RavenReverend
02-02-2008, 01:29 PM
((The introduction will be extensive, bear with me, I was inspired this morning. This sort of half explains where Feral is when she's not in Silvermoon or off running errands for Quest-givers.--I'll write more on here and then hopefully get folks into it- This is open to Ignis Divine members as well as people who PM. ))
The air in Winterspring was crisp and biting. Even as the wyvern landed Feralmoon inhaled the ever present, heady scent of pine and let her eyes close for an indulgent moment, though only for that moment.
She dismounted the instant the wyverns claws touched the post, and as she doled out the silver to the flight-master she was conscious of a presence behind her. She turned slightly, her gaze cast downward appropriately as she regarded the rather stern looking young human child.
Feralmoon’s violet eyes locked on the childs upturned blue and she matched his scowl.
“How do you walk with your legs turned backward like that?” he asked as his lips quirked into a slight smirk.
“How do you walk without a tail between yours?” Feralmoon countered with a question that didn’t really sound at all like a question, rather an enigmatic counterpoint to his small, possibly narrow minded paradigm.
The boy’s name was Mason Plumber. His family was not at all what one would call well off, and though the Grimtotem female normally detested the wasteful, extravagant ways of most humans, the boy was a bit of an exception.
The first day she’d set hoof here, after riding long and hard from the Furbolg settlement a few tens of miles from here, he’d come up to her without fear. He’d demanded the same question and she’d answered the same way. After a while it became a password of sorts, albeit an unnecessary one. There were few Tauren here, even as close to the Moonglade as this puny fortification was, and even rarer were the ones who looked like her.
Well over seven feet, Feralmoon towered over many females, and a few of the males of her race she’d encountered. She was also built like a fortress herself, muscles hardening any feminine curves to make it look almost as if someone had sculpted the lady-Tauren out of black marble with a painstaking eye. She was a striking if not ridiculous analogy to the small bony child.
He stood closing in on four feet and two inches, and was probably well into his twelfth cycle of life. His eyes were slightly larger than most and being that he was slightly far-sighted he would often times squint, at once making him appear more mature and serious than he was and as an added benefit helped him to discern more at close distances. His sandy hair was cut somewhat short, in a style reminiscent to a page at court, or one of the squires trotting along behind the Blood Knights in Silvermoon.
He wasn’t underfed, but nowhere close to ever having known a truly full life in any sense of the phrase. There were many nights, Feralmoon knew, where his family went hungry thanks to the no-good lout that his mother had married. With five children by the man, Feral wondered vaguely if the woman was mad.
Feralmoon let her gaze roam over the boy for a moment, critically assessing the work his mother had done to keep his clothes intact. The patches had been stitched in with a loving hand, and they held well enough but the Tauren knew that they couldn’t be terribly warm. She looked up momentarily to the woman standing outside the inn, her blonde hair hanging almost pitifully around narrow shoulders and an even narrower back. She nodded to the Mrs. Plumber, and then looked down to Mason.
She pulled a package from her belt, a bundle that was larger than the armfuls of wood she knew Mason hauled everyday but was confident he could lift. He hesitantly and almost with an air of embarrassment lifted his arms to accept it and Feralmoon watched his face carefully for signs of strain as she let the weight of it settle.
“There are several furs in there. Your mother should be able to work with them, they are soft enough.” Feralmoon rumbled, satisfied that the boy’s strength grew rather than diminished.
Mason nodded and trotted back to his mother, holding his prize up to her. The woman’s hands shook as she accepted the bundle. She was ill, she had to be. The last child she’d delivered had been laid to rest that spring when the ground was soft enough to accept it. After a loss like that it was not uncommon for females of any race, Troll, Elf, Human or Tauren to suffer much in the way of disease. However she accepted this all in stride and gave an appreciative glance to Feralmoon, a wane smile tugging at the corner of her lips as her son ran back to his employer.
“Come.” Feralmoon jerked her head in the direction of the pens where the mounts were kept.
Mason grinned, his front teeth having grown in since her last visit where he’d told her with shining pride in his voice that he’d knocked them out in a fight with a great white bear. Feralmoon couldn’t help but have a measure of her own pride as she rested a hand between his shoulder blades and guided him along with her.
His family spoke Orc, they had to, living out here where people of any sort weren’t too common an affair. He’d even taken to asking Feralmoon to teach him Taurahe, and when she desired companionship she indulged him with a few words here or there, things that would help in him trade perhaps or if he turned to some kind of profession later would give him a better profitability.
“Didja bring ‘im, didja bring ‘im?” Mason was fairly bouncing along with excitement, keeping pace with Feralmoon’s measured, almost slow stride.
She didn’t answer with words, simply gave a rather amused smile down at the boy and pushed him forward a little faster. He let out a shriek of excitement and bolted ahead of her, his mournful looking boots crunching in the snow, leaving small humanoid footprints in the fine powder, followed by her much larger hoofprints.
Gi’Tli and Ackee stood in one stall, the much smaller black furred beast
bounded out to meet Mason as he came streaking into the barn. The boy and the worg pup collided in a blur of fur and cloth and Feralmoon bit back a laugh as she almost beamed with pride.
They tussled for a few moments under the watchful eye of the much larger and more irate Gi’Tli. Feralmoon came to rest a hand on his flank to calm him and he turned golden eyes to her, verifying that this behavior in the younger pup was fine.
After a long moment she spoke again, “Did you stoke the fire last night?”
Mason looked up, straw clinging to his hair, nearly blending in, “ ‘Course! ‘Course I did! ‘M not stupid dja know. I been keepin’ it lit for the last week. You didn’t say what day you was gonna come but I made sure I kep’ it lit. All I gotta do is bring in more firewood. I even put out the water fer’ the dogs!”
He stood up, holding Ackee under the front legs, looking for all intensive purposes like a boy with his dog. The worg pup was fairly beside himself, panting happily and dangling from the child’s grip, his hind paws barely brushing the floor.
“Your sisters? How do they fare?”
“Maye’s learnin’ her letters just fine, and Elsebet is a brat like normal.” He rattled off almost officially, “Vivi is sick, so Ma’s takin’ care of her a bit, and then Erin’s still silent.”
Feralmoon nodded at the report. She didn’t have to ask about the man young Mason called father. She silently prayed to the Earthmother that this boy never found the same inviting spirits in the bottle that his father did. She gripped Gi’Tli’s tack without another word and led him out of the stall.
She offered a hand down to Mason and he released Ackee with a pat and a promise to play with him when they got to where they were going, then he placed his much smaller mitt within Feral’s enormous three fingered palm. She closed her hand around his then lifted him by the arm into Gi’Tli’s weathered saddle. The boy scootched forward until he sat nearly on the armored plates just over the riding worg’s shoulders and waited as Feralmoon lifted the pup into his waiting arms and then vaulted with practiced ease into the saddle behind him.
She unabashedly put an arm around the child’s waist and drew him and the worg against her until they rested comfortably against her still armored belly then let her hands go to the reins as she slowly walked the great beast out of the stables.
Mason rattled off a long list of stories he’d heard in the little room of the inn that served as a schoolhouse here, how the woman there had decided that they all should learn letters and that it was a crying shame that he wasn’t able to go work with the older boys. He then proceeded into his usual barrage of questions, all the while treating the diminutive version of the killer they rode on like his best friend rather than a war animal in the making.
“Can I go with you if you go to Undercity again? What’s Grom’Gol like? Have you ever seen a shark? Can Tauren ride on horses or just wolves? Dad’s treatin’ Ol’ Leather-Jacket real good! He’s helpin’ with the lumber an’ stuff.”
Feral sighed. Aside from a fair few people in Silvermoon, this child was one of a select breed of people whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to wear out her vocal chords.
“No. Grom’Gol is hot and sticky. Yes I’ve seen a shark. And I’ve yet to see a Tauren try. And good to know the idiot creature’s being put to work.”
The talking didn’t stop once in the half hour it took to plod through the snow to the little chateau out in the wood. True to his word, the chimney puffed white smoke skyward, and the side stable door had been left open, the straw replaced on the floor and the signs where a large kodo followed by a sledge had been drawn out, the tracks leading away from the place.
“I cleaned it up real good for you too, Feralmoon.”
“No spiderwebs?”
“Nope. I used those on a cut the cat had, just like you said.”
“Good. How’s the cat then?”
“Just like you said it would be, her leg’s all healed up and everything.”
She nodded and again felt a twinge of pride even as she swung her leg over the backside of Gi’Tli’s sun bleached saddle and down to the ground. She lifted both Mason and a worn out Ackee from Gi’Tli’s back and swatted his flank. The great worg lumbered into the shed that served as the stable, waiting for his tack to be removed and Feralmoon followed, all the while listening intently to Mason’s stories of helping the local wildlife where he could and of the strange friends he’d made of the four-legged, furred variety as she worked without even having to watch her hands.
It all felt normal as she wandered back toward the main part of the house, opening the glass door and looking up to make sure none of the other panes were cracked.
Mason trotted in behind her, making sure to dust his feet, and Ackee’s for that matter as he shut the door behind them.
The chateau was Feralmoon’s one key indulgence in life. She never had a place she called her home any more than here in Winterspring. It was quiet, was always quiet. Save for the occasional furbolg or the dragonkin, she had very little to deal with out here that bothered her in any manner.
She’d paid very little for the house itself, however she’d given most of what she’d had at the time to have costly panes of glass shipped up here, repaired and coated with sealant against the cold and put into the windows, which otherwise would have been shuttered up. It gave the place a lot more natural light and they were all worth it.
It wasn’t large, three real rooms in all that were closed off for the most part. There was a small alcove where the hearth sat, cooking implements on countertops around it with another costly addition, cupboards with metal handles and hinges, and nearby a small table with a few chairs. This room bled into a sort of salon, where there was a large wicker loveseat that could almost be described as a couch, with cushions and throw pillows embroidered by Mrs. Plumber and a small table in front of that where Mason had employed the space for working on flies for fishing, and putting together the small traps he sold to people for ice-fishing. The flies would be sold off come spring along with Feralmoon’s scrimshaw and she gave him the profits of both for his family and his own wants.
A simple wooden ladder or sort of runged stairwell led up into the sleeping area above, where her furs were arranged since the last time she’d been there. It wasn’t uncommon for the boy to use this either or anything here.
Fairly certain, until recently that is, that she would never have children of her own, or at least not anywhere in the near future, Feralmoon found she couldn’t deny Mason much of anything. He was a good boy, and strangely enough she felt a certain amount of affection for him despite the fact he looked like a heavier set elf with round ears. She didn’t consider him her son or any such nonsense like that, but while he was under her care, as indirect or direct as it was, she wouldn’t let any ill befall him than was necessary for a boy in his position.
Plumber would make a difference, of that the Grimtotem was fairly sure, and if she had anything to say about it, it would be a positive one. He was even beginning to ask of her people, her culture and as before, when she desired companionship, which was more and more these days, she indulged him, telling him the myths of her people, and even showing him the artifacts she’d brought with her from her own life. She explained what she could, and deferred on what she couldn’t, telling him that if she learned the answers to his unanswered questions she would relay it as soon as possible.
He could read many medicine shields, see the patterns of descent between generations now, and even now was beginning to understand the idea of a Spirit Guide. He’d asked her on many an occasion if she would make his apparent to him when he was ready. She had to smile at that, seeing even now the stag on his right side and the raven on his right. His path would be a sad one, a rough one perhaps, but he would be dignified and he would know honor. His Spirit Guides would see him down that path.
He’d also asked on many an occasion if he could witness her rituals. With his intensity she wondered how the spirits would deal with a human child dawdling in their midst, wondered if it was even possible for a human to be a Shaman. She told him no many times, but she was certain that even with that answer he spied on her anyway, intent to learn as much as he possibly could before their paths eventually diverged. She couldn’t deny him that even.
Mason was a good boy. He did all that was asked of him and more. He kept her home clean and free of pests. He protected it as much as could be expected of a twelve year old, and it was as much his home as her own. She had given long thought to going to the goblin in the small pitiful excuse that was the town and asking him to write up a notice that should she pass away, or perhaps leave this place for good that the boy be awarded with it. Granted the place would be in the possession of the town until such a time where he reached legal age. She didn’t trust that drunken sot of a father.
The air in Winterspring was crisp and biting. Even as the wyvern landed Feralmoon inhaled the ever present, heady scent of pine and let her eyes close for an indulgent moment, though only for that moment.
She dismounted the instant the wyverns claws touched the post, and as she doled out the silver to the flight-master she was conscious of a presence behind her. She turned slightly, her gaze cast downward appropriately as she regarded the rather stern looking young human child.
Feralmoon’s violet eyes locked on the childs upturned blue and she matched his scowl.
“How do you walk with your legs turned backward like that?” he asked as his lips quirked into a slight smirk.
“How do you walk without a tail between yours?” Feralmoon countered with a question that didn’t really sound at all like a question, rather an enigmatic counterpoint to his small, possibly narrow minded paradigm.
The boy’s name was Mason Plumber. His family was not at all what one would call well off, and though the Grimtotem female normally detested the wasteful, extravagant ways of most humans, the boy was a bit of an exception.
The first day she’d set hoof here, after riding long and hard from the Furbolg settlement a few tens of miles from here, he’d come up to her without fear. He’d demanded the same question and she’d answered the same way. After a while it became a password of sorts, albeit an unnecessary one. There were few Tauren here, even as close to the Moonglade as this puny fortification was, and even rarer were the ones who looked like her.
Well over seven feet, Feralmoon towered over many females, and a few of the males of her race she’d encountered. She was also built like a fortress herself, muscles hardening any feminine curves to make it look almost as if someone had sculpted the lady-Tauren out of black marble with a painstaking eye. She was a striking if not ridiculous analogy to the small bony child.
He stood closing in on four feet and two inches, and was probably well into his twelfth cycle of life. His eyes were slightly larger than most and being that he was slightly far-sighted he would often times squint, at once making him appear more mature and serious than he was and as an added benefit helped him to discern more at close distances. His sandy hair was cut somewhat short, in a style reminiscent to a page at court, or one of the squires trotting along behind the Blood Knights in Silvermoon.
He wasn’t underfed, but nowhere close to ever having known a truly full life in any sense of the phrase. There were many nights, Feralmoon knew, where his family went hungry thanks to the no-good lout that his mother had married. With five children by the man, Feral wondered vaguely if the woman was mad.
Feralmoon let her gaze roam over the boy for a moment, critically assessing the work his mother had done to keep his clothes intact. The patches had been stitched in with a loving hand, and they held well enough but the Tauren knew that they couldn’t be terribly warm. She looked up momentarily to the woman standing outside the inn, her blonde hair hanging almost pitifully around narrow shoulders and an even narrower back. She nodded to the Mrs. Plumber, and then looked down to Mason.
She pulled a package from her belt, a bundle that was larger than the armfuls of wood she knew Mason hauled everyday but was confident he could lift. He hesitantly and almost with an air of embarrassment lifted his arms to accept it and Feralmoon watched his face carefully for signs of strain as she let the weight of it settle.
“There are several furs in there. Your mother should be able to work with them, they are soft enough.” Feralmoon rumbled, satisfied that the boy’s strength grew rather than diminished.
Mason nodded and trotted back to his mother, holding his prize up to her. The woman’s hands shook as she accepted the bundle. She was ill, she had to be. The last child she’d delivered had been laid to rest that spring when the ground was soft enough to accept it. After a loss like that it was not uncommon for females of any race, Troll, Elf, Human or Tauren to suffer much in the way of disease. However she accepted this all in stride and gave an appreciative glance to Feralmoon, a wane smile tugging at the corner of her lips as her son ran back to his employer.
“Come.” Feralmoon jerked her head in the direction of the pens where the mounts were kept.
Mason grinned, his front teeth having grown in since her last visit where he’d told her with shining pride in his voice that he’d knocked them out in a fight with a great white bear. Feralmoon couldn’t help but have a measure of her own pride as she rested a hand between his shoulder blades and guided him along with her.
His family spoke Orc, they had to, living out here where people of any sort weren’t too common an affair. He’d even taken to asking Feralmoon to teach him Taurahe, and when she desired companionship she indulged him with a few words here or there, things that would help in him trade perhaps or if he turned to some kind of profession later would give him a better profitability.
“Didja bring ‘im, didja bring ‘im?” Mason was fairly bouncing along with excitement, keeping pace with Feralmoon’s measured, almost slow stride.
She didn’t answer with words, simply gave a rather amused smile down at the boy and pushed him forward a little faster. He let out a shriek of excitement and bolted ahead of her, his mournful looking boots crunching in the snow, leaving small humanoid footprints in the fine powder, followed by her much larger hoofprints.
Gi’Tli and Ackee stood in one stall, the much smaller black furred beast
bounded out to meet Mason as he came streaking into the barn. The boy and the worg pup collided in a blur of fur and cloth and Feralmoon bit back a laugh as she almost beamed with pride.
They tussled for a few moments under the watchful eye of the much larger and more irate Gi’Tli. Feralmoon came to rest a hand on his flank to calm him and he turned golden eyes to her, verifying that this behavior in the younger pup was fine.
After a long moment she spoke again, “Did you stoke the fire last night?”
Mason looked up, straw clinging to his hair, nearly blending in, “ ‘Course! ‘Course I did! ‘M not stupid dja know. I been keepin’ it lit for the last week. You didn’t say what day you was gonna come but I made sure I kep’ it lit. All I gotta do is bring in more firewood. I even put out the water fer’ the dogs!”
He stood up, holding Ackee under the front legs, looking for all intensive purposes like a boy with his dog. The worg pup was fairly beside himself, panting happily and dangling from the child’s grip, his hind paws barely brushing the floor.
“Your sisters? How do they fare?”
“Maye’s learnin’ her letters just fine, and Elsebet is a brat like normal.” He rattled off almost officially, “Vivi is sick, so Ma’s takin’ care of her a bit, and then Erin’s still silent.”
Feralmoon nodded at the report. She didn’t have to ask about the man young Mason called father. She silently prayed to the Earthmother that this boy never found the same inviting spirits in the bottle that his father did. She gripped Gi’Tli’s tack without another word and led him out of the stall.
She offered a hand down to Mason and he released Ackee with a pat and a promise to play with him when they got to where they were going, then he placed his much smaller mitt within Feral’s enormous three fingered palm. She closed her hand around his then lifted him by the arm into Gi’Tli’s weathered saddle. The boy scootched forward until he sat nearly on the armored plates just over the riding worg’s shoulders and waited as Feralmoon lifted the pup into his waiting arms and then vaulted with practiced ease into the saddle behind him.
She unabashedly put an arm around the child’s waist and drew him and the worg against her until they rested comfortably against her still armored belly then let her hands go to the reins as she slowly walked the great beast out of the stables.
Mason rattled off a long list of stories he’d heard in the little room of the inn that served as a schoolhouse here, how the woman there had decided that they all should learn letters and that it was a crying shame that he wasn’t able to go work with the older boys. He then proceeded into his usual barrage of questions, all the while treating the diminutive version of the killer they rode on like his best friend rather than a war animal in the making.
“Can I go with you if you go to Undercity again? What’s Grom’Gol like? Have you ever seen a shark? Can Tauren ride on horses or just wolves? Dad’s treatin’ Ol’ Leather-Jacket real good! He’s helpin’ with the lumber an’ stuff.”
Feral sighed. Aside from a fair few people in Silvermoon, this child was one of a select breed of people whose sole purpose in life seemed to be to wear out her vocal chords.
“No. Grom’Gol is hot and sticky. Yes I’ve seen a shark. And I’ve yet to see a Tauren try. And good to know the idiot creature’s being put to work.”
The talking didn’t stop once in the half hour it took to plod through the snow to the little chateau out in the wood. True to his word, the chimney puffed white smoke skyward, and the side stable door had been left open, the straw replaced on the floor and the signs where a large kodo followed by a sledge had been drawn out, the tracks leading away from the place.
“I cleaned it up real good for you too, Feralmoon.”
“No spiderwebs?”
“Nope. I used those on a cut the cat had, just like you said.”
“Good. How’s the cat then?”
“Just like you said it would be, her leg’s all healed up and everything.”
She nodded and again felt a twinge of pride even as she swung her leg over the backside of Gi’Tli’s sun bleached saddle and down to the ground. She lifted both Mason and a worn out Ackee from Gi’Tli’s back and swatted his flank. The great worg lumbered into the shed that served as the stable, waiting for his tack to be removed and Feralmoon followed, all the while listening intently to Mason’s stories of helping the local wildlife where he could and of the strange friends he’d made of the four-legged, furred variety as she worked without even having to watch her hands.
It all felt normal as she wandered back toward the main part of the house, opening the glass door and looking up to make sure none of the other panes were cracked.
Mason trotted in behind her, making sure to dust his feet, and Ackee’s for that matter as he shut the door behind them.
The chateau was Feralmoon’s one key indulgence in life. She never had a place she called her home any more than here in Winterspring. It was quiet, was always quiet. Save for the occasional furbolg or the dragonkin, she had very little to deal with out here that bothered her in any manner.
She’d paid very little for the house itself, however she’d given most of what she’d had at the time to have costly panes of glass shipped up here, repaired and coated with sealant against the cold and put into the windows, which otherwise would have been shuttered up. It gave the place a lot more natural light and they were all worth it.
It wasn’t large, three real rooms in all that were closed off for the most part. There was a small alcove where the hearth sat, cooking implements on countertops around it with another costly addition, cupboards with metal handles and hinges, and nearby a small table with a few chairs. This room bled into a sort of salon, where there was a large wicker loveseat that could almost be described as a couch, with cushions and throw pillows embroidered by Mrs. Plumber and a small table in front of that where Mason had employed the space for working on flies for fishing, and putting together the small traps he sold to people for ice-fishing. The flies would be sold off come spring along with Feralmoon’s scrimshaw and she gave him the profits of both for his family and his own wants.
A simple wooden ladder or sort of runged stairwell led up into the sleeping area above, where her furs were arranged since the last time she’d been there. It wasn’t uncommon for the boy to use this either or anything here.
Fairly certain, until recently that is, that she would never have children of her own, or at least not anywhere in the near future, Feralmoon found she couldn’t deny Mason much of anything. He was a good boy, and strangely enough she felt a certain amount of affection for him despite the fact he looked like a heavier set elf with round ears. She didn’t consider him her son or any such nonsense like that, but while he was under her care, as indirect or direct as it was, she wouldn’t let any ill befall him than was necessary for a boy in his position.
Plumber would make a difference, of that the Grimtotem was fairly sure, and if she had anything to say about it, it would be a positive one. He was even beginning to ask of her people, her culture and as before, when she desired companionship, which was more and more these days, she indulged him, telling him the myths of her people, and even showing him the artifacts she’d brought with her from her own life. She explained what she could, and deferred on what she couldn’t, telling him that if she learned the answers to his unanswered questions she would relay it as soon as possible.
He could read many medicine shields, see the patterns of descent between generations now, and even now was beginning to understand the idea of a Spirit Guide. He’d asked her on many an occasion if she would make his apparent to him when he was ready. She had to smile at that, seeing even now the stag on his right side and the raven on his right. His path would be a sad one, a rough one perhaps, but he would be dignified and he would know honor. His Spirit Guides would see him down that path.
He’d also asked on many an occasion if he could witness her rituals. With his intensity she wondered how the spirits would deal with a human child dawdling in their midst, wondered if it was even possible for a human to be a Shaman. She told him no many times, but she was certain that even with that answer he spied on her anyway, intent to learn as much as he possibly could before their paths eventually diverged. She couldn’t deny him that even.
Mason was a good boy. He did all that was asked of him and more. He kept her home clean and free of pests. He protected it as much as could be expected of a twelve year old, and it was as much his home as her own. She had given long thought to going to the goblin in the small pitiful excuse that was the town and asking him to write up a notice that should she pass away, or perhaps leave this place for good that the boy be awarded with it. Granted the place would be in the possession of the town until such a time where he reached legal age. She didn’t trust that drunken sot of a father.