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 Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 8:16 am
This Quest is for Bhima who is striving to become a Blade.
 OOC
||. The quest prompt must be answered with a 2000 word reply (can be more).
||. Respond to the prompt given with an adventure of your own creation as long as it meets the requirements of the specific tasks.
||. NPCs may be used as long as they advance the quest in an interesting manner.
||. You cannot include any playable characters other than the quest taker.
||. Your responses will be graded on a letter grade scale: a grade of D or F will result in repeating the quest process, C or better will result in passing and possible rewards.
||. Questions about quests can be asked here.
IC
A youngling poked her head out from behind a tree, watching carefully from what she thought was a safe distance. Her little black eyes narrowed when she saw her target. There she was.
The little youngling had been following Bhima all day. Not to mention keeping an eye out for her since she had seen her at the tournament. She was beat down by an earthling male. And then - unconscious - given a little sculpture looking thing by another earthling - this time a female. The little Alkidike youngling couldn't believe her eyes. What was she supposed to make of this? The woman in front of her hadn't yet gotten rid of the thing. Did she value it? Why would she value what an earthling gave her? It was indecent is what it was. It went against everything the Alkidike stood for.
Well, she was going to find out from this lady one way or the other.
Quest Tasks
||. This quest is to test Bhima's feelings for the mysterious earthling woman who visited her in her healing tent.
||. The quest should include the little Alkidike youngling, who as it turns out is very pushy, loud, talkative, and doesn't believe in valuing earthling items.
||. The quest should include the youngling's inquiries about why Bhima holds such value to the item.
||. The little girl will not give up her searching for answers easily at all. Bhima's job is to satiate her curiosity.
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Posted: Mon Feb 03, 2014 2:12 pm
"Hey!"
It was a cry that startled Bhima. She had thought that she was alone, sitting as she was against the back of a tree just beyond the outskirts of town. She had imagined that someone might wander by, but this voice seemed very focused. It certainly wasn't her mother's voice, or any of her elders as a matter of fact. Some youngling must have been watching her, or else was playing a game pretending to track her.
She had just wanted some goddess-damned time to herself, was that so much to ask? No, no, that wasn't fair. The youngling couldn't be blamed for her interruption. Kids just didn't understand personal space sometimes. Besides, it wasn't like the little Sister knew of Bhima's personal turmoil. Bhima had come out here to think, to muse on her life and where it was meant to head. The promise of war only served to harden her resolve. So much could be lost in battle. It might already be too late. There had been no hope left in her for a time, but now this little fish seemed more of a glimmer. There was a very, very slim chance that it had come from someone familiar... but there was still a chance. The carving style was much more refined, though. It was hard to know if someone could have honed their skills so well in such a short amount of time.
As she stood, Bhima tucked the little wooden sculptures back into her pocket. She offered the youngling a little smile.
"I don't have time to play right now. Why don't you run home to your Mama? Are you lost?"
The child put her hands on her hips and thrust them to one side.
"Nooo, I'm not lost," she replied. It was impossible to ignore the attitude-flag this girl was flying. Bhima actually laughed a little.
Well, what's your name?"
"I'm Yji," came the response, but the child was still clearly intent upon something else. Her brow was furrowed, and she watched as Bhima approached.
"Well, Yji, you shouldn't be out here alone. It can be very dangerous with-- hey!" Yji had reached up and tried to thrust her hand into Bhima's pocket, like an assault from waist-height. Bhima jumped away and swatted at the girl's hand, her own face now twisted in confusion. What was this kid up to?!
Rather than apologize or look ashamed, Yji simply put her hands back on her hips and gave an annoyed growl.
"I know you have it!" she insisted
"What?"
"The thing! You have the little thing!" Yji insisted, and she reached her hand out as if she was going to try for Bhima's pocket again. The young woman's suddenly tense body language perhaps stopped her, and she decided to simply point instead.
"You keep it in there."
All of a sudden, Bhima felt violated. While some may have seen her little nondwa before, none had ever approached her about it. Then again, maybe the nondwa wasn't what the child was speaking of? She'd give her the benefit of the doubt, although the two were now stuck in a glaring battle of conflicting emotions. Perhaps Yji was only looking for a treat, and at this point Bhima would be willing to give in now and just complain to a friend later.
"What do you mean? I don't have anything on me. What thing?"
Yji threw her hands up in frustration. "You know what thing! The thing! That one, you have it in your pocket! I just saw it there!"
So the child had been spying, had she? Bhima frowned in displeasure and reached into her pocket. Nobody saw the nondwa, not up this close and especially not when they were being an annoying little brat about it. Luckily, she'd taken something else with her this afternoon as well. Perhaps if she offered it instead, Yji would relent.
Bhima's hand slipped into her pocket, and in one smooth motion she removed the carved fish and left her precious nondwa behind. She hoped that it wouldn't bulge too much and expose her little lie.
"This is all I have," she said, holding the figurine between her pointer finger and thumb. She wasn't going to let the child have it, certainly not, but she could show her.
"Yes, that's the one! Give it to me!" Yji jumped, but Bhima's arm raised at the same pace and she was unable to grab the trinket.
"Hey, what's wrong with you?! You can't have this!"
"I just want to see it!" the child insisted, "Why do you care about it so much?!" Once again she had adopted that defiant stance, hands on her waist, hip thrust out to one side.
Now Bhima was interested. What attachment did this child have to the fish... the fish and not to the nondwa that she more often carried and coveted? She knew very little about it herself, aside from the fact that it had appeared at her bedside after that brutal fight with the blue maniac. There had been no letter, no sign of ownership. It had angered her at first, that someone might have been toying with her emotions, but she'd thought on it further and found herself more curious than anything. Who in the world would have known about the meaning behind such a gift to her if it wasn't just an unfortunate coincidence?
"Well," she began, "I don't know. I mean... it could be very special to me. It was a gift either way."
Yji's eyes narrowed. "Did an Alkidike make it?"
"Oh, well... I don't know. It's possible!"
This seemed to set the little girl off the deep end, and words poured from her lips like a torrent of learned ignorance.
"What if it wasn't?! What if an earthling made it? If it was an earthling present, why would you take it? Earthlings are dumb and they sometimes attack us. They're bad and they're stupid and you kept that fish, and you keep it in your pocket, and I just don't get why it means anything! You're one of my Sisters!"
Bhima could not reign in her reaction. As Yji spoke, her jaw lowered in horror. Her eyes opened wider, moving from pleasant indifference to furrowed shock.
Sure, she had always known that Alkidike felt themselves somehow better than Earthlings. She got it, especially with Shifters encroaching on their territory. It wasn't unusual to hear Sisters spout displeasure or blatant racism at outsiders and even those Sisters who were not of pure Alkidike blood, if anyone that came out of a lotus couldn't be considered an Alkidike. She had seen it growing up with Lasarra, and even more recently upon meeting her sister Kelina. Maybe Bhima would have come out racist if she had not had such a positive influence in her life. Maybe her mothers had even been especially hateful at some point, but growing up she hadn't seen any of it.
Everyone is flesh and bone, all unique but essentially the same, a living being with emotions and desires. Remove a person's appearance, and you are left with a personality and a bag of the same old meat.
It hadn't been her most accurate vocalization as to her beliefs upon the different races, but she stood by it. Nobody deserved to be disliked for the way they had been born.
"Well that's not very nice," she said finally, her head turning slightly as if a new angle would somehow convince this child of her words, "Everyone is just a person. We're all different; we look different, we sound different, we act different and we feel different, but we're all people. Flesh and bone and blood, families and friends..."
A tiny disbelieving brow slowly rose beneath backward-facing antennae. Yji was not having it.
"Earthlings came here and took our land away, and then they come and fight us. They're not people like us. They're stupid."
"Stupid, right," Bhima sighed, "Have you ever met an Earthling?"
Yji's chest puffed out with pride, a gesture with which Bhima was well-acquainted.
"No. Never."
The elder Alkidike rolled her eyes.
"So how do you know they're stupid?"
"Everyone knows they're stupid!" Now Yji was shouting, her fist balled up at her sides. Bhima understood it to mean 'my mother says so' and was clearly unimpressed by the little one's display of aggression. "Except you, maybe! And that means you're stupid!"
Bhima shook her head.
"Alright, kid. Let's go home." Any pleasantness in Bhima's mood had been beaten out with tiny fists. She'd like to see who this youngling's parents were and maybe give them a doubtlessly ineffective piece of her mind. People really were terrible sometimes.
"No! I'm not going anywhere!" Yji turned away violently, pushing her arms away from Bhima as if the prentice may grab her and force her to go. Instead, Bhima gave her a stunned look of disbelief. This child...
"You have to tell me why!" the girl continued, "You can't just say why Earthlings aren't stupid, you need to tell me why! Why do you like that thing?!"
Before she answered, Bhima drew a deep breath and exhaled slowly. Her eyes closed and she reflected on serenity, on the naivete of youth. When they opened again, she was crouched to Yji's height and even smiling slightly.
"First off, Yji, I think that you should meet an Earthling. My best friend growing up was half-Earthling. I had a very, very good friend who was an Earthling too, and I see Earthlings all the time and talk to them." That was her last piece on racism, and she could tell that the child found her a bit daft from the look on her little green face. She continued, regardless. "Secondly, this was a present. A present is something very special. No matter what it is, it tells you that someone was thinking of you, that someone loves you enough to put their time or their money into bringing you a gift. This fish means a lot to me because it was a present after I was hurt in the tournament."
That face, though... Yji didn't want to hear it. She'd have none of this morals-and-love crud. Even Bhima was aware that she herself was skirting around the issue. Why was she suddenly embarrassed to tell a little girl about her personal business? Kids didn't really care what anyone else was up to, and even if she spouted to her mother about 'that stupid lady' later, all thoughts of this confrontation would have been gone in a day. Bhima must have waited too long to make up her mind, though, because Yji shook her head and rolled her eyes.
"I'm not leaving until you tell me."
Why, Bhima wondered? Why in the world did this child want to hear about 'Earthling gifts'? None of the responses she had offered appeared to be enough, and really they had been the best she could do without completely ousting herself as a wishy-washy type. Finally, the young woman sagged in defeat.
"A long, long time ago I had a friend who gave me a little wooden figure. After a while, that friend and I... drifted apart." It had not so much been a gentle drift as a violent tear, but this kid didn't need any more negativity in her repertoire. "I thought she might have hated me, at first. Then I started wondering if she had gotten... very hurt." A bit of an understatement. "This statue, it... made me think that maybe there was a chance she was still out there somewhere, and that she remembered me. It makes me feel good to think about that. Then again, it could just be from someone random, or a kid like you. So I don't know. It might mean a lot to me."
It struck Bhima in the chest that this little brat was the only person she had ever openly discussed her with. Wasn't that a little sad? She had kept it all inside for so long that it was only now creeping into conversation. Even her mothers didn't know... well, perhaps Mama Ishida, now that she had gone to be with Aisha. One of the most important people in her life had become a secret, festering in her heart until-- well, no longer. She had made her choice, and soon she would act. This secret was not going to end with unanswered questions. Her eyes had drifted away in reflection, but Yji's reaction brought her back to the waking world.
"Ohhhh," the child cooed, shaking her head again as if to say 'why didn't you just say so!' "It shouldn't, though. There were lots of carve-penters at the tournament, but even if the lady who gave it to you did make it, she was an Earthling so you shouldn't care."
Bhima, previously just a bit cowed and timid, suddenly perked.
"How do you know an Earthling gave it to me?"
"I saw her!" Yji grinned, patting Bhima's cheek. It was alright, silly bigger Sister. She knew all the things you didn't.
Bhima's eyes grew wide. Her antennae turned to the front.
"You saw her? Well, what did she look like?!
The child seemed a bit startled at the question, but clasped her hands together and tilted her head. Behind her blind hatred, there was still an innocent child.
"Well. She was little. She had big arms. She, um... she was all black, and... and she had... um. Her hair and her eyes and her little rocks were all the same. She wasn't very pretty."
Bhima froze. Her brain, her body, her expression, all stuck in a single moment in time. The only thing that moved was her eyes, flicking off to the side and down. It couldn't be. It couldn't possibly be. They had both grown and changed... then again, she knew that she would recognize her if she saw her. She had no doubt. The tournament had been a call to all of the races of Tendaji. There had been Alkidike, Leaf, Wind, Shifters... everything. Everyone had been there.
Oh, Aisha, it was possible. Barely possible, but more possible than it had been just hours ago. By Aisha, she had evidence... Well, she had possible evidence. She mustn't get too excited... But she couldn't just ignore this! She couldn't just let it go!
"Did she do anything unusual?" she asked, "Anything at all..."
Yji shook her head. "I don't remember... she touched your face a little, that was weird."
This was enough to give Bhima hope, to cement where her path would lead her. She touched the little girl's face in a mirroring gesture.
"Did I satisfy your question?"
Yji shrugged. Sure, it was good enough, she supposed. It still left her with some burning questions, but she had a feeling that the strange lady wouldn't answer right. She'd just have to ask her auntie later.
"I should go," she said. Her interest had dwindled upon getting her answer, as unsatisfactory as it was.
"Be safe, now." Bhima tucked the fish back into her pocket and straightened out.
"I will!" Yji called, and began to run back toward home. After a dozen steps or so, she turned.
"I still think you're--"
"Stupid," Bhima nodded, "I know."
With that, the child disappeared.
Maybe she was stupid. It was possible. There were other possibilities, though, staring her down as she peered into the future. Some were too bright to ignore. She could handle those that lurked in darkness.
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Posted: Mon Feb 10, 2014 9:57 am
Class Quest Result
B+
Bhima has passed and received a rank of Blade!
Congratulations Bhima!
Due to the finesse shown in the quest, Bhima will be able to choose one non-battle item from the shop to put into her inventory.
(Does not include fairground or rare items, quote Suhuba here when chosen)
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Posted: Thu Feb 13, 2014 10:12 am
Bhima would just love some bandages! 83
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