Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

[Laenlis]

---

(boy, did I get carried away writing this...it's LONG. The Origins board just seemed sort of lonely...)

"It's sad, really," Alaine of Yew complained to her third husband. "She inherited none of my beauty, none of my boldness..." The fact that the object of her scorn sat only a few feet away didn't bother her in the least. After all, Alaine figured, if Laenlis had possessed one-tenth of her mother's fire, she wouldn't have stood for the criticism. As it was, the younger woman merely sighed, and continued her scribing.

Alaine's husband snickered at the exchange. "I have to agree with you," he said out loud, and laughed at the way his booming voice made his stepdaughter flinch. "When we first met, I had hopes for your unseen daughter. I thought maybe someday she might be fit for my Gortir. Sadly, I know now that my son would never consort with one so...plain."

Aye, Laenlis almost said aloud. As far as she could tell from her stepfather's tales, Gortir far preferred the painted "ladies" of Minoc's mining camps. But, as always, she kept her thoughts to herself. The scrolls before her were complicated, and as she copied, the arcane syllables soothed her. The shabby room outside the Abbey drifted away, replaced, at least in Laenlis' mind, by her small, quiet chamber at the Lycaeum.

A sharp blow to the side of her head returned her swiftly to reality. She tumbled from her chair, and before she could understand what had happened, Darden kicked her in her ribs. The pain was excruciating. He bent over her, his breath reeking.

"She's gone to the market, so we've a little time together, girl. Time to teach you one lesson."

"Lesson?" She struggled in his grasp, but she was no match for his beefy strength. Her side was on fire, and she could already feel her face swelling where he had hit her.

He brought her face close enough that she could feel his spit on her face. "You do NOT ignore Darden d'Vale. When I talk to you, I want an ANSWER. Understand?"

Ah, the voice Laenlis thought of as her logical-brain suddenly said, cutting through her panic and shock. While you reminisced, he made some demand, and you didn't even hear him. His pride is wounded. Burst into tears! Whimper! Without hesitation, Laenlis did exactly that, her fear making the false tears fall easily. After a few minutes of snot-filled blubbering, Darden released her. She fell to the floor, still weeping.

"What a child," he spat. "You sure you came out of your mother?" With a final sneer, he stumbled back to his worn chair by the fire. Laenlis sniffled for a while for good measure, then crept to her cot at the back of the small room. She knew Darden's habits well enough. By the time the sixth ale passed his lips, he'd be all but unconscious. A few minutes past that, and he'd be so lost in sleep he wouldn't wake until the next morning.

In the dark corner, away from Darden's hostile glare, she permitted herself a small smile. One thing Darden had never figured out about his wife was that she'd never limit herself to one man. Her late evening "market" trips were simply excuses to visit one of her lovers, a reclusive necromancer in a hovel near the market. Alaine knew Darden's drinking as well as Laenlis; she wouldn't return until almost dawn.

Laenlis waited until Darden had lapsed into heavy snoring, then drew her small pack out from beneath her cot. It was already filled with reagents and scrolls, as well as a few precious possessions. Her cloak, worn but warm enough, rested next to a pile of cheap store-bought armor. The brooch signifying her student status at the Lycaeum was sewn into the cloak's heavy lining, where Alaine could not find it or sell it. She'd need it, when she finished the long walk back to Moonglow.

The path to the Lycaeum had not been easy in the first place. Laenlis had a natural skill at scribing and magery, to be sure. Still, it cost gold to be a Lycaeum student, and even though Laenlis had funded her education herself through years of copying wills and letters for her illiterate neighbors, Alaine had thrown objection after objection in her daughter's path. She had only been persuaded to let her daughter leave when Laenlis had pointed out that as a trained scribe, she could make much more gold for the family than she could as an untrained amateur.

Now, crouched beside an insect-ridden pallet, her face throbbing, Laenlis finally felt real tears fall alongside the ones she had faked for her mother's husband. In her two years at the Lycaeum, while she grew stronger and more confident away from her mother's merciless anger, Alaine's fortunes steadily fell. Her second husband, a supposedly successful merchant, had died and left many debts for Alaine to fill. Alaine's own business, harvesting the reagent plants that grew wild around Yew, lessened as the mages moved on to more populated cities.

Finally, Alaine sent a hastily written letter to her daughter, containing only three words: Come home. Urgent.. Laenlis debated for a long night about ever returning to Yew, but in the end, she hastened to her mother's side. She feared injury, illness, anything....anything except her mother's hurried wedding to a former mercenary grown mean from idleness. That first few days back, Alaine had somehow stolen Laenlis' small store of gold -- her tithe for her next year at the Lycaeum -- and informed Laenlis that it was time to start repaying her debt.

"My debt?!," Laenlis suddenly hissed aloud, then shrank back as Darden murmured in his sleep. She thought suddenly that for all her mother's cruelty, at least she had never attempted to beat her. Darden, though...she could see that becoming a habit with him. Perhaps Alaine had found someone she couldn't control this time. Then again, Alaine could probably take care of herself. There were always more husbands.

Darden finally settled after a few long moments, and Laenlis wasted no more time in bitter memories. She'd been planning this escape since she stepped through the hut's rickety door, but Alaine hadn't left her alone until tonight. Not so vigilant after all, Laenlis thought with some satisfaction as she gathered her small bundle of belongings.

She didn't dress until she had slipped outside. The air was perfectly clear and frigid, and her breath formed small crystalline clouds as she struggled into the unfamiliar armor. Her clothes went back on over that, a few gold coins sewn into the hems. The pack wound over her shoulder, and the cloak covered all of it. She drew its heavy hood over her hair and face, and without one glance back, began the long walk to the Yew moongate.

No one approached on the journey, though with a whispered spell she could easily see figures huddled in the shadows of Yew's great trees. She walked past silent keeps with only a few sentries keeping half-hearted guard over their occupants; and tiny homes where laughter poured through the windows like light. She stared wistfully through those windows as she passed, wondering at how the gods picked the family into which each person was born.

Family. Bah. Laenlis kicked a rock from the path, trying not to let her mind slide into its inevitable musings on her birth father. As always, she wondered why, of all the women in the woods of Yew, her elven father decided to lie with the bawdy, greedy, furious Alaine. She shook her head, muttering to herself. No man had ever shown real interest in quiet Laenlis, but if they did, she'd make sure he was different than those fools her mother preferred.

Alaine's version of her daughter's conception was simple, of course. "I spent the summer with an elf whose family hated him as much as mine hated me. We overheard a fight in a tavern one night about gold hidden outside the orc fort, and...since more gold is always better than less... Well, it was a trap, and the orcs killed him. Then, I found out you were on the way, and that was that. No going to his family for mercy or gold...not with a half-elf bastard on the way."

Laenlis shivered as a blast of wind tore her cloak open. Half-elf. What did that mean? She had some aptitude with magery, for sure. She thanked the gods for that; it was her only escape from her mother's side. She enjoyed the forest, she had a love for the animals of the land, even her mother's scraggly chickens. Then again, she was tongue-tied and easily flustered, with none of the skill in music or art that poets attributed to the elves. She was too big in all the human female places to pass for elf; and too pointed in face and ears to be seen as full human.

The faint blue shimmer of the moongate appeared through the trees, and she forced herself to focus on the present moment. Brigands and murders concentrated around moongates; she had never been to one alone before, let alone in the middle of the night. She had no weapon (or ability to use one, she thought wryly), but her fingers found a few energy bolt scrolls in her pack. They would do in a pinch. Grimly, she began to approach the gate, using the hiding talent the Lycaeum mages had taught her to stay invisible some of the way.

Almost there. She could see the gate now, an unnatural oval of blue, its low hum audible even over the cries of the forest creatures. No one seemed to be around it, but Laenlis took her time. She settled against a nearby tree, her eyes scanning back and forth in front of her.

"Evening," a voice suddenly said behind her. She whirled around, too terrified to shriek. The man was completely wrapped in a dark cloak, his face hidden from view. He was obviously a tall man, perhaps not burly, but big enough to snap Laenlis in two.

Her heart thudded against her armor. "Ev...eve...evening," she finally stammered a response. She kept that look of shock upon her face, but under her cloak, she began easing one of the scrolls from the pack.

The man let out a low laugh. "Don't bother, elfling. I'd cut you in half before you started chanting."

Only the implied insult to her scribing made her bold. "What do you want? Do I know you?" she asked. She watched a glimmer appear within the depths of the hood; perhaps a smile? The thought made her shiver.

"Not formally," he answered. "But, I won't keep you tonight. You seem to be in a bit of a hurry."

Tonight? her logical-brain immediately responded. It wasn't until the cloaked man burst out into deep laughter that she realized she had spoken aloud.

"Aye, elfling. Not tonight. But we'll meet again." With that, the man disappeared into the underbrush, making no sound with his steps. Suddenly, she heard the sound of nearby wolves, and mumbled voices. Panic consumed her, and she bolted mindlessly for the moongate. She heard a man shout after her in a thick accent, but paid him no heed.

"Moonglow!" she shouted as she fell into the gate. Blue mist surrounded her, supported her, for only a second...and she flopped to the ground in front of the Moonglow gate. A party of woodsmen stood nearby, gaping at the young woman sprawled on the ground. She struggled to her feet, ignoring their jokes, and fled north toward the faint light of the mages city. She had no gold to pay her way back into the Lycaeum, no idea how to make the money or how to survive outside her little world, and a strange cloaked man seemingly interested in her very uninteresting life...


(when L. makes her appearance in Atlantic rp, she's finished with the Lycaeum and is trying to strike out on her own as a scribe; she still knows squat-all about her elven heritage; she's hasn't spoken to/heard from her mother since she fled Yew, and she still has no idea who the cloaked man was...)