Ravenfritha (platinum)
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PERSONAL INFORMATION
Name: Ravenfritha
Title: Alchemist
Race: Sylvan Gender: Female
Age: 40
Date of Birth: Day 16 of the month Imaerasta in the year of 5072
She is taller than average. She appears to be very young.
She has sparkling blue-grey eyes and golden brown skin.
She has waist length, ringleted wheat blonde hair swept up into a spiralling bun secured with a pair of black coral hairsticks carved into slender eels.
She has a delicate face.
History of the Twins
Early life
Ravenfritha and Tygerfrith were born in the sylvan forest of Yuriqen. Raised by their father because their mother died during childbirth they lived quietly. Ravenfritha discovered at an early age that in addition to an affinity for healing she could actually feel strong emotions when she felt a strong surge of anger at the very young age of seven. It was at this time that she discovered that her father resented the twins since he blamed them for their mother’s death. It was during this time that she also discovered that doing injury to a living creature backlashed upon her. When the twins were 15 years of age, they discovered that their father was already searching for spouses for them. However, he was not looking for good matches but instead looking for matches that would benefit him personally. When Tyger discovered that their father was looking at marrying Ravenfritha off to the oldest (and most powerful) councilor in the area they grabbed what they could and fled from the area.
Away from the forests of their youth they soon realize they were poorly prepared for what they had done and when they were found by a minor Nalfein noble who offered them shelter they accepted. Aleesia Vazumin took them into her home and began teaching Ravenfritha how to conduct herself like a Nalfein lady and had her guards teaching Tygerfrith how to fight. It wasn’t until the twins were nearly forty that Tygerfrith discovered that Aleesia was actually a courtesan and assassin for hire and was subtly grooming Ravenfritha for the same thing, with Tygerfrith being trained to act as her bodyguard. This prompted them to flee in the night once again, this time with them arriving in Wehnimer’s Landing. Older and a bit wiser the twins faired much better, Ravenfritha taking apprenticeship with the Empath’s Guild and Tygerfrith doing the same with the Warrior’s Guild.
Life in Landing
Ravenfritha soon joined the Order of Voln as due to her difficulty with hurting the living, which made it easier for her to hunt the undead. Tygerfrith on the other hand received, and accepted, an invitation to join the Guardians of Sunfist. Several years after arriving in Landing Ravenfritha received word that Aleesia was looking for her and looking to get her back by any means necessary. This caused her to become a bit paranoid and when she later became involved with Jaired, secretive, fearing that he would be used against her. Unfortunately, her paranoia and vigilance were in vain and one evening when Jaired was away Ravenfritha was grabbed and taken from Landing.
Life with Aleesia
Upon awakening in Aleesia’s manor Ravenfritha soon discovered she had been stripped of all weapons and through some unknown means had no access to her learned magics. Aleesia then used threats and lies toward and about the people that she cared for to force Ravenfritha to learn and then do what she was ordered. When she was given back her fan, she realized that Aleesia had not discovered and removed the knife that Jaired had given her to conceal within a hollow she had found in one of the slats of the fan. This discovery then allowed her to begin making a plan that would eventually lead to her freedom. Late one night, after nearly two and a half years as a virtual prisoner, she stole into Aleesia’s bedchamber and using the knife that Jaired had given her, she stabbed Aleesia in the heart. She nearly left the weapon there but, due to one of the lies that Aleesia had told her, she believed that it was one of the only things she had left of her old life so she pulled it out and left, shear willpower being the only thing that held her upright as the backlash from attacking Aleesia had nearly caused her to lose consciousness. Taking the keys she found in the chamber she collected her belongings from a chest in the room and fled the manor, stumbling across Tygerfrith who had spent the time living in an inn in the town, trying to find a way to free her. Tygerfrith helped her back to Landing and they are trying once again to make a home for themselves there.
Ravens in the Mist
Ravenfritha frowned, he had been doing that all morning and she wouldn't...couldn't fail to respond to it.
Lord Graison was suggesting to Jaynon that he should take a break from being in the mists. That he should try resting somewhere away from them. The same suggestion that she had made, but this time it seemed with two people saying the same thing that he might be actually willing to listen to it.
Ravenfritha reached out to him...
The pain not only clear in his expression and actions but calling to the healing gifts that she had worked so hard to train.
She touched his temple…
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All was quiet. All was grey. The Mist was so thick here you would not realise it was mist at all if it were not for the occasional break and twist of a tendril.
It curled and flowed around them. Them? Was it them? Or was it her? She didn’t belong here. She was an outsider. How did she get here? The fog about them began to drift into them, pushing them back and away.
They were formless here, but she still felt it as if a hand had reached out to take hers. She felt herself pulled along deeper into the mists, mists that were but a minor nuisance on the isle seemed cloying and thick here. Reaching for her, causing her to flinch when it brushed against her. Somehow, without having a clear reference for it she knew they were going down, not aimlessly but with a clear purpose that allowed her to throw off the occasional pain-filled brush by the mists around them.
In but a simple moment they travelled for what might have been days in this timeless, spaceless place. The only change to indicate they were moving at all, other than a faint breeze against their formless selves, was a gradual change in the colour of the mists. The grey, turned to a pale blue, turned to a teal blue, turned to a rich ultramarine before finally darkening to a deep indigo.
Then it was there. In the center of the indigo a dark shape hung as if suspended. Perhaps humanoid but ruined. One leg’s exposed bone hung, flesh partially devoured, on stringy tendons. Inky black mist flowed from numerous wounds and dispersed into the indigo like a never ending leak. The form’s head was tilted back and it's mouth opened in a soundless scream. Deep indigo eels shaped from the mist rushed into his mouth and twisted out again from each empty eye socket forming an eternity loop. More eels twisted around the form’s spread-eagled limbs, seeming keeping it's position within the blue.
The moment her essence registered that shape she was slammed with a wave of pain that would have brought her to her knees, if she had them in this place. Her gifts screamed out to her to heal this ruined form, bring it back to health as she had done for so many others but even as she reached to try to do something, anything. Even as she reached towards the form to try and form the connection that she had used so many times in her healings she reeled back as a never ending scream slammed into her mind searing it into her consciousness and propelled her out of the vision.
"I SUBMIT!"
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The touch was brief and was over. He flinched away from her fingers.
She was vaguely aware of Lord Jaynon offering hurried apologies and moving away from them even as she instictively locked her knees to keep from collapsing onto the floor and she sagged against Lord Graison.
Through the roaring in her ears she could hear Graison saying something but the words were so muffled that they were indistinct. She offered her own less than coherant apologies, stumbled through a curtsy and made her own unsteady and nearly stumbled way off the scooner and away from the isle.
Arriving in Landing she stumbled her way to the Central square and collapsed on the bench there. Her mind still reeling with what she had seen, one thought came to her, chilling her though and through.
‘He was trapped within his own mind.’
Dawn Introspections
It was true, Rouste would not be called handsome by much of anyone, years of working in the fields in his youth, running through the woods with Rufus and the abuse he’d heaped upon himself had most definitely left their mark on him. But some things still remained. His eyes, crystal blue, sparkled when he laughed and flashed when he was angry. His skin was darkened, not by age but by the sun and his shoulder-length hair, bleached golden brown by the same, was soft to the touch despite the stray grays that could be seen.
Raven however, had had to learn to see beyond the physical and despite the rather constant refrain that she was determined to eliminate from his thoughts, the light smacks to the back of the head seemed to be more effective than her words drifted through her mind for a moment, that he was not a good person, she thought otherwise.
She’d seen the kindness in him, in the way he was with Rufus, indulging the bobcat even when he was being difficult. The way he worried about Idun, despite her words and actions showing that she was not only fine with her life but happy about it. His worries for Jaynon during the incidents on Caligos Isle and his pain after the battle with the Reaper had resulted not only in the death of the same but the accidental deaths of the people that the Reaper had pulled in.
She’d also seen his strong will, how he’d stood firm, despite his fears, in his belief that there was a danger to the Landing that one night. And he didn’t flinch when battling the bandits, seemed to search them out even, to eliminate any threat they could be to others.
His patience, how he could sit for hours making arrows, ensure each one was perfect so they wouldn’t fail him in the middle of a fight.
All of this led to the hardest question of them all. She couldn’t deny that her heart had leaped a little when he had jokingly asked if she wanted to get married the night before, after Yuliet had begun demanding it, but. And that was the crux of her problem, but. She wasn’t ready, not emotionally at least, for anything more demanding of her heart than what she had now.
Aleesia had truly twisted her into knots that she was only just beginning to untangle, and her fears were still a factor in her actions. She still gave a small prayer of thanks to her Lady every time she saw Vyrshkana, happy, bubbly, and bouncy, merrily hugging everyone in sight. She still smiled, seeing that Jaired had love in his life, someone who cared and supported him. Bandied words with Auvreaian, who was as arrogant as ever, even if he seemed to have developed some soft spots while she’d been gone. Wanted to reach for a cup of tea and a warm blanket when she heard Reymard coughing, his skills finely honed when he’d only been starting out just as she’d been torn away.
She’d fled with Tyger when she’d been told that she was being sold to the highest bidder in marriage, in this case the oldest Councilor in the area who she had heard died only a score of years after they had left, not because she feared marriage, but because she feared a loveless marriage. That had led them to Aleesia, Nalfein noble, who proceeded to start molding the two naive younglings into something she could manipulate and use to further her own goals. She’d had a short respite from that before Aleesia had found her and taken her away, using threats and outright lies against and about those she’d cared for in order to keep her there, her magics suppressed somehow and denied all physical weapons. The night she’d plunged her only weapon, the knife Jaired had given her and had secreted away in her fan, into Aleesia’s chest she’d done so without visible flinching, despite the shock of pain that the backlash from the attack had caused her. She’d wanted to leave the knife there, insure that Aleesia had died but dared not leave the one thing she’d thought she had left of her old life anywhere near Aleesia.
So, for now, she would be content with what she had and wait for something more. When she was stronger, surer of who she was and where her life was going. Then, should he ask again, she’d give him the answer to his question that Yuliet was so determined he should get.
With that decision made, she smiled, carefully slid off the bed, grabbed her haversack and boots and made her way down the staircase. At the bottom she slipped her boots on, gave a sleeping Rufus a quick pet and walked out the door, slinging her haversack onto her back as she made her way to Landing in the pre-dawn light to start another day, free and perhaps, even happy with where she was right now.
Hiding from Hurt
At hearing those words Raven froze, hand in the air where she'd had it in position to run it slowly down the back of the nearly asleep Rouste. In a few more moments he'd fully drifted off to sleep and she waited a few moments longer before extricating herself and slowly sliding off the bed. Without looking back she quietly took her mantle from the hook is was on and grabbed her boots. Slipping down the stairs she stopped for a moment, pinned in place by a pair of feline eyes that then dropped back to the ground as Rufus became momentarily alert and then relaxed upon identifying her. Pausing for a moment to pull on her boots she softly walked over to him and gave him a quick pet and kiss on the head. Whispering, "Be good Rufus." she walked to the door and silently opened it, stepping outside.
Once the door had been quietly closed behind her it was the falling snow, rather than the temperature, that reminded her to swing her mantle over her shoulders. Once it was settled she set off through the soft snow into the darkness, never noticing the single tear that ran down her cheek as she made her way to Landing and the Empath Guild to speak to one of the guildmasters there.
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Having spoken to the guildmaster Raven made her way though town, picking up various supplies. As the sun began peaking over the horizon she arrived at the Thrak Inn to get the last of what she planned on taking with her. Raven set the bags down on a nearby table before going to the counter and placing an order in a subdued voice.
"Hi Raven", calls out Leiana as she pops her head out from the hallway.
Raven jumped slightly, startled and turned to face Leiana. "Oh, good morning Leiana."
"You're here early...", Leiana observes as she eyes Raven's disheveled state, eyes red and face splotchy. "You ok?"
"I'm going on a..a short trip." Raven says haltingly, "I have...some things to think about."
Leiana nods slowly. "I see."
Turning to accept her order Raven gave a quiet thanks and went to begin packing it into her bags, a slight tremble visible in her hands as she worked. Closing her eyes briefly she paused and turned to look at Leiana, "I just..." taking a deep breath she looked up. "Leiana, am I doing the right thing?"
"With what? What are you doing?" Leiana asks, moving closer and motioning for Raven to step inside to a more quiet area.
Following Leiana, Raven wrapped her arms around herself. "I'm not sure anymore. I just...." a deep breath and she spoke again, "What would have done if...a short time into being with him Jaired had called you by...well by my name?"
Leiana blinks. Slowly her face reddens and you can almost see visible sparks of energy flickering on her skin as her expression tightens. "I'd.. rather not." she manages to get out.
Raven shakes her head, "I'm not trying to imply anything but...it's the closest example I can come up with to what...what happened."
After a long moment, Leiana nods once. A visible breath is expelled and she murmurs, "Right, yes I know. Go on."
Raven bites her lip and says, "I'm certain there's been some speculation, and frankly we've been...discreet but not hiding really." She looks down at her hands and then back at Leiana. "Rouste and I have been...well courting. And spending the nights together. Just sleeping but still. And last night as we were falling asleep, Rouste said...he said 'Good night....Idun'" Raven blinks rapidly as moisture gathers in her eyes.
Leiana's jaw drops slightly and she blanches. "Idun? Really?" she manages, her eyes wide. "I had no idea! Wow."
Raven nods once, unconsciously wringing her hands slightly. "So I went to the guildmasters, asked for an assignment for my alchemy studies that...that will take me out of town for a couple of days. I know this is likely not a good time for it but...I don't know what else to do."
Leiana frowns and sighs. "Men are stupid sometimes." she mutters and then shrugs. "Look, I can't say I blame you. That's an issue. But, keep it in focus in the big scheme of things and decide if it's something you really wanna stand your ground on."
Raven nods, "That's why I need a couple days. To see if...if this is something I want to...to fight about...or just ignore."
"Well now.." Leiana shakes her head, "No one said anything about ignoring it. Nuh uh. That needs to be spoken into existence and acknowledged. What needs to be decided is if you wanna walk away or not." she continues as she nods to Raven.
Raven gives Leiana a small rueful smile, "That's also on my list to think about. Decide if this is something I want to...fight to keep or not."
Leiana shakes her head slowly and moves closer to Raven, looking her in the eyes. "No, Raven, you don't fight. You make him fight." A slight smile curves her lips as she continues, "Its your turn, right?"
"That would certainly be different," Raven acknowledges, "but I don't know if he even realized he said it. He likely doesn't remember saying it." Raven shrugs, "It wouldn't be the first time someone said something to me and didn't realize what they had said."
"That's why you tell him." she responds, chuckling. "How long will you be gone?"
"No more than a couple of days," Raven replies, "I'll likely be back by Restday, at the latest by early evening. I'm not going far but some of what I need to study only blooms at night so I need to be nearby to be able to study it."
"Alright." Leiana says and gesturing toward the door as the two women move back into the hallway.
"Thank you Leiana, be careful while I'm gone?" Raven impulsively hugs her, a quick squeeze before she moves back to her bags and finishes packing.
Leiana nods, watching the other woman for a moment, before leaving her to her packing.
Finished she closes the bags and hefts them, waving as she walks out the door into the early dawn light.
It’s Jaired’s Fault
As was normal for a scroll sparks began to fly but before she could complete the movement to release the magic the scroll tore itself out of her hand and hovered just above her head. To her astonishment the parchment began folding up into itself until it was no larger than her hand and then crumpled up into a ball. The parchment then lit on fire, but the flames - instead of burning the normal red, yellow and orange shades - burned with shades of blue, green and violet. The flames disappeared with a loud pop and the strong smell of sulfur. Raven could only stare in shock as in its place hovered a small creature. Standing only a little over a foot tall was a skinny figure, with skin a dark red-green leathery texture. Sprouting from its head were a pair of oversized, pointy ears and a pair of small horns. Helping it stay aloft were a pair of bat-like wings and to finish it off a long, pointed tail swayed behind it. Its face more resembled a cat’s however, lending it an air of something that had been created by mashing together several different creatures.
The creature then introduced itself to her, bowing at the waist, “Good evening Mistress Ravenfritha, what orders do you have for me.”
In shock she stammered out, “Ah..patrol the Landing for…anything dangerous?” As it flew away all she could think was, ‘Jaired, I don’t know how but I’m pretty sure this is all your fault.’