Saelia
05-04-2006, 04:15 PM
Hello there! This is Saelia Windrunner writing, do you happen to know who I am? I didn't think so, honestly there are times which I scarcely remember myself! I'm no one really important, but I have a tale or two to tell. Like I think we all do! So welcome, lucky reader to the pages of my life! Here you will learn far more than you had ever hoped to know of this little Dwarf, whether you know her already or not! Come now, let us take a journey through my past together and we'll get to know each other along the way, hm?
I have always considered myself a creature of great luck, though how my very being came into existence was created in great unluck for some. One in every one-hundred Dwarves is born a female. I, in all my blessed luck became one of these few. Unfortunately for those who bore me, this was a terrible thing.
My father was a hunter by trade, an entrepreneur by nature, and a politician by duty. He was a very successful dwarf in his time, a herald to the king for a good deal of his life! He lived quite a comfortable life in luxury.
My mother was a seamstress who owned a shop in the city of Ironforge, she too was quite successful in her own right. But the furs my would-be father brought her exclusively in his younger days as a hunter would make her quite renowned.
I know precious little else of either of them, because, frankly, I was never told. I do not know how they met, I do not know when they fell in love, or how, or why. I should like to know these things, but I never will, because as you may have noticed, I refer to them in a past sense.
This is where the heroine of our tale comes into play, me! But this is no happy beginning, as I said, I was born in pure unluck.
My father, having grown rather old, and retired decided that at long last the time had come for him to bring a child into the world, a strapping lad with a long, lucious beard to rival his own. A boy he could train to be a great hunter as he was. He sought a continuation, he sought a legacy. But then begins the unluck.
I was born twenty-three years prior to the writing on this bit of parchment. My mother, who my father had loved so dearly died as I was born, the first bit of unluck in my making. I wish now that I had known her, more than those little bits which I have already told. Of what I've been told, I look just like her, which is the second bit of unluck which made me. My father had wanted a continuation of his legacy, what her receieved was the loss of his love, and one of the one and one hundred females of our race which is born who looked nothing at all like him. It was nothing that he had wanted, it was pure unluck.
Oh, he kept me, alright, but keeping and caring for are far from the same definition. My father resented my existence, I can't really blame him, I've developed my own knack for resenting things which keep me from getting what I want, and I was the essence of his bad luck. I was fed well enough to live, but never to any sort of excess. My greatest luxury I was afforded was being sent to the city to receive my early educations from the academy, but the real reason for that bit of charity was just so my father could be without me for long periods of time.
Wars were happening as I grew up, but I spent the time oblivious to it all, living the fairly harsh, uncaring life to which I had become accustomed. I never was lacking in those offering discipline and authority, my father the worst of all, but all of my days I have had a knack for breaking any rules set before me. I would often times find myself paying close attention to the rules given only to find the funnest ways I could find of breaking them. Why not? What did it all really matter anyway? I was born of unluck! An exception from the start! No one really wanted me, I was alone, I had to make my own way. And how does one go about making their own way? By breaking the rules!
The older I grew the more I came to realize these things, and came to notice, the more I did it, the better things became! And so rarely was I caught, it was as if luck watched over me, and it still does. I was born of such unluck, I suppose fate thought it owned me one. I could write an entire book detailing the mischief I caused in my early years, and the years since, but I won't bore you, you kind reader who has come this far through my tale!
I finished the last of my standard education, I learned to read, and obviously to write with adamant skill. It came time to leave the academy for good. I was not quite of age yet, and I had no where else to go, so of course I returned home once more as I had during all breaks from my education. Though really I would have prefered to spend that time staying at the academy, but it was never an option. This trip home however would prove to be quite different.
I see it as a stroke of great luck, I returned home to witness the final end of a legacy. My father was dead, he died alone in his bed, as I'm quite sure he would have wanted. He certainly wouldn't have cared if I had been there beside him. I'm sure I would have just somehow prolonged his agony, pity I wasn't there come to think of it that way. Oh well, I suppose I had come to resent him just as much as he resented my entire existence. He received a proper burial however, I suppose I owed him that much.
Hm, but what to do now? A great sense of freedom came over me as I put him into his final resting place. I was free of him, free of the academy, free of discipline, free of authority, free of all rules! Where should I go now? What should I do? I was completely and utterly free. But along with all of this freedom, I realized I was completely lost. I was as my father had become after I took his companion from him. I was alone in the world.
After a few days' reflection and consideration, it was time to begin making my own way. I began with what I knew. I would show that bastard who thought me such a curse, such a worthless being sent only to torment him. I would show him indeed. I would do it alone, and without anything from him, save one thing. I rushed to his bedroom and opened the case which was kept near the bed, inside was a single shotgun, polished and refined. It had not been used in many a year, but it was still in perfect condition. It was the gun he used in his days as a hunter. As my first act in making my own way, I would prove my worth to that bastard and, more silently, to myself. I was worthy, I was good enough, no matter what he thought. I could have been the continuation of his legacy he so desired, but it was not to be. Hm, not to be.. Just another rule I could break.
I took the gun for my own along with as much ammo as I could carry and set out to begin making my own way. My early tries at training myself to use the thing were laughable attempts at trying to shoot a small target dummy. Once in frustration I turned from the dummy and took a shot at my father's old house, I missed it completely. It took several weeks, but eventually I got the hang of it, and I moved on to small animals and the like, taking down vicious squirrels and rabbits with the greatest of skill! I learned to cook quite well in these times as well, taking the meat from the small things I shot down and cooking them for all of my meals. I eventually left the house completely behind, living by the wilderness, my food was what I could kill, my bed was the cold earth. I gladly left all the luxuries I could have taken from that house behind in trade for it.
It was a lovely life, really, and I learned so much of survival, so many new ways that I could make my own way. It wasn't long before I realized just how skillful I had really become. I decided it was time I move on to bigger game, I hadn't even realized how much gold I could make with these skills. Not just from selling the meats and skins, but the jobs which everyone all around the world could use my skills for! My ambition is certainly something that I did inherit from my father. I became something of an entrepreneur myself, and in all of my ventures, the old luck followed me. I became something of a mercenary for hire, taking any kind of job offered to me, be it as an escort across dangerous lands, killing some great beast, taking revenge on some scum who had wronged my customer (though really I never cared for the details, so long as the pay as good enough), or even simple courier work. I did it all, and such wealth came from it I could hardly have imagined it. The luck certainly was with me.
In all of my endeavours only one bit of bad luck ever befell me. And ironically, it is through a sheer counterance of luck that this bit of unluck wasn't my undoing. The posters had gone up all over Ironforge and the nearby settlements, "Beware! Killer bear 'Trebloc' on the prowl! This beast has killed many and destroyed countless property, 50 gold reward dead or alive!" Fifty gold pieces! How could I pass it up? I bought myself a handful of new gear and packed my things and set out to track the beast down. I knew that often these warning posters embellished the truth, local rumormongers had surely glorified this likely common bear into something of a myth. But it didn't matter, someone was offering a substantial sum for the beast, so what did any of that matter?!
I spent many a long fruitless day searching the mountains for this "legendary beast". It was all a great fit of unluck from the start, to be honest. This bear's fur, as I was told, is white as fresh parchment, and in these snow capped mountains it would be nearly impossible to see. And to top it off there came a blizzard. My hunt was going nowhere, and I thought for certain for the first time since beginning to make my own way, I would fail. I couldn't have been more right, but my failure was not complete. In fact, it was just that the outcome was far different from anything I had anticipated.
Thank the gods for my thick dwarven skin. I don't believe any fairer skinned race could have even survived the blizzard which pounded the mountain I hunted. But no matter, I did. Once it had passed I returned to my hunt, and it was that day that I would find him, this great white beast made legend by local rumors. I came upon him in a valley, chewing on a recently dead carcas of a wolf. Quite a meal it looked like! It seemed this beast lived its life much as I lived my own. He made his own way, he took what he wanted when he wanted it, and he relished in it! Ah, too bad, kind bear. Your head is worth fifty gold pieces to me. I raised my gun and took careful aim at him. Though I didn't make a noise his attention immediately turned to me, he looked straight into my eyes, it was almost as if we had a silent conversation then, he and I. Quite a strange feeling had overcome me as I look into him and he back into me. It took quite a battle for me to even pull the trigger, but I did, though it was by an almost tragic means.
I did not pull the trigger by intention, but rather through shock. As I stood there, mesmerized by the beast, melting snow began to shift and collapse into the valley. A quick and sudden avalanche claimed the area before I had realized anything was happening. It hit me from behind, shoving my legs out from under me, forcing me to fall backwards, my gun pointing into the sky and firing by a pure reflex action. Within moments the roaring subsided, and I was there, knocked unconcious, but buried alive by the snow. My luck had run out, or so I would have thought had I been conscious to think of such things!
But no, to think that would have been a horrible wrong. I certainly must be a being made of luck, something of an invincible creature watched over by that invisible force! I should have died there, buried beneath the snow and alone. But no, it was certainly not my time.
I regained consciousness to an odd feeling. I was in complete darkness, complete cold, but I had the strangest sensation in my boot. It felt as if something were tugging at it, pulling on my body with some great force. I winced in pain as the force became stronger, and I began to notice, my body was indeed being pulled by it! I had clung to life by that boot, and now my luck was pulling me back from death's dark, icy grip! All at once my eyes were flooded with light as I was pulled from my would-be tomb, I was instantly blinded. I heard the snow collapsing behind me, felt the snow beneath body as if it were being drug further away from my doom, and indeed it was. I heard another odd thing then, a soft, low growl, and then the oddest feeling I had felt in this entire ordeal. The soft, moist warmth of something very large and floppy rubbing against my cheek. I opened my eyes to the feeling, and as they eventually adjusted to the light, I saw looming over me the great white beast whom I had hunted so. The beast had saved me, I had sought to bring an end to him, but he saved me. I owed this creature my life.
And the strangest thing came of it all. The gigantic vicious creature made no move of violence against me. No attempt to end my life, he was completely gentle with me. It was as if we had known each other our entire lives, I think. We understood each other, I don't think that even if the avalanche had not happened that I would have really shot the beast, we would have developed this relationship reguardless. He sensed these things in me, as I did in him. We were really just as alike as I had believed. We became companions, he and I. The beautiful killing machine took to following me as I tried to leave him, it would seem he was as absolutely enthralled as I. Trebloc and I became the closest of friends, I have always held him in higher reguard than any sentient being I have ever come to know.
Over the following years we remained together, he was, and still is to this day my hunting companion. We work together, we share the rewards of all our endeavors, and it was through him that I came to know this entire concept of sharing. Working together with him was the best, luckiest thing that had ever happened to me. It was oh so much better than being alone.
The tasks became easier, and the rewards became greater, and it was not long before I came to the concept of a band of those such as we! A guild, as they're typically called, of the lost souls in the world like he and I, and I indeed set about creating it! Thorns and Roses I had come to call it, the name just somehow fit. The rose is much like me, a long stem of harsh, unlucky thorns which bloom of luck at the top with one of the most beautiful flowers you'll find in this world. It's as if they refused to be the ugly thing which grows of their root and they make their own way to become that beautiful bloom at the top. And that is what I am, that is what we are! We Thorns and Roses.
We all have our own stories, and now mine is done for the time. Though in truth, it is just beginning. I hope you have enjoyed reading of it, kind reader, however you came about it. And for now we will part until the rest of the tale is to be told. Farewell, and thank you.
~ Saelia Windrunner
Hunter Extraordinaire
Founder and Ringleader of Thorns and Roses
I have always considered myself a creature of great luck, though how my very being came into existence was created in great unluck for some. One in every one-hundred Dwarves is born a female. I, in all my blessed luck became one of these few. Unfortunately for those who bore me, this was a terrible thing.
My father was a hunter by trade, an entrepreneur by nature, and a politician by duty. He was a very successful dwarf in his time, a herald to the king for a good deal of his life! He lived quite a comfortable life in luxury.
My mother was a seamstress who owned a shop in the city of Ironforge, she too was quite successful in her own right. But the furs my would-be father brought her exclusively in his younger days as a hunter would make her quite renowned.
I know precious little else of either of them, because, frankly, I was never told. I do not know how they met, I do not know when they fell in love, or how, or why. I should like to know these things, but I never will, because as you may have noticed, I refer to them in a past sense.
This is where the heroine of our tale comes into play, me! But this is no happy beginning, as I said, I was born in pure unluck.
My father, having grown rather old, and retired decided that at long last the time had come for him to bring a child into the world, a strapping lad with a long, lucious beard to rival his own. A boy he could train to be a great hunter as he was. He sought a continuation, he sought a legacy. But then begins the unluck.
I was born twenty-three years prior to the writing on this bit of parchment. My mother, who my father had loved so dearly died as I was born, the first bit of unluck in my making. I wish now that I had known her, more than those little bits which I have already told. Of what I've been told, I look just like her, which is the second bit of unluck which made me. My father had wanted a continuation of his legacy, what her receieved was the loss of his love, and one of the one and one hundred females of our race which is born who looked nothing at all like him. It was nothing that he had wanted, it was pure unluck.
Oh, he kept me, alright, but keeping and caring for are far from the same definition. My father resented my existence, I can't really blame him, I've developed my own knack for resenting things which keep me from getting what I want, and I was the essence of his bad luck. I was fed well enough to live, but never to any sort of excess. My greatest luxury I was afforded was being sent to the city to receive my early educations from the academy, but the real reason for that bit of charity was just so my father could be without me for long periods of time.
Wars were happening as I grew up, but I spent the time oblivious to it all, living the fairly harsh, uncaring life to which I had become accustomed. I never was lacking in those offering discipline and authority, my father the worst of all, but all of my days I have had a knack for breaking any rules set before me. I would often times find myself paying close attention to the rules given only to find the funnest ways I could find of breaking them. Why not? What did it all really matter anyway? I was born of unluck! An exception from the start! No one really wanted me, I was alone, I had to make my own way. And how does one go about making their own way? By breaking the rules!
The older I grew the more I came to realize these things, and came to notice, the more I did it, the better things became! And so rarely was I caught, it was as if luck watched over me, and it still does. I was born of such unluck, I suppose fate thought it owned me one. I could write an entire book detailing the mischief I caused in my early years, and the years since, but I won't bore you, you kind reader who has come this far through my tale!
I finished the last of my standard education, I learned to read, and obviously to write with adamant skill. It came time to leave the academy for good. I was not quite of age yet, and I had no where else to go, so of course I returned home once more as I had during all breaks from my education. Though really I would have prefered to spend that time staying at the academy, but it was never an option. This trip home however would prove to be quite different.
I see it as a stroke of great luck, I returned home to witness the final end of a legacy. My father was dead, he died alone in his bed, as I'm quite sure he would have wanted. He certainly wouldn't have cared if I had been there beside him. I'm sure I would have just somehow prolonged his agony, pity I wasn't there come to think of it that way. Oh well, I suppose I had come to resent him just as much as he resented my entire existence. He received a proper burial however, I suppose I owed him that much.
Hm, but what to do now? A great sense of freedom came over me as I put him into his final resting place. I was free of him, free of the academy, free of discipline, free of authority, free of all rules! Where should I go now? What should I do? I was completely and utterly free. But along with all of this freedom, I realized I was completely lost. I was as my father had become after I took his companion from him. I was alone in the world.
After a few days' reflection and consideration, it was time to begin making my own way. I began with what I knew. I would show that bastard who thought me such a curse, such a worthless being sent only to torment him. I would show him indeed. I would do it alone, and without anything from him, save one thing. I rushed to his bedroom and opened the case which was kept near the bed, inside was a single shotgun, polished and refined. It had not been used in many a year, but it was still in perfect condition. It was the gun he used in his days as a hunter. As my first act in making my own way, I would prove my worth to that bastard and, more silently, to myself. I was worthy, I was good enough, no matter what he thought. I could have been the continuation of his legacy he so desired, but it was not to be. Hm, not to be.. Just another rule I could break.
I took the gun for my own along with as much ammo as I could carry and set out to begin making my own way. My early tries at training myself to use the thing were laughable attempts at trying to shoot a small target dummy. Once in frustration I turned from the dummy and took a shot at my father's old house, I missed it completely. It took several weeks, but eventually I got the hang of it, and I moved on to small animals and the like, taking down vicious squirrels and rabbits with the greatest of skill! I learned to cook quite well in these times as well, taking the meat from the small things I shot down and cooking them for all of my meals. I eventually left the house completely behind, living by the wilderness, my food was what I could kill, my bed was the cold earth. I gladly left all the luxuries I could have taken from that house behind in trade for it.
It was a lovely life, really, and I learned so much of survival, so many new ways that I could make my own way. It wasn't long before I realized just how skillful I had really become. I decided it was time I move on to bigger game, I hadn't even realized how much gold I could make with these skills. Not just from selling the meats and skins, but the jobs which everyone all around the world could use my skills for! My ambition is certainly something that I did inherit from my father. I became something of an entrepreneur myself, and in all of my ventures, the old luck followed me. I became something of a mercenary for hire, taking any kind of job offered to me, be it as an escort across dangerous lands, killing some great beast, taking revenge on some scum who had wronged my customer (though really I never cared for the details, so long as the pay as good enough), or even simple courier work. I did it all, and such wealth came from it I could hardly have imagined it. The luck certainly was with me.
In all of my endeavours only one bit of bad luck ever befell me. And ironically, it is through a sheer counterance of luck that this bit of unluck wasn't my undoing. The posters had gone up all over Ironforge and the nearby settlements, "Beware! Killer bear 'Trebloc' on the prowl! This beast has killed many and destroyed countless property, 50 gold reward dead or alive!" Fifty gold pieces! How could I pass it up? I bought myself a handful of new gear and packed my things and set out to track the beast down. I knew that often these warning posters embellished the truth, local rumormongers had surely glorified this likely common bear into something of a myth. But it didn't matter, someone was offering a substantial sum for the beast, so what did any of that matter?!
I spent many a long fruitless day searching the mountains for this "legendary beast". It was all a great fit of unluck from the start, to be honest. This bear's fur, as I was told, is white as fresh parchment, and in these snow capped mountains it would be nearly impossible to see. And to top it off there came a blizzard. My hunt was going nowhere, and I thought for certain for the first time since beginning to make my own way, I would fail. I couldn't have been more right, but my failure was not complete. In fact, it was just that the outcome was far different from anything I had anticipated.
Thank the gods for my thick dwarven skin. I don't believe any fairer skinned race could have even survived the blizzard which pounded the mountain I hunted. But no matter, I did. Once it had passed I returned to my hunt, and it was that day that I would find him, this great white beast made legend by local rumors. I came upon him in a valley, chewing on a recently dead carcas of a wolf. Quite a meal it looked like! It seemed this beast lived its life much as I lived my own. He made his own way, he took what he wanted when he wanted it, and he relished in it! Ah, too bad, kind bear. Your head is worth fifty gold pieces to me. I raised my gun and took careful aim at him. Though I didn't make a noise his attention immediately turned to me, he looked straight into my eyes, it was almost as if we had a silent conversation then, he and I. Quite a strange feeling had overcome me as I look into him and he back into me. It took quite a battle for me to even pull the trigger, but I did, though it was by an almost tragic means.
I did not pull the trigger by intention, but rather through shock. As I stood there, mesmerized by the beast, melting snow began to shift and collapse into the valley. A quick and sudden avalanche claimed the area before I had realized anything was happening. It hit me from behind, shoving my legs out from under me, forcing me to fall backwards, my gun pointing into the sky and firing by a pure reflex action. Within moments the roaring subsided, and I was there, knocked unconcious, but buried alive by the snow. My luck had run out, or so I would have thought had I been conscious to think of such things!
But no, to think that would have been a horrible wrong. I certainly must be a being made of luck, something of an invincible creature watched over by that invisible force! I should have died there, buried beneath the snow and alone. But no, it was certainly not my time.
I regained consciousness to an odd feeling. I was in complete darkness, complete cold, but I had the strangest sensation in my boot. It felt as if something were tugging at it, pulling on my body with some great force. I winced in pain as the force became stronger, and I began to notice, my body was indeed being pulled by it! I had clung to life by that boot, and now my luck was pulling me back from death's dark, icy grip! All at once my eyes were flooded with light as I was pulled from my would-be tomb, I was instantly blinded. I heard the snow collapsing behind me, felt the snow beneath body as if it were being drug further away from my doom, and indeed it was. I heard another odd thing then, a soft, low growl, and then the oddest feeling I had felt in this entire ordeal. The soft, moist warmth of something very large and floppy rubbing against my cheek. I opened my eyes to the feeling, and as they eventually adjusted to the light, I saw looming over me the great white beast whom I had hunted so. The beast had saved me, I had sought to bring an end to him, but he saved me. I owed this creature my life.
And the strangest thing came of it all. The gigantic vicious creature made no move of violence against me. No attempt to end my life, he was completely gentle with me. It was as if we had known each other our entire lives, I think. We understood each other, I don't think that even if the avalanche had not happened that I would have really shot the beast, we would have developed this relationship reguardless. He sensed these things in me, as I did in him. We were really just as alike as I had believed. We became companions, he and I. The beautiful killing machine took to following me as I tried to leave him, it would seem he was as absolutely enthralled as I. Trebloc and I became the closest of friends, I have always held him in higher reguard than any sentient being I have ever come to know.
Over the following years we remained together, he was, and still is to this day my hunting companion. We work together, we share the rewards of all our endeavors, and it was through him that I came to know this entire concept of sharing. Working together with him was the best, luckiest thing that had ever happened to me. It was oh so much better than being alone.
The tasks became easier, and the rewards became greater, and it was not long before I came to the concept of a band of those such as we! A guild, as they're typically called, of the lost souls in the world like he and I, and I indeed set about creating it! Thorns and Roses I had come to call it, the name just somehow fit. The rose is much like me, a long stem of harsh, unlucky thorns which bloom of luck at the top with one of the most beautiful flowers you'll find in this world. It's as if they refused to be the ugly thing which grows of their root and they make their own way to become that beautiful bloom at the top. And that is what I am, that is what we are! We Thorns and Roses.
We all have our own stories, and now mine is done for the time. Though in truth, it is just beginning. I hope you have enjoyed reading of it, kind reader, however you came about it. And for now we will part until the rest of the tale is to be told. Farewell, and thank you.
~ Saelia Windrunner
Hunter Extraordinaire
Founder and Ringleader of Thorns and Roses