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 Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2016 10:39 am
Her mother had found her sister, or rather if you wanted to get technical her adopted mother had found her half sister. She was really confused about how she felt. This was good news, she had always wanted a sister, but at the same time part of her felt jaded. She had a wonderful life with Briella, but what if this girl had a wonderful life with their birth mother? Their birth mother who wasn't kind to her. Sure in the end they had made up and truly Ilyra held no resentment towards her birth mother, but she wasn't sure she would be able to say the same about her half sister who got the life she wanted.
If it wasn't for Briella pushing her to get up, to eat something, to leave the house, Ilyra would have never even made it to the meeting spot that Briella had set. Her adopted mother was much more excited for Ilyra then Ilyra was even for herself.
As she waited in the clearing for her half sister she couldn't help but start to wonder what the girl looked like.
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Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2016 10:55 am
Ever since she had first spoken with Briella, Mnyiri had shifted between uncontrollable excitement, dread, and out right nervousness. She had tried to stay upbeat so as not to worry Rhonann, but this...this was big. Really big. Ilyra had agreed to meet with her, which was a step forward, though she wondered if the older alk just wanted to tell her to stay away. It wouldn't surprise her given what kind of past she'd had up until this point, but Mnyiri wouldn't just be shucked off without a fight.
That morning she had washed up, going that extra mile to make herself look 'presentable'; as presentable as one could while being a half-dressed hybrid, anyway. Technically she could pull her hood up to hide her shifter features, but Ilyra deserved to know the truth. As she walked towards the meeting place the thought cropped up again, though she pressed it back.
With her long strides it didn't take Mnyiri very long to make it to the clearing, the little bells in her dreads chiming with every step, but when she arrived she pulled up short. Of course, she had just assumed she would be the first one there, to give her some time to prepare, but...
"Ilyra?" Her voice shouldn't be so shaky, not when she was the one who had wanted this, but seeing her now...It was like looking at a white washed version of their mother. Mnyiri moved closer at a slower pace, eyes soaking up the form of her half-sister.
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Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2016 6:15 pm
She could hear the other girl coming, or rather someone coming her way. She assumed that it would be her sister, and honestly she was torn about what to do. She could still leave, the girl hadn't seen her yet and she could just tell Briella to tell the younger girl that she changed her mind. It was cruel, but she could do it. However she didn't feel it was right to walk away, and if she turned her younger sister away she might never get the chance to speak to her again.
At hearing her name called she eyed the girl up and down. She was a hybrid, a tall hybrid but still a hybrid. Her mother wasn't good to her, but she hadn't been against other races. Still she couldn't imagine herself finding a mate in a shifter, for that was what Mnyiri seemed to be mixed with. It was also amusing to see how much her younger sister looked like her. Like her mother.
"Hello, you must be Mnyiri?" What a pointless combat. The two of them looked enough a like that it was impossible that they weren't siblings.
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Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 9:09 am
It was harder than she imagined it would be not to just throw her arms around Ilyra. She wasn't used to wanting physical contact with the same person she also wanted to punch, and demand answers from. "Yeah, that's me." Despite her inner turmoil her voice was still as chipper as ever; a pleasant little chirp that belied her youth more than her accessories or the dye in her hair.
"I-" Mnyiri opened her mouth to speak, furrowed her brows, and closed her lips. She repeated this a few times, finding it harder to form words with every attempt. It shouldn't be this hard to talk to her, but what was she supposed to say? Mnyiri was a fidgety sort, and as she pondered what to ask she shifted from the balls of her feet, grinding her boots into the soft earth.
"Thank you for seeing me." It sounded lame to her, but it was better than nothing. "You didn't have to, still don't, really, but it...it means a lot." Mnyiri gave into a little nervous laugh. "I had whole speech planned out, but it figures that as soon as the moment's here - whoosh! - it just slips out of my head." She took a moment to compose herself before continuing. "Okay, so, I'm not here to ask you for anything you don't want, but I just want to know..." Mnyiri used her tongue to wet her lips and swallowed against her suddenly dry throat. "I want to know why our mother did what she did if you don't...if you didn't even like her. I'm not here to blame you for what happened, not anymore, but the sisters never gave me a lot of information beyond telling me that she wasn't coming home, and that she died for you."
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Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 9:23 am
As she watched the girl fidget about she couldn't help but wonder just how young she was. It figured that her mother would wait a little while before having another child, and she certainly hadn't had a earthling mate when Ilyra was around, but that didn't give her much to go off of.
Silently she watched, letting the girl say everything she wanted to say. She had things to ask, but none of them seemed important or necessary. Plus she really wasn't sure how to word any of the things that were going on in her head. So she waited, however what came out of the girls mouth wasn't something she expected. Ilyra's eyes narrowed slightly. So before anything the girl wanted to know about one of the worst events in Ilyra's past. It was to be expected, but she wasn't expecting it to be the first question.
"First of all she didn't die for me. I felt like that for a long time, but I have now realized that she died for us, all of us. She died trying to keep our races safe. We were sent to scout on the Obans and since she was the older of the two she was the one to give the command that I stay in the trees and she would get closer on the ground. However they caught her with an arrow and I watched her die in front of me. As a youngling she wasn't the mother I wanted her to be, with age I realize that I might not have had it as hard as I thought but it wasn't the childhood that I needed. So while she didn't die for me exactly, her death was what allowed me to see that I should've been kinder to her while she was still alive. Something I've regretted in the past years." She had rambled, it all came out like word vomit, but really she didn't know what to say. She didn't know what this girl wanted from her.
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Posted: Tue Mar 22, 2016 9:43 am
"But she-!" Mnyiri physically placed her hand up over her mouth to stop her from interrupting. Spouting out whatever was on her mind really was a terrible habit, one she couldn't allow to jeopardize this moment. These were the answers she had waited for; they needed to be heard.
It wasn't what she wanted to hear, nor what she had expected. Mnyiri had known the simple details about what happened. The arrow, the Obans..."I guess I thought that if she did what she did for you, specifically, then I wouldn't feel so bad. Things like that happen all the time; it's bad, but thinking about it like that made it seem less sad, you know?" She didn't tear up thinking about it anymore, but the aches were still there. That sense of 'why' remained. Why her mother, and not someone else? Aisha had a plan for them all, but it didn't mean that Mnyiri had to like it.
"She never said it, but I think she knew that she didn't do right by you. She was always kind of sad to talk about it, so I never asked her about..." What she should say? I never asked about you much because if you didn't want her then why should I have cared? That would be callous, and cruel. Neither of her mothers would have let her get away with mean spirited thoughts like that.
This was...horrific. Mnyiri had never been at a loss for what to say in her entire life and now she was tripping over everything. If it was painful for her to hear, then what must it be like for Ilyra? "Sooooo what are you like? I just kind of knew of you, but not you. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, but I thought that...sense we were...talking we might as well talk?" Goddess, what was she saying?
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 10:38 am
When the younger girl went to interrupt her Ilyra raised an eyebrow, but thankfully the girl stopped before saying much. It brought a smile to her face, talking out of turn was an issue she had when she was younger so she understood the feeling, especially since Ilyra's side of the story was most likely not what had been told.
"It's easier to think that death has meaning. And although our mother didn't die to save me specifically, she did die to protect all of us. She died getting information for a war we ended up winning, in part thanks to her." She paused. "That's how I deal with it better. That and the belief that everything we do is for Aisha, and that she has her reasons for everything." That was how she had gotten past her mother's death, and it was the only thing keeping her together since her lover had disappeared.
"I think she knew also... I also think the timing was off. As you can see I'm very different, and she wanted to protect me. But I didn't want to be protected, not in the way she wanted to protect me. I could've been a better daughter to her as well, though I didn't learn that until I was older and it was already too late."
She laughed. "Want to come to my house? We have some fruits and this chilled tea my aunt has come up with. It's really good, and we'd be more comfortable there." She still wasn't sure how she felt about this girl, her younger sister, but being out in the open wasn't something she was use to anymore and she much rather be in her own home.
"And I'm sure I'm not much different from you. I use the bow as my weapon, and I've lived a pretty normal life. I've lived in the forest my whole life with my adopted mother, sometimes her sister, and her closest friend who is like my aunt. I was in both wars, though after the Oban war I was in a coma for a while and it took some time before Briella found me and stayed with me until I woke up."
"What about you? Is your other parent alive?" She was very curious about the mate her birth mother had chosen.
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2016 12:53 pm
"Seriously? Yeah, I'd love to!" Screw trying not to seem too eager; there was only so long that Mnyiri could hold back her energy without it wanted to explode. "I've had cotton mouth all day, so tea sounds really amazing right now." Granted, she could have just drunk a lot of water, but then she could need to expel that water and the last thing she wanted to worry about today was when she could take a pee break.
"A coma? Goddess, are you alright? Was there any lasting side effects? What was it like? Did you dream or was it just a void and-?" Mnyiri reigned in her questions, if only to breath. That whole experience must have been scary for Briella, and extremely disorienting for Ilyra when she awoke. The thought of being asleep for that long terrified her. Even sleeping for over a few hours seemed to long to her, let alone days and weeks.
"I've lived in Jauhar my entire life, but not in the same home. My mothers, our mom and my other mother, lived in separate places. They stayed close to raise me, but they weren't in love, ya know? Just...I dunno, I guess they just wanted a daughter. My mother, Ysmir, died a long time before our mother did, because of Obans." She wasn't aware of the tension building in her arms, or the way her palms had formed into fists. "She was a Guardian, and the best warrior I've ever seen, but they still took her down. But...she was a half-breed, with a shifter dad, but it's not like he was ever around, so she was just like any other alk save for her blood. She had other daughters before me; older ones, maybe older than you, and they all died."
Mnyiri took a moment to inhale, then exhale to release the tension, leaving her a little more bubbly, but not completely at ease. "Right now I've been traveling around with my friend, Rhonann, to try to find you. She's an earthling, a really nice one, and she has amnesia so we're helping each other to fill in some pieces."
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Posted: Tue Apr 12, 2016 4:21 pm
Oh what it was to be young and happy. Ilyra would give anything to be Mnyiri's age again. She was happy then. She had a wonderful mother in Briella and her and her best friend were together all the time. They never went anywhere without each other. It was a nice time in her life, boy did she miss it. She nodded when Mnyiri agreed and headed towards her house. "Tea is a favorite of mine, and Dyakida, who helped raise me and lives near us, recently got this thing from a mage that keeps the tea cold longer."
"I'm fine now, but it was a pretty bad time for me and Bri. I was just a void, no thoughts no memories. I could feel that I was there, but nothing else. Like I was locked in a dark room. When I woke up it was a while before I could stand again, or even talk. But Briella stayed by my side. She helped me become myself again. It took a few weeks," more like months but she didn't want to admit that, "but slowly I started to become more and more of myself. Eventually Briella and I made the long trek back here."
As she listened to the other girl she felt sorry for her mother, for the mother they had in common. She had Ilyra by herself, and then Mnyiri with someone she didn't love. That meant she had never felt the love of a partner. She continued to listen, watching as Mnyiri's carefree attitude turned towards anger. The Obans took a lot from her, but it seemed that Mnyiri suffered from the hands of them even more. "Did you get meet them, your older sisters, before they died?" She asked curiously. She grew up with a pretty big group of sisters, but she always wanted older sisters. "The Obans did a lot of damage, I'm sorry that they took your other mother as well as our mother... They're way of life was wrong, and I'm happy that we beat them in the end. Though it's sad how many sisters had to lose their lives in order for that to happen."
"Amnesia?" That was horrible. "Does she remember anything?"
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Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2016 8:46 am
A void with no thoughts or memories...it sounded terrifying to her. To not even be able to feel the fear of the void...The whole thought process gave Mnyiri shivers. She was that that Ilyra managed to make it out of that place, but she worried for her mental state. Were these memories likely to give her nightmares? What kind of nightmares were they? Did they last or -? Mnyiri stopped herself. Eventually mental questions would branch into actual questioning and then Ilyra would no doubt push her away. She had to use tact.
Mnyiri shook her head, little bells chiming away in her dreads. "I didn't. They were gone a long time before I was around." It was always a strange thing, to watch other girls with their sisters, their blood born sisters, and wonder what it would have been like. It wasn't as if she didn't have them; one had just been away and the others were dead. In a sense Mnyiri had grown up an only child. "It's hard to forgive the Obans. There were innocents on their side, but it's hard not to remember everything bad when I see them." Even seeing a child made her tense. Mnyiri hated feeling that way, but found it harder to forgive than simply dismiss.
"Rhonann knows that she used to have a crossbow and what her name is, but that's it. She doesn't remember where she's from, who her family is, even how old she is. We found out that she's from the wind tribe, though, but..." Mnyiri shrugged. The search had hit so many dead ends that it seemed like a wild hunt at this point.
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Posted: Sat Apr 16, 2016 6:42 am
She nodded. So Mnyiri had grown up sisterless, just like her. Although technically they both had sisters, they had each other, they hadn't been around at all which pretty much meant they didn't have any. It made Ilyra wish that she had been around more, not just for her mother's sake but for Mnyiri. It would have been nice to grow up with a sister. Sure Ilyra had Dyakida, but she was Briella's age and Ilyra would have liked to have a younger sister. She wouldn't miss out on the opportunity she had now at least. Better now then never.
"Forgiveness is never an easy thing, especially when a group of people have done so many bad things... However I've found that life does become a little easier when you forgive. You tense up less. You aren't on guard every time you see one of them. It just makes things easier." Not that the forgiving part was easy, she was sometimes still on edge when she saw the Obans, but she had come a long way from when she first got out of the coma.
"Yeah... Not a lot to go by, especially since people from the wind tribe travel a lot from what I understand. Hopefully over time you two can put together pieces of her life and find out more about her. It must be lonely not knowing who you are. At least she has you though."
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Posted: Sun Apr 17, 2016 7:11 pm
That same advice had been given to her a while ago, from an Oban, no less. It made Mnyiri to smile a little hear hear Ilyra repeat his teachings. If she'd had any reservations about trying to walk a different path they had been erased. Times had changed; the world was no longer at war, and if both sides could find common ground then maybe kids like Mnyiri wouldn't have to lose their parents.
She liked to think the world might be peaceful one day, but Mnyiri was too much of a realist to think that way.
"Aww, that's sweet of you to say. I don't know that I'm really helping her that much, but she helped me to find you, so I figure I can help her until she gets settled somewhere." Besides, travelling with Rhonann had opened up an entire world of exploration. Mnyiri had learned so much about earthling culture just by walking with her, and she'd even learned how to play the lute. Mnyiri wouldn't trade that for the world.
"So...are we close?"
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Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 3:31 pm
"Do you two plan on leaving the forest? To go looking where more of the wind tribe live to look for her identity?" The thought of Mnyiri leaving pained her more then she thought it would, though she wouldn't admit it. They were just getting to know each other. Though if Mnyiri was leaving maybe Ilyra could leave with her... It wasn't like there was anything holding her back. Her mother, Briella, had her own life now. Maybe leaving was something that would help her heal her heart.
So wrapped in thoughts of travel Ilyra had almost forgotten where they were going. However luckily her home was pretty straight forward in the direction they were walking. "Here it is, home sweet home."
The house that she shared with Briella, though Briella was more often now at her other home on the main island, was moderately sized with some of it on the floor and some of it in the trees around it. "Come on, the kitchen with the tea is down stairs. It's that way so it's easier for Dyakida. She can still climb, but it isn't always easy for her."
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2016 4:52 pm
"Maybe, now that I've found you. I didn't want to leave Jauhar before I did that, but now I'm not really for sure where we'll go. I've heard that Sauti is a pretty rough place to live, so I'm not really looking forward to going there, but if it's where Rhonann's from we should go check it out." She hadn't wanted to leave without knowing Ilyra. It was sad to think that she wouldn't be able to spend as much time with her as she wanted to right now, and as much as Mnyiri wanted to think they had their whole lives ahead of them she couldn't help remembering how short life could be.
"Dyakida?! I knew I remembered this place! I've visited with her before; she helped fix up my spear!" She'd been so close to Ilyra without even realizing it..."That's just amazing. You're so lucky; she's so awesome." Maybe one day Mnyiri would have a house with roommates as skilled as Dyakida. Just owning a home period at this point in her life seemed like a far off dream, but it would happen one day. She would make sure of it.
"So, what class are you training for? Random, I know, but I've been trying to figure out my training schedule and since Dyakida was brought up I started thinking about it again. I'm such a flake. One minute I work on drills and the next - Poof!- I'm off on something else."
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Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2016 12:46 pm
She nodded, "I'm glad you waited until you met me. I myself might be traveling soon. I feel the itch to get out of the jungle for a while, so maybe if you do go to Sauti we could try to met up? Either way I would like for us to keep in touch as much as possible should you leave." Now that she had a younger sister that she knew about she didn't want to just lose her because of any reason. It might be difficult to keep in touch with them moving around but they would manage, she was sure.
Ilyra laughed. "She's the best with weapons, so I'm not even surprised. She's like an aunt to me, her and Briella grew up together so I've been around her since I came here. She really is something special."
"I was the complete opposite, I'm not sure if it had anything to do with living with a weapons maker, but I always was training with some sort of weapon. Dya let me try just about everything, but I finally decided on a bow. It just seemed to fit me the best. Yourself?"
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