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The Caretaker
Name: Rynn
Gender: female
age: 20
skin: Pale
Eyes: blue-grey
Hair: Brown, usually tied back in a ponytail
Appearance: A somewhat short young woman who tends to dress in blues and greys that compliment her eye color.
Other: Rynn is a quiet, studious person, with a love for both science, and the mysterious and out-of-the ordinary. She recently moved out of her parent's house into her own, to work with her long-time friend who joined a small theatre group. Though not an actor herself, she works backstage with lighting and props, and gets to watch free shows when she isn't working. She spends her free time and extra money buying various books, about a variety of subjects, with a strange collection of technical science books and fantasy.
Text Color: #23537b


The Cat
Name: Cael
Gender: male
Color: black
Likes: milk, ribbons/string and clawing Rynn to wake her up in the morning.
Dislikes: dogs, being woken up when he’s sleeping, having his tail pulled.
Other facts: Cael is Rynn's pet and companion. She found him abandoned on the street as a kitten and saved him, intending to find him a good home. To her dismay, when she tried to give him away several times, he ran away and found his way back to her, so she resigned herself to taking care of him. In truth, she loves him to bits, and was secretly thrilled when he returned.

"mew? mew?"

Rynn groaned, burying her head into her pillow. Damn Devin. Her brother had the habit of waking with the dawn, where as Rynn would sleep 'till noon when she could. And while she wouldn't have cared if he never slept a wink, he had fed her cat breakfast every morning when he woke up. What had seemed a blessing at first- she had to get up at 8 every morning before that, the horror- was now a curse. Now that she had moved out of the house, Cael woke her at dawn every morning for when he thought breakfast was 'supposed' to be.

"Mew." Cael said incessantly, jumping onto the bed. "Meew?"

"Alright!" She groaned, attempting to push him away without looking up. "I'm up!" Cael slinked around her outstretched arm unfazed, and sat by her head purring and batted at her hair.

Rynn sat up with a scowl, to find that it was still dark. Her alarm clock (useless, compared to Cael.) Blinked 5:00 A.M. at her. She frowned at Cael. "Your not supposed to wake me up until the sun rises."

"Mew?"

"No." She grumbled petulantly. "I'm not feeding you any earlier. Forget it. I don't want this to become more of a habit!"

"Mew" Cael whined. Rynn picked him up and set him on the ground, shooing him away. He trotted out of the room, pausing at the door to see if she would follow him to the kitchen like usual. She ignored him and looked out her window into the dark night. She considered going back to sleep, but decided it would be useless unless she fed Cael. She would be stubborn about that though. She didn't want him to wake her up even earlier.

Stretching, she decided to go for a walk. Rynn had been making random walks through town to get to know it better, since she had just moved from her parents’ town around a month ago. Even once she had the town fairly memorized she still took walks simply because they were good exercise. She hadn't really walked around at night, but a walk on the beach while she waited for the sun to rise sounded nice. It would also get her away from Cael, who stared dejectedly at her as she left.

So She sleepily made her way out to the beach, barely noticing the absence of people on the shadowed streets. When she got to the shore Rynn pulled off her sandals and walked at the edge of the waves, where her footprints quickly disappeared.

The moon had already set and the only light was from the stars, and the faintest glow on the horizon where the sun would soon rise. The cold water lapping against her ankles was quickly waking her up as she walked, but she still found herself wishing to go back to sleep. ‘silly cat.’ She thought, half fondly and half exasperated. It was rather nice walking along the beach in the dark.

Eventually she stepped away from the gentle waves and plopped down onto the sand, staring at the pink tinge on the horizon. The air seemed pleasantly warm, which struck Rynn as odd, considering that it should be at it’s coolest after a long night. ‘It’ll be a hot day today.’ She mused. That probably wouldn’t be as pleasant as it was now. At least she didn’t have to go to work today, but her house wouldn’t be comfortable in much heat, and her portable fan she had been using had broken when Cael had jumped on it from the bookshelf.

Her thoughts came to a halt as the first edge of the sun appeared, and She noticed something decidedly strange.

Her shadow was in front of her. Albeit it was faint, but it was there.

Which meant there was light behind her.

Rynn spun around to see a glowing bottle sitting nestled in the sand, under the dubious shelter of the ledge of a large rock. She blinked, then rubbed her eyes to be sure she wasn’t seeing things.

No, still there. How had she not noticed a glowing bottle?

She frowned in puzzlement, and carefully lifted the bottle out of it’s resting place. How strange. Was there a light bulb inside it? The light seemed flame like, but a candle would surely have died from lack of oxygen. Curiosity tugged at her, and she tried to open it, to no avail. How does a glass stopper get stuck like that? If she pulled too hard at the top, the bottle might shatter. That was no good. It was glass after all, and the glass was beautifully crafted with swirling red designs. She was quite sure she’d never seen anything like it, and she definitely didn’t want to break it. Too bad the glass was too opaque to see what was inside.

Perhaps it came from a store that made handcrafted bottles somewhere in Amies. And if it was small she probably hadn’t noticed it yet. She would have to ask her friend Lori.

The sun was fully visible by the time she got back to her house, and maybe it was just her imagination, but it seemed like the bottle had gotten brighter on the way home. She was pretty sure that was impossible, since a flame would definitely have run out of fuel in something that small, and there was no sort of controls to adjust a light bulb’s settings. ‘who would bother for such a small bottle, anyways? Why would they put a light in a bottle in the first place?’

Needless to say, Rynn had many questions that morning that she intended to find answers to.

“I’ve finally discovered what the bottle is. After running into several strange people, and searching through all the glassmakers in town, it was when I was walking down the street that I literally ran into the answer. I’m still not quite sure I believe it...”

“What is it?” Lori asked, peering around the stack of books she was carrying from Rynn’s Library into her study.

“Well…” The words were reluctant to leave Rynn, though she knew Lori would eat it up. Right now, Rynn wasn’t sure if it was gullible or smart. “Well… apparently it’s made by some lesser god…” She knew an ‘I told you so’ was coming.

“Ha! I knew it wasn’t manmade.” Lori cried cheerfully. "I have a sixth sense about such things."

“And it’ll change into a child.”

“What?”

Rynn shrugged. She wasn’t going to tell Lori about the gods wanting to destroy them, who knew how she would react to that? “I was told by a person with his own bottle…” A very handsome person, really, though she wouldn’t say that either. “and he convinced me at least of it’s magical origin… and if it is made by a god who knows? Apparently the bottle chooses the owner, so I can’t just get rid of it.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that why you wanted my help clearing out your study?” She set the stack of books down on the living room table.

“It needed it anyways.” Rynn set down her own stack of books. The study was… disorganized, to say the least. Even if it turned out that the bottle never changed, which wouldn’t surprise her that much, she could move everything back into the study in a more organized fashion.

“Wow. A child!” Lori seemed unsure of what else to say. “That’ll make things… different.”

“Yep.”

“You don’t seem too upset.”

“I think if I try to think about it too much I might panic.” Rynn admitted. She was actually very nervous about the whole situation. She wasn’t sure she was in anyway emotionally ready to raise a child, so she concentrated on the more material things. She had enough money saved that she could support a kid financially, she was sure, and she was starting by preparing her house to have a place for the kid to sleep.

“We’re going to take a break.” Her friend declared, dragging Rynn into the kitchen. Rynn frowned, but allowed herself to be pulled along.

“We still have a lot to do.”

“But I didn’t know there was going to be a kid! This changes everything!” There was a bounce to her step. ‘Yes,’ Rynn thought, ‘there isn’t a doubt in her mind about the bottle. How gullible.’ Rynn smiled lightly. She was a huge believer in the mystical, and the bottle was already ‘magic’ so anything was possible in her friend’s mind. Lori was an outgoing and confident person, but she wasn’t stupid. She probably believed it so readily because she trusted Rynn’s judgment. She sighed. Lori trusted her judgment more than Rynn did herself.

“What does it change? It makes it more important to clear out that room, not less.”

“Yes, but I need time to wrap my mind around this… Tea?”

“Sure.” Rynn sat down at the kitchen table as Lori set a pot of water to boil. The bottle was sitting on the table already. It shone brightly today, something she had noticed it did when other people were around, or when she took it outside. Maybe it liked seeing other people?

“So is it a girl or a boy?”

“I don’t know.”

“That's no good, how will you think of a good name then?”

A name. Rynn froze for a moment. She had to name it? She would, wouldn’t she? Unless they would already know their own name? Maybe? Gods created them for specific purposes… better to not assume it though. She rested her head on her hands.

“I’m no good at naming things” She moaned. “How do you name a kid?”

“Find a name in one of your books?”

“I’m not naming him after a character… what if he, or she, doesn’t like the character?”

“He probably wont read the book.” Lori said with a grin. “You have so many books, he’ll probably never find it.”

Rynn smirked at the thought. “I don’t have that many books.”

“Yes, yes you do.” Lori said. “We only have a third in the living room and that table could break from the weight.”

“No need to exaggerate.” Rynn protested. “The table is very sturdy.” She grinned. Of course there weren’t really enough books to break a table. Lori giggled.

The teapot whistled shrilly until Lori poured the tea into two cups. She set one in front of Rynn.

“Well, lets see… what would be a good name…”

“What do you mean? We still don’t know if it’s a girl or a boy.”

“So we’ll think of both.” Lori said. “It’ll be fun.”

“Sure….” Rynn sighed. This might be more trouble than it was worth. 'Why me?'