

"Is there anything else you could want? Be honest," Lisbeth said.

"The cloth for the tent, but… you need it more," Lotte said. "Another knife, if he has one, just to make sure I have… spares." Lotte bit her lip. "That's it."

"What about his clothes?" Lisbeth asked.

Lotte suddenly felt as if she were trapped, as if her leg must have fallen into some sort of snare. She didn't even know why she felt like that, just that there was a chill down her spine. "What about them?"

"I was just thinking, you probably won't be as reminded of him, and they are nice clothes. You could have them done in for cloth, and make something nice to wear."

Lotte relaxed, though she again didn't know why she'd tensed up at all. She glanced through the clothes, while Lisbeth looked at the notes Aldrich had brought along, and the little trinkets, and then at the bottom of the pack, a few small gems that looked remarkably valuable.

"Oh, Aldrich," Lotte said. "Security?"

Security against what? Famine, perhaps, or a long run of bad luck. He hadn't needed the money here at all, not really.

Lotte didn't know how to process it, the way that a person could be so many things to one person, and yet also so terrible. The clothes were nice, and out of curiosity, Lotte slipped one of his shirts on, shifted so that her chest was less visible, squared her shoulders, and stood there for a moment.

"You know, it doesn't quite fit you, but you're a very big person," Lisbeth said.

Lotte had the presence of mind to smile, and even asked, "Or are you small?"

Lisbeth snorted, and went about her business. Lotte helped Lisbeth pack up, and Lisbeth gave a small bag to hold the clothes in, so that she could take them with her when she was bringing Aldrich to justice.

Finally, she stepped up in front of Lotte. "You know, yeah, the shirt… huh. It's easy to forget whose shirt it is, when you're in it."

"What?" Lotte asked.

Lisbeth stepped a little closer and whispered. "Master Aldrich said you were sweet on me. Are you?"

"He's not your Master anymore. You've… you've become a journeywoman," Lotte said, hoping to distract her. Hoping, even, to get into some sort of strange argument. She was standing there with clothes, a coin, and a knife in a bag. She'd done a lot and risked a lot, and at the moment that payment seemed far more than enough.

It even seemed generous, by the wounds of the Gods.

"Lotte, could you please answer?" Lisbeth asked. Her eyes were wide, her whiskers twitching. "It isn't easy for me to ask, you must know that."

"...perhaps a little bit, yes," Lotte admitted, quietly. The words had to force themselves out of her throat.

"It might be awhile before I see you again," Lisbeth admitted, looking up at Lotte, stepping even closer. But she moved slowly, as if Lotte were an animal that would spook easily.

Lotte frowned, looking at Lisbeth, head tilted downward.

"It will be, but I plan on seeing you again, someday. It can't be now, I need to go on the road, I need to prove that I can be a Rat Piper, even without Aldrich around to… to help me." Lisbeth whispered it. "And he really did help me, whatever else he also did."

"I'm not going to argue with you," Lotte said. She wasn't sure she agreed, but she also knew she didn't know enough about him.

"Good. Very good. I'm not going to see you for a while, but I will see you again, and I will miss you, I think. I can't know for sure," Lisbeth admitted, her ears carefully unmoving. As if she were fighting emotions. "But I can't imagine not missing you, and I can't imagine not being grateful to you, and all you've done. You could have easily hated me, easily fought Aldrich to the death. You did neither. You're the best person I know."

"I'm not," Lotte said, feeling her heart race as Lisbeth leaned up a little.

"You are, and I'd like to kiss you, just once. Before we part ways."

"I--"

Lotte looked down at her lips. They were soft and thin, pursed now into the ghost of a smile. But it wasn't hard to read Lisbeth, not really. Not now.

"Yes," Lotte confessed, feeling the tension go out of them as Lisbeth reached up and grabbed onto her shirt… Aldrich's shirt, that is. She tugged on it, her tail wrapping without thinking around Lotte's ankle as she leaped up.

They met in the middle, and it was… probably not the best first kiss on all of recorded history. No, Lotte couldn't get the angle quite right at first, and it was a little awkward, having the whiskers tickling at her chin. But then she leaned into it, a little more, and Lisbeth wrapped her other hand around Lotte's shoulder. The kiss continued, and they broke for a moment, panting.

Lotte felt fire roaring through her veins, higher and higher, her arousal almost stunning her. She usually wasn't this… it was hard, she didn't, she was--

Her thoughts were a chaotic muddle of pleasant feelings (her arm feels so nice, her fingers feel nice tugging at her shirt, I feel so warm, I feel okay), strange feelings (should be kissing her harder, why am I not, what am I), and even a few unpleasant (why am I not feeling wrong, shouldn't there be a moment, where…).

They made no sense, even to herself, but she lost herself in the second, and then the third kiss. But she pulled away before the fourth. She wasn't the best kisser, but… from the look on Lisbeth's face, she'd appreciate it too. Lisbeth looked flushed, her face red, her eyes blown wide, and Lotte had to keep from leaning in.

The fire in her belly had spread, and if she didn't stop, she had a feeling they'd do more than kiss. She didn't want that. There was no holy law (at least in the Gods Lotte knew), but it was custom to… try to keep such things to a minimum before marriage. Though that had far more to do with children than anything else.

But there was a growing sour feeling in her belly, to fight the… the lust. "No," Lotte said. "Aldrich is… he's listening."

Lisbeth paled. "Oh."

That wasn't the reason, not really, but now that she was thinking of it, that was weird, even if he might not be able to hear that much.

"Yes," Lotte said.

"I liked kissing you."

"I did too," Lotte admitted, with a flush. She wanted to do more than that, and not in the way they'd about to do. When she thought of it, she thought of romance, of going to harvest festivals together, of working close together, of paying a visit to her house… but then again, Lotte was an adventurer and Lisbeth was a wanderer.

How would that even work?

"I should go. But you should take some of the notes. I found the ones on fire rats. I won't be using it. And there's other bits of evidence of his fire plan."

"I will," Lotte said.

"Good luck, and may the Gods be with you," Lisbeth said. "I am glad I got to meet you."

"I'm… not that special… but I'm glad I got to meet you, too."

She was glad, too, that she'd learned something. How long would she have gone making wrong assumptions about Beastfolk?

Lisbeth smiled.

"Hey, may I ask: what do you plan on doing?"

"I'm going to be a real Rat Piper. I'll keep my prices as low as the fellowship will allow, and see if I can do it on my own."

"There's a fellowship?" Lotte asked. "Not a guild?"

"Rat Pipers are too independent. It'd be like an adventurers' guild," Lisbeth said.

Lotte nodded.

Today seemed to be a day for learning all sorts of new things, good and bad.

*******

They talked about it for months afterwards, and then stopped for a time, before restarting with even greater fervency. The way, in late afternoon, a girl some of them had seen around stepped out of the forest, Aldrich the Piper tied up and well in hand, wearing two shirts, one of them surprisingly nice. Her shoulders were straight, and even those who had seen her before had never noted just how tall she was. It was as if she were on parade, as if something had stiffened her spine. Every so often she'd stop, brushing down her overshirt with rather more care than expected.

This archer, this tall woman, looked so strange, moving with confidence. Aldrich tried to escape twice, but was caught instantly, tugged back.

It was only her hair, and her features, that even told her as much of a girl, obscured as she was by the second shirt, and the air of martial grandeur.

Afterwards they told stories of how she must have fought against impossible odds to triumph unharmed, but at the time they just noted how unmarked either of them were, other than a few tiny bruises, and a good deal of mud and dirt.

Stories, later, took out the mud and dirt, and changed many other details. It was first told accurately, though, by people in taverns, and then by men to their wives. Sure, a few details weren't correct, but did that matter? They caught the essence of it.

They caught the new Adventurer Lotte as she walked into the town center. They gathered, curious, those that could--which were few enough--abandoning their work to see what was happening.

(In retellings, the entire village was of course there, and perhaps people the next village over as well.)

She straightened up and announced, to all assembled. "I have captured Aldrich the Rat Piper in the act of ambushing me, and of plotting arson upon Friedrich and Hilda. As a freeholder under the Lord of these lands, I make this arrest, and ask all to hear the evidence I have, and ask aid that he be held and the Lord contacted."

The Lord, of course, would have dungeons for holding those accused of serious crimes, the kinds of outsiders that couldn't be kept on threat of village disapproval and little else.

She looked around as the headman came forward, gaping, but--or so the stories said--very impressed.

"He also comittted trespass by magic," Lotte said, after a quiet pause that they all interpreted as wise years later, and awkward days later.

"Of course, honorable Lotte, right this way…"

End of Chapter 1

******

Adventure XP!

Successfully Completing an Adventure: 2 XP
Completion with Style: 1 XP
Fight with Aldrich: 1 XP
As a Hunter, did you bring the wild's bounty back to your people? Did you protect someone or do the right thing?: Yes. Yes he did: 2XP
=
6/10 XP to Level 2

******

A/N: And thus ends the first adventure. Flip your holy books to Chapter 2, Verse 1 of the Book of Lotte next week!
 
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yes she did
Or
Yes you did


Well. This arc certainly ended in as far from my expectations as possible. Weird voter direction (of which I was one of) to a simple (at face value) event.
They're all some sort of guys. Some of them aren't using masculine pronouns yet, for various reasons (denial, naivety, what have you) and the narration reflects that, but they're all set up to be guys. Any choice which hasn't moved to presenting or acting like a guy will end up doing that over the course of the story, and anyone who's already there won't have that transition to go through.

In other news, yaaaaay! Evil The arrogant conman has been vanquished turned in to the rightful authorities. An unqualified success!
 
Laur and I tend to internally use he/him for Lotte because it's going to be accurate in a few arcs, and we're often discussing the shape of those arcs anyway.

I do apologize if it's confusing in the meantime, but we are trying to show cracks in his egg and moments of dysphoria to make it more obvious to the readers. By the time Lotte realizes, it should be plenty direct.
 
Laur and I tend to internally use he/him for Lotte because it's going to be accurate in a few arcs, and we're often discussing the shape of those arcs anyway.

I do apologize if it's confusing in the meantime, but we are trying to show cracks in his egg and moments of dysphoria to make it more obvious to the readers. By the time Lotte realizes, it should be plenty direct.
AWAKEN HATCH, MY MASTERS DUDE!
 
Aldrich asked, pleased that Lisbeth had done right this time. That girl could be so frustrating. It'd been his pious duty, to take in the daughter of a friend, but she had been such a bother at times. Like most children, she was in need of correction, and like most children, himself included, she started to learn her lesson after a few beatings.

Mmm.
Nah, Aldrich, you have to try harder for the worst dad award. Gendo traumatized his son worse with neglect than you did with beatings and haughtiness.

That arrogant child, threatening him, thwarting him, almost seducing Lisbeth! He couldn't let that go unchallenged!

Lol.

"To get you your own Pipes, and enter the final stages of your training. Another year or two, if you can merely listen to what I say, and not let your feelings and compassion get in the way of doing what has to be done to maintain your pride. It's a harsh world out there," Aldrich said, overcome by passion as he walked through the forest.

Pride doesn't require "maintenance", in other people's eyes. If you convince yourself, you can easily convince others.

Aldrich is okay for a starting antagonist. Overall, I prefer villains with good intentions that take them in horrible directions, but Aldrich? Aldrich's just a jerkass who's convinced himself that his pride requires human sacrifices.

if she's truly weak, then… La lah, lah…" he began humming, and Lisbeth's eyes seemed to lose something, her jaw growing slack as she leapt between Aldrich and Lotte. Lotte let her second loosed arrow hit the ground, unwilling to hurt her.

Ah, I wondered about that.

Yeah, the winning plan is pretty good.
From roleplaying reasons, too.

Yes, she tried to follow the will of the Gods, and she tried not to cheat others, and she tried to provide for her family, but 'good' people in the stories did grand things that lit up the world around them. She knew she didn't do that, and she only sometimes felt bad for that fact. It was what it was. She tried her best, and her best wasn't particularly special: it wasn't hard to be honest, to be polite when she could, to do her duty as she saw fit. These were less matters of good or evil than… than just learning not to do something so terribly wrong that only a fool could…

Gotta ask, is writing characters with low self-esteem your intentional choice or does it just work out that way when you start?
I mean, many writers say they have a "type" they can write really well, even when sometimes they couldn't be more different from the character they create as a result.

and even a few unpleasant (why am I not feeling wrong, shouldn't there be a moment, where…).

Huh?
You know, what's with all religious make-up, Lotte sounds very interesting. In her/his origins.
Hmm.
As long as he's not a potato-devouring spirit of a dead star, I'm okay with that.
That spot is taken.
but it was custom to… try to keep such things to a minimum before marriage.

That's... huh. Why? Aside from the obvious patrimony issues. Some people are bothered by that.
Well, never mind.

Did you protect someone or do the right thing?

Doing good XP bonuses?
Mmm.
Can be justified by Lotte feeling if only a little more self-confident by doing what she/he believes is a right thing.


I mean, is there a tradition to venerate people rather than gods in the setting? Like prophets or patron saints?
There must be, I guess. What with the verses, and the Book of Lotte title.
( huh, does that mean that he retains the name? Or will you edit it in later? )
 
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Mmm.
Nah, Aldrich, you have to try harder for the worst dad award. Gendo traumatized his son worse with neglect than you did with beatings and haughtiness.



Lol.



Pride doesn't require "maintenance", in other people's eyes. If you convince yourself, you can easily convince others.

Aldrich is okay for a starting antagonist. Overall, I prefer villains with good intentions that take them in horrible directions, but Aldrich? Aldrich's just a jerkass who's convinced himself that his pride requires human sacrifices.



Ah, I wondered about that.

Yeah, the winning plan is pretty good.
From roleplaying reasons, too.



Gotta ask, is writing characters with low self-esteem your intentional choice or does it just work out that way when you start?
I mean, many writers say they have a "type" they can write really well, even when sometimes they couldn't be more different from the character they create as a result.



Huh?
You know, what's with all religious make-up, Lotte sounds very interesting. In her/his origins.
Hmm.
As long as he's not a potato-devouring spirit of a dead star, I'm okay with that.
That spot is taken.


That's... huh. Why? Aside from the obvious patrimony issues. Some people are bothered by that.
Well, never mind.



Doing good XP bonuses?
Mmm.
Can be justified by Lotte feeling if only a little more self-confident by doing what she/he believes is a right thing.


I mean, is there a tradition to venerate people rather than gods in the setting? Like prophets or patron saints?
There must be, I guess. What with the verses, and the Book of Lotte title.
( huh, does that mean that he retains the name? Or will you edit it in later? )

I think I do do it somewhat often, but I think it's in different ways? It is true that both Lotte and Nima are cursed by very high personal standards for themselves. ...actually, maybe that's how I interpret devout religousness? Though Miriam has rather higher self-esteem than either Nima or Lotte.
 
actually, maybe that's how I interpret devout religousness?

Might be?

I'm not overly religious, so I couldn't tell.
Supposedly, the devout religiousness is more like "God doesn't give me a challenge I can't overcome" than feeling bad about not being as good as Jesus Christ tho.

I mean, there's holding yourself to a high standard, and then there's driving it so high you have no realistic hope of ever reaching it.

I once posted "Wow, Nima has a self-esteem of an average Japanese protagonist", because they really love that trope in their main characters.

Like Madoka.
Or Rean from Cold Steel.
Or Shirogane from Kaguya-sama wants to be confessed to. Actually more than half of the main cast and a couple of supporting characters. come to think of it.
Or you get the idea.
So I was wondering if you wanted to explore the same ideas, more or less, but, eh, okay.
 
Nima holds herself to the ideals and standards of the Jedi, whereas for Lotte the problem is... he's ordinary. Being a good person is not about just being devout or halfway decent (because everyone should be devout, it's not exactly a High Religion the way he practices it), it's about being a Hero, an Adventurer. About doing great things and being great things. They both have problems with their standards, with who they compare themselves too. But in both cases it's something they can really work on?

Though Lotte also has the fact that they're currently going through a dysphoric jag, and Lotte's self-perception in 1.5, 1.6, and then a portion of 1.7 up to a moment you might have noticed, is impacted by that fact.

Which is a unique trans experience, but if I was trying to universalize it, everyone has bad days, or days where they doubt themselves more or less than other days. Or maybe I'm deluded and it's just me.
 
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I once posted "Wow, Nima has a self-esteem of an average Japanese protagonist", because they really love that trope in their main characters.
A bit of relatability for a lot of people who expect to live a life as a school drone, then graduate to a corporate drone and finally becoming the bothersome elder after somehow getting married at some point.
 
2:1
2:1

Lotte had to stay for far longer than she expected, in order to give her statements not merely by telling others, but by giving oral testimony in a court of law. The local Lord turned out to be a Lady, short and slight of build, who turned over the court to a magistrate and then sat and watched. She didn't look bored, though she also had the sort of face, long and somber, which could look serious and attentive at all times. It could be a front for any sort of boredom, but Lotte would like to believe that she was interested in justice and punishment on her lands. Lady Gwenilde was certainly an imposing person to speak in front of when explaining her testimony, but Lotte managed not to stumble too much on what she was saying. It was just repeating the truth, but she was asked plenty of questions, and even made to present the documents from Aldrich. Luckily they didn't ask her to read them.

Lotte could read, but not well, and so they assumed she was illiterate. It was par for the course, and she had had every opportunity to read and yet lacked the intellectual rigor to read more than a little. There were dozens of illiterate people in her old village who, if given the opportunity, would have used it better than she had.

She did, once having been presented with her testimony, declare that it was accurate upon it being read back to her, and she signed her name clumsily, with the concentration of someone chiseling holy writ in a tablet--but with far less profundity.

Lotte the adventurer was what she wrote, of Valwald. Hopefully that would be enough to find her.

Aldrich was sentenced to be branded, whipped, and imprisoned. If he was found to attempt such offenses or any others--and all would know because of the brand, which burned with priestly magic and could not be hidden--he would lose his tongue. If he succeeded, of course, he would be executed. Only his failure saved his life. All would know, wherever he went, that here was a man who had tried to kill, who only failure had spared in any capacity. He, and his reputation, would be ruined.

It was cruel in a way. But Lotte couldn't find it in herself to declare it unjust, not when Aldrich was unrepentant and denying the facts all the way to the sentencing.

The only thing she was truly annoyed by was the week-long wait. The trial took several sessions, introducing the evidence, the first and second day of testimony, and then the sentencing. She spent a week hovering around an impressive looking castle. It was as tall as three people, and while Lotte had heard people say that their region was poor and its castles not much, how could it be when they were that big? Unless castles elsewhere were even bigger.

As it was, Lotte stayed around the area and earned her keep hunting for the Lady, who had a real preference for rabbits and birds, small things to make delicate dishes. She had a huntsman, and other such men, but they were all preparing for a feast. Her husband, a bastard warrior whose father had been about the rank of her father, was coming back from some tournament, all this way.

Lotte was told this, and other gossip--most of it the sort that slipped out of your brain the same way an average day of hunting did compared to the days of plenty or the frustrating days when you just can't quite find anything--by the maids who went down into the village because the castle was not large enough for all of them. The village was where Lotte stayed, and when she went to the alewife for evening socializing they talked to her like they would any other woman.

Of household mistakes and gossips and slanders, of the love between the Lady and her husband, yes, but also her emotional distance, the way she doted on guests as if she was annoyed at her husband's journeys. Lotte wasn't sure she liked it, and weirdly she appreciated the way that even the one girl who'd smiled and been friendly had acted differently in the castle, the two times she'd shown up with birds for the Lady's table. Maybe it was the blood, or maybe it was the act itself, but they looked at her as they would one of the men, which was to say that Lotte felt…

Suspicion?

Lotte wasn't sure of a lot of things, that week she waited, the week she was barely an adventurer at all. The only good news is, perhaps it was the stress, perhaps the fatty food or the hours of not eating between it, but her monthlies didn't come, as inconsistent as ever. That at least was a relief, since it would have interfered with at least some of the proceedings. So she was able to pray as best she could, and make offerings. Some were voluntarily, but some, like to Bluthund were compelled. They loved blood and punishment. They tormented the guilty and upheld the righteous, and licked the wounds from the backs of those punished justly for crimes. As a God, they of course knew which was which. It wasn't a deity that Lotte had ever seen any particular need to worship, not when there were other gods' who seemed to demand less bloodshed. Lotte had had to cut her hand to put her bloody seal on the testimony she'd made.

It didn't escape her that she'd bled more in the process of the trial than she had in defeating Aldrich.

But she endured, and soon enough something like justice had been served, and she moved on gratefully.

******

At last she could see fresh things with new eyes. She could stare at a long, wide river that she was passing by, watching the fish bob up and down, silvery and red and gold flashes on clear waters. It was beautiful, and Lotte regretted that she didn't fish, at least not with any particular skill. She liked water, and baths, but was hardly going to just dip in the river, so she watched it for a while and then moved on, eyes always scanning for both birds and ambushes.

She found the former but not the latter, and she wished she knew all their names. But she knew some, and knew what their meat tasted of, what their habits were, where they went (or didn't) in the dead of winter.

There was nothing new, to be honest, but there were variations on the old, different patterns of feathers and colors.

Lotte felt blessed by the Gods to be able to see such beauty. It was a lovely spring, the kind of spring that would be talked about for years to come, Lotte thought, in the way villagers did when they had nothing else to talk about. The spring when I was married, the spring when my father died, it'd be transformed as the world was constantly by the ebb and flow of life. The population of one sort of animal increased, and another sort decreased, the winter was too harsh and many animals that should have survived died, there was a forest fire, and the cycle of forest life continued…

Humans weren't that different. From Lotte's experiences, neither were beastfolk.

She thought about such things a lot better when there was an open road ahead of her, and while she could hardly like being tired and sore, she liked what she felt it told her, that she was hard working, that she was doing something with herself. Though she didn't see any trouble, the week that she went east along the winding roads past forests and plains, across streams and rivers, she made sure to hunt enough to keep her practice up. She'd have to do better in the future, be better, because Aldrich was just one man, as dangerous as he could be, harassing a single family.

Lotte would face greater dangers in the future, and when she did she'd have to be ready.

But that seemed so far off when she was traveling that she didn't dwell long on it. No, instead she let the road carry her, and let her heart sing with the first taste of adventure, now that she was on her way. She sometimes put on Aldrich's shirts, an extra layer the one evening it rained, and found herself untroubled that they were his, compared to the way they reminded her of her triumph.

She cooked her food carefully, checked all water down-river from a town, as she'd been told, and eventually made it to Lannheim, the largest town in the region.

It daunted her, and stunned her. It sprawled so much that, on the hill overlooking it--a hill with its own wooden watchtower, currently manned--there were two sets of walls, one half-crumbled but barely visible in the center of the town, as if it had been but a womb for some larger, sprawling beast. She could smell smoke, and animal dung, piss and refuse and shit and yet also steel, food, beer--

There was very little she couldn't see in the chaotic sprawl of the town, as she walked down towards it. It was large enough to swallow someone up, and she went through the front gate uncertainly, glancing at the cobbles on the street up towards the heart of the town. It all made her feel very, very small, just another visitor walking through a town in the harsh light of late afternoon.

There wasn't long before she'd have to find an inn. She intended to find a tavern, but staying at one would be foolish. They were not, or so she'd been told, always the safest places for new adventurers, especially women. There were taverns, in larger towns, for women, sometimes. They catered to those not interested in… male company. Lotte remembered Lisbeth's kiss, uncertainly, and yet also remembered how Arndt had looked in his shirt, shoulders tight after a long day. She could perhaps go to such a place, one day. But right now Lotte needed to find the biggest--not the most grand, the biggest--tavern in the town and head in. Her mother's advice should be followed, in such a case.

It took some questioning, but Lotte had a polite smile and seemed in earnest, and so she found her way to the Boar's Head, which was near the town center. It was a huge, noisy building, two stories tall, the second devoted to places to sleep. She tried not to look as nervous as she felt as she walked through the door, which slammed behind her. She also ignored the mud, feces, and food that caked the floor beneath the rushes. Her mother had told her that taverns were filthy places, and it smelled far worse than she expected, but that didn't matter. She'd been around animals all the time, and they were hardly clean.

Men were gathered here and there, with a few chairs sat out and a single table. That meant that most people stood and drank, and spilled a lot on the floor, of course. But it truly was huge, with a central area that could have fit a field in it. In the corner, standing up on a barrel, was a River Sepult woman, playing a tune on a fiddle. She was singing to it, though her voice was rough.

There was the tavernmaster behind his bar, with the barrels of beer. He was a big man, thickset in the way of someone well into his forties and never active, and he looked at her as she approached. "So, girlie, what's your drink?"

She wasn't the only woman in the tavern, actually, and those that were there were unevenly divided between local girls who seemed to look at the scene with distaste, women who wore the sash of prostitutes, and harsh, strong looking women who might well have been adventurers, or at least entirely willing to swap jokes and drinks with men without looking as if they particularly were enamored with them, the way some local girls tried to look.

"Whatever beer's cheapest," Lotte said, trying to sound like she knew what she was doing. "And…"

She'd waited so long to ask a tavern-keeper this, had heard it so many times in stories.

"Anyone around here looking for an adventurer?"

One of the 'jobs' draws her eyes. But which one?

[] A minor nobleman's son has been attacked by some sort of monster, and seeks aid in hunting it down and either capturing it or killing it. They're some ways away, but they've sent out the call far and wide, though this might well mean competition for the job.
[] A merchant would like to make a journey some way's south, and he's asked for at least two or three brave adventurers willing to escort his goods, which he feels might be vulnerable to a bandit group that has taken up residence along the roads.
[] Disaster! Somewhat to the north, a holy shrine to a martyr has been ransacked, and the goods stolen and taken deep into the wilderness of the so-called Roterwald. Now they need a team of adventurers to track down the goods and bring them back.

*******

A/N: So!
 
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