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 Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2022 12:33 pm
Talk Down to Mewith MaiaSomewhere in Jauhar | Prentice----------------------------------------
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Posted: Tue Feb 22, 2022 12:56 pm
Found You!with HeikeSomewhere in Jauhar | Prentice----------------------------------------
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Posted: Wed Mar 09, 2022 10:50 am
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Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2022 3:43 pm
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Posted: Sun May 08, 2022 6:49 pm
Class Solo - Sacred Heart
Somewhere in Jauhar | Prentice
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The sound of a string snapping seemed loud in the quiet, empty forest. Just moments before the sounds of animals were ringing about the branches and on the ground. Doesina could still hear the small scuttling of a tiny rodent as it hurried away into cover, but she paid it little mind. A tiny animal was worthless energy to hunt and besides, they'd already bagged a kill for tonight's supper. And many suppers to come, she hoped. Once the meat was cut up and divided for today, the rest would be hung to dry over the fire in strips, creating jerky that would last them a while yet. It was the most they could hope for in this landscape. Doesina had tried to dig around for roots and came out with a few, but only a few, until her wrists got tired of all the chopping at the hard dirt. It made her miss the easily reachable fruits and nuts of Yael. Everything in Jauhar was far too high up. She much preferred things closer to the ground. At least they both had bows. That she was grateful for.
While Heike went about the cleaning of the kill, the Elaria was sat down on a fallen log, doing minor repairs and cleaning of her bow. She coiled the string around one finger, tying it all together and placing it into her bag, retrieving a cloth at the same time to wipe down the wood. She hummed softly to herself, too far away to disturb her cousin.
It wasn't just the thrill of a successful hunt that had her so happy. After a while of being afraid to bring it up, Doesina had mentioned their family back on Yael a few days ago, bracing for Heike to get angry as she had done the first, and only, time they had been brought up. But she hadn't. Instead, Heike had looked interested, and even agreed to visit Rens with her, where her mother and grandmother now lived, both of them deciding to retire there to help teach the younger generation in the ways of combat. Her grandmother was getting old and her mother had always been more of a homemaker, anyway. Doesina hoped to train in the arts of a Sacred Heart to take their places protecting Elzira. Despite how differently she thought of hybrids and other races, she still felt a kinship with her fellow Elaria and especially her Mother Tree, for both giving her and her Tribe life, but also providing those Elaria with hybrid children, free of the discrimination that would follow from the rest of the Tribe over it. Even with Heike feeling the same as most Elaria, Doesina still couldn't understand where it all came from. Hybrid children were just as beautiful as pures were, both Aishan and Earthlings.
Once her bow was rubbed down, the young Elaria pulled out a fresh string, apply it delicately to the two tips. Heike used a bow only for hunting, while she favored the spear when training. Doesina always felt more comfortable with a bow, whether she was training or hunting. It was less...Violent, than anything else she could use. Or at the least, it took her away from the violence. Probably strange for an Aishan to be so against the sight of blood.
"I guess that makes me an outcast, too," she giggled to herself, plucking at the string to make sure it was taut. She had been the best one to find her cousin. She knew it even before she had pipped up to volunteer. Maybe Esena was watching over Heike, even when she was always so far away. Doesina hoped she could help her cousin to connect back with her roots.
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Wordcount: 624
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Posted: Sat May 14, 2022 11:21 am
Off Coursewith Heike
Somewhere in Jauhar | Prentice----------------------------------------
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Posted: Fri Jul 01, 2022 7:09 pm
Among Trees
Outside Ast | Blade
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She was alone. It wasn't the first time in her life she'd been alone. Back on Yael, she would often go off on her own, exploring the wilds around her Elaria home and sometimes even going close to the Yaeli settlements to meet them. The small ones, anyway. She'd fast gained many friends among the Yaeli who she would continue to visit as she grew up. But the difference than was she always had someone to return back to. Her mother and grandmother were always waiting for her, her mother often with a hot cup of tea and perhaps a story told to her by another Sister. Doesina always loved those moments with Chrysa, when she could pretend she was still a small youngling and curl up next to her mother with the cup warming her hands and lap.
Now she was completely alone. In a way that felt worse than when she had first stepped off onto this new land. Where before she had a goal of finding Heike, now she had no goal except to wait. For how long, she had no idea. She could have gone with her. It had occurred to her to do so a few times. But Doesina was a bit afraid to meet with Alkidike, the very daughters of Aisha that her own tree's seed was stolen from. She didn't expect to have received as well of a reception as Heike probably would. She didn't like to admit it, but it made her feel a little bit of bitterness towards her cousin. It wasn't a feeling she was very used to. Very little ever got under the Elaria's skin. It didn't matter if Earthlings were throwing insults at her, or actual things. Or she was messing up ten times over at something she was trying to accomplish. She never got annoyed or frustrated or bitter. It was a feeling almost completely alien to her.
Doing her best to shrug it off, Doesina looked around her, wondering what to do next. In typical fashion, she had gone on this quest without thinking much ahead to the goal. She knew she was meant to bring Heike back to Yael, but what did she do when Heike had her own plans? She supposed she was meant to stay here, to wait until the Elidae was done whatever it was she hoped to accomplish with the Alkidike. In no way did she want to disappoint her cousin. It wasn't like she had been expected to show up out of the blue, with information about wayward family members, after all. Doesina could sympathize with how Heike must have felt. Though why she wasn't now excited to meet said family members was beyond her understanding. If she was told about new family, she would have been ecstatic to meet them. Especially if she had no family in the world anymore. But Heike didn't really seem to care. Didn't even seem to mind Doesina being around. She thought maybe, after a bit of time, Heike would start to enjoy her company.
Maybe she still needed some time. Yes. That must be it. Always think on the positive side. Sometimes people just needed a lot of time to warm up to someone new.
That still begged the question, what did she do now?
"Who are you?" said a tiny voice, far below her line of view. Doesina looked down to see a youngling just as small as the voice sounded, staring up at her with wide, dark eyes and holding a stuffed toy. "You're pretty."
The child stood about thigh height, a bit taller than most Earthling children the Elaria had seen during her travels of Yael and Jauhar. But than, the child did have some other traits that Earthlings didn't. She had the dark skin of a day Shifter, along with the crystals dimpling her cheeks. While her eyes were dark and devoid of any other color such as they had. No whites and no pupils, just a single color. Than there were the set of antennae sitting on her head, the unmistakable sign of an Aishan.
Another hybrid! This one seemingly unafraid of her.
Slowly, Doesina bent down so she more at a level with the little girl, ignoring the way her skirt parted to show off one completely grey leg, covered in the thick markings of her family that covered her entire body. The youngling watched, backing up only a little bit as if to make room for her tall frame on the ground. "Hello. And who might you be?"
"I'm Elisa," the youngling answered, hugging her stuffed animal closer. "Who are you? Why are you grey and pink? You don't look like mum. Did you see my older brother?"
The rabid fire questions only made the Elaria smile, reminding her of herself when she was that age. Or even this age. Whenever Doesina met someone new, especially a hybrid or Earthling, she couldn't help but ask them lots of questions. At least nowadays she paused to allow the person to answer one question before she'd throw more at them.
"First question, I'm Doesina," she answered, placing a hand over one side of her chest, feeling her heart beating. "I'm not an Alkidike exactly, but also not far off from one." When the child looked confused, she couldn't help laughing. Keep it simple. Kid probably wasn't old enough to be aware of other branches of the same family. "I'm from another Tree, across the ocean in a place called Yael."
If she thought Elisa's eyes couldn't get any bigger than they already were, she was mistaken. "There are other Trees?!" she asked in excitement. "Mum never told me." Uh oh. Probably wasn't supposed to say anything about other trees. Sometimes she forgot how touchy a subject Elaria must be with everyone, especially hybrids. But what else was she suppose to say? Clearly she wasn't a native. She wasn't going to lie to a child. And, far as she was concerned, they deserved to know all about their heritage. "Can I go see them? What do they look like?"
"Like Aisha, I would imagine, but a different color." According to how visiting Alkidike to Yael had described seeing Elzira. She had never seen Aisha herself, and didn't really plan on it. Maybe one day she'd go see the other two, which she assumed would be a bit more accepting of a visiting Elaria. "Like how I'm a different color to your mum."
"I've never seen Aisha."
"Neither have I." Leaning in a little, Doesina lowered her voice, as if she were telling the little girl a secret. "I bet she's pretty, though. Don't you?"
Elisa nodded her head with much enthusiasm, her solid black eyes shining in her delight at the conversation she was having with this pretty stranger. "Mum told me all about Aisha. About when she went to ask for me and my brother. I hope I get to see her one day, too." Looking sheepishly from underneath her eyelashes as her gaze drifted down in seeming embarrassment, the youngling added ,"Maybe yours, too. What's her name?"
This statement, said with the strength of confidence that so many younglings seemed to possess, was enough to cause the Elaria's heart to start breaking. She wished dearly that she could say the girl would be welcomed with open arms, like the wayward cousin that she was, but Doesina's optimism didn't extend into the realm of fantasy. Unless she fell in love with a pure Elaria, Elisa one day gaining entrance to Elzira would only amount to an unobtainable dream.
Still, that was a long way off. And who could say this wouldn't be forgotten soon enough in the future as children were often to do when something else caught their attention? She hoped it would. Much more likely that she could gain passage to her own Tree than the one in Yael.
"Elzira."
The little girl tested the name on her tongue a few times, looking off into the distance as she did so. Doesina waited patiently, a soft smile on her face watching the youngster having fun with the new word. Eventually she looked back at the Elaria, a wide grin on her face as she repeated the name of Doesina's Mother Tree with confidence. "She has a pretty name."
"Thank you," answered the woman, nodding her head slightly at the complimented. "I'm sure she would be grateful you thought so of her."
Nodding back and rocking on the heels of her feet, Elisa looked around her in sudden anxiety, as if she had forgotten something very important. "Have you seen my brother? I'm supposed to get him for dinner. He looks like me, but no...Um...." She reached up a hand to pull delicately at her own set of antenna.
That wasn't much of a description, but judging from the fact she had, in fact, seen a little boy who looked like he could be this one's big brother and also had no antenna of his own, Doesina assumed that was the sibling Elisa was talking about. "I think so. I saw a little boy not too long ago run back towards the village. Would you like me to help you find him?"
Elisa nodded her head. Doesina rose back to her full height and set off with the child to look for her brother.
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Wordcount: 1567
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Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2022 11:07 am
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Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2022 7:06 pm
Almost Lost
Ast | Blade
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To say Doesina's stay in Ast was a difficult one would have been an understatement. While many of the parents seemed fine with an Elaria being in their midst, there, of course, were many who were not. And some who were far from shy in showing their displeasure of it.
One such mother was a rather short Alkidike with very light hair who had escaped a very prejudiced family who had supported the separatist side of the war so long ago and still held onto those extreme beliefs. For most of her life, she had pretended to side with them, for fear of being cast away by her own family for thinking differently. They didn't live in the main towns with the others, but resided in their own tiny village of a few cabins out in the woods, fending for themselves. A wandering Shifter man had approached and, curious about this stranger who was in so many ways different than her, the Alkidike woman went to him, to warn him away from her family. What resulted was a very stubborn man who refused to leave the area, saying how he had followed signs of ancient ruins to this very location and he needed to stay to study them. She, trying her best to keep him secret, helped him. They spent a lot of time together until eventually falling in love. They left her family area to live together in Ast, with the other like-minded couples who wanted to raise their children in peace.
How did Doesina come to know all this? Well, Alkidike could be just as gossipy as Earthling housewives. She couldn't blame the mother's feelings against her. Elaria represented everything that was bad about the war, after all. The exiles. The stolen seed. The attempt to make a new Sisterhood in all those beliefs that had gotten them banished to the large island of Yael. She never had any bad feelings against those who were more wary of her and her Sisters. They had every right to be. No matter how friendly she tried to be. No matter how much she tried to be the expection to the stereotypes, there would always be plenty Elaria who enforced them as true.
But, no matter how much you understood where others were coming from, no matter how much you turned your head away from what they said, you couldn't be a stone forever. She knew everything said to her or all the times she was ignored or avoided it had good intentions behind it, of keeping their children safe. It still didn't sting any the less. Especially when the kids she was most fond of seemed to belong to those same parents who hated her so much.
Elisa and her big brother Mateo were the first two hybrids kids who Doesina met since being left behind near Ast. Elisa she instantly bonded with, the little girl being just as friendly and eager as the Elaria to make friends with each other. Mateo, being a little bit older, had been a lot more apprehensive about her. Between the way his parents warned him against all pure Aishans who didn't live there and his own experience of nearly running straight into Heike, he wasn't too keen on the idea of having her nearby. Least of all of her talking to his little sister. In as much of a brave voice as he could muster, really testing his own courage, he tried his best to tell her off for going near Elisa. Doesina, ever observant of the behavior of others, especially children, would just smile and allow him to take his sister back to their home. She could see his bluff easily enough. One day it would crack and she would earn his trust.
She just wished it had been under better circumstances.
The rains had been relentless the last few days, pouring down from the skies in a never-ending flood. The nearby stream had over-flooded, turning more into a river of fast-running water than a gentle trickle of a refreshing spring that was a popular stop for the children to cool off in, sitting on the edge of the bank with their feet dangling in the water. Now they were all warned to stay clear of it, for fear some of them would be caught up in the strength of the current and swept away. Adults were soon included in this rule, as the now swollen river had grown far beyond their expectations. Nothing would be safe from this result of nature, at least until the heavy rains finally subsided and the brook was allowed time to drain itself.
Until it could be allowed to do this, the children must be kept away from it. Those parents who trusted her tasked Doesina with distracting. Every day for hours, while the adults were busy fixing something damaged by the flood or trying to redirect it away from the houses and gardens, she would play games with a small group of children, running through the trunks of the trees with them. The youngling's were delighted and none seemed tempted to run towards the water to cool off as they normally would have done. Lots of water was kept on hand and bathtubs had been placed outside to replace the stream. All the kids under her care were safe.
During a game of tag, everyone dodging around each other, there was a loud noise. Nothing to worry about at first. Just another youngling yelling in a forest full of youngling's yelling. Everyone paid it no attention and continued on with their game.
Not long after that there was more yelling, but closer this time. Almost words could be made out and they now sounded urgent. Desperate. Doesina stopped the game, now feeling worried about what they meant, and went towards it. She soon found Mateo, racing towards her side of the forest, waving his arms in the air to get her instant attention. Her curiosity was definitely peaked, now. He never went to her for anything.
When he approached, he tried to speak, only for it to all come out in a jumble of random words. Laying her hands on his shoulders, having to bend down a little to reach him, the Elaria spoke softly, urging him to calm himself before he told her what it was he needed to. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before telling her the tale of how he had had to answer a summons by his mother and left his little sister in the care of another older youngling for just a few moments. He wasn't sure what had happened after he left. He assumed they had some argument and the older one had taken Elisa's stuffed toy she carried with her everywhere and threw it into the raging brook. Elisa had jumped in after it and was now stuck against a fallen log as the water tried to take her tiny body under it.
With little hesitation, Doesina jumped into the water, fighting the currents that pushed at her frame. Fortunately, given her taller stature to the younglings, she was able to balance herself against the water and slowly make her way over to Elisa. Once she was close enough, she scooped up the young girl and put her around her shoulders to keep her above the violence of the brook. Getting back proved a bit more difficult, now that one of her arms was occupied with holding the girl. She need not struggle for too long. Supporting hands held onto her arms and waist to help guide her over. Mateo had gone quickly to his parents during Doesina's rescue, telling them what was going on so they were both able to rush to her aid in time to help her. With their extra steadiness, the three of them were able to reach the safety of dry ground. The stuffed toy was unfortunately lost forever, but at least a young life was saved that day.
Mateo felt like the worst older sibling in the world. No amount of everyone telling him it was just an accident would calm him down. Doesina had saved his skin. He would forever be thankful for what she had done in rescuing his little sister. Even his parents, after such a selfless act of compassion and courage, couldn't remain distrustful of her anymore.
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Wordcount: 1541
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Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 2:51 pm
Curiositywith Lutana
Neued | Blade----------------------------------------
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Posted: Sat Sep 24, 2022 3:01 pm
Sticky Situationwith Vilasini
Somewhere in Jauhar | Blade----------------------------------------
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Posted: Thu Oct 20, 2022 8:58 am
Reunitedwith Teletta
Somewhere in Jauhar | Blade----------------------------------------
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Posted: Mon Oct 24, 2022 6:57 pm
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Posted: Sat Mar 25, 2023 6:34 pm
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Posted: Wed May 10, 2023 5:45 pm
Silver Liningwith Vilasini
Somewhere in Jauhar | Blade----------------------------------------
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