C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S
Eesha Dawnstar is a Half-Orc Fighter, skilled in the myriad arms and the way of mounted combat. Whether by bow, lance, sidearm, or fist she is a capable fighter whose racial strength lends her an apparent upper hand and impressive stature in feats of strength, martial or otherwise. Athletic and muscular to a bulk beyond that of ordinary humanity's upper echelons, she is a powerful figure to behold. Her speed of foot, eye, and hand are not to be underestimated, however. She wears but moderate armor, leather trappings with a breastplate of steel concealed in a bulk of furs, to keep both herself and the mighty Altair she rides light and swift.
Upon her back is the recurved bow of the plains warriors, arrows carried across the back of her hips in the nomadic fashion. Her waist holds the sheathe to the long, curved, scimitar with its familiar and well worn leather grip. The saddle of Altair carries the long riding spear of her people, as well as her battle-scarred shield. All else aside, her nearly-clawed hands and rising tusks make for vicious surprises to the unwary who get within the reach of her long arms thinking her weaponless.
Altair is a mighty steed, but not in the massive fashion of the warhorses of the heavy knights of the human realms, nor the bulky weight and muscle of the Orcish riding bulls. Altair is the swiftness of the wind upon the plain, and his temperament is stalwart, keen, and every bit as fiery as his companion's. Altair bears a saddle and bag, but no stirrups— nor does the steed bear bit or bridle. Eesha rides Altair only because the noble beast permits it, and their union is such that she 'Free Rides' the horse with no aides save the saddle for their mutual comfort.
His mane is braided, interwoven with a white cloth which strikingly contrasts his darker hide. This solitary personal touch binds them aesthetically. | C H I L D H O O D I N A R D E N F E L D
C H I L D H O O D I N A R D E N F E L D
My given name is Teth.
My birth was a murder. My mother the victim. The perpetrator was my father. I was the tool. I was born large, and my mother begged them to cut me from her body. The only reason I live instead of joining her in the afterlife is because of the cold sense of a surly midwife whose name was Rithri. I know it is impossible, but I swear that I remember my birth. The screams of my mother. The horror of the midwives—save for Rithri's cold focus—and the blood. There was a lot of blood. Even if my memory is false, the testimony was real; there was a lot of blood. My earliest memory is of my screams blending with my mother's as she died and I truly began to live for my first breaths.
When I later asked Rithri about it, she had told me...
"Tetch, it was bad enough there weren't any saving her; twon't do to waste her last efforts too. Anyone who voted to toss ye in the woods is a wastrel and a fool."
She was a pragmatic woman, if cold and intolerable to nonsense. I loved her for it. Any questions I had, Rithri had answers. I had many questions, and even if she did not have the answers I sought then she at least had practical advice for the topic. She was an older woman, that I understood, but I do not believe I ever understood how old she was. Until I was five years old she could snatch me by the ear and give me a tongue lashing to rival that of any inquisitor. After that point, I didn't have the heart to pull away from her when she grabbed me and I allowed her punishments to come. The only indicator of the nuisance I was to the woman was the name she used. Tetch.
Most called me 'Tetch' by the time true memory begins. A few of the other kids used my proper name, but only when I hadn't irked them in some fashion, and the young man who tended the local shrine as priest named Duvam. Whenever Rithri was busy gathering herbs in the wood where I was not permitted to go, or had other duties as midwife to attend to, I was left in the care of Duvam. In a way I loved him too, but not as strongly or as loyally as Rithri. He was kind, he never called me names, he tried to understand and guide my anger— he could not stop me from getting into fights, or from getting stronger than the other kids, or from feeling what I was feeling, but he tried his best.
I do not begrudge him the effort, but he was stifling as he was kind. I was petulant. I rebelled from him even as I craved his attentions. Perhaps I acted out in order to receive more of his prayers and focus. Perhaps I acted out simply because it is who I was. My last memory of Ardenfeld is of Duvam's throat splitting open as he stood over my hiding place. I have never forgiven myself for hiding on that day. I have never forgotten the insignia those fiends carried. I never forgot the crimson smile on Duvam's lips as he tried to tell me that everything would be okay before the light left his eyes. I managed not to cry until I found Rithri with a spear's haft broken in her side outside. She had tried to come for me, is what I told myself.
"Let that be the day the Child died." A deep voice rumbled. The incense in the tent thick, the temperature stifling and only on the rise as the fire pit burned and the sacred scents washed over her. Her eyes were closed, the woad of the Thunderhooves painted onto her bare flesh. Only the Shaman, Krom Ironjaw, was with her and his eyes were veiled for the sanctity of the ceremony. All that she could see of his face was the strange iron mask the man wore, which she had become familiar with over the last several years. He raised his staff and let it fall back to the earth with a solid 'thump'. "Teth is no more, she died and shed the waters of her body with the blood of her kin. In blood she was born once, now twice; in blood she was born anew with the storm in her heart.
The woman formerly known as Teth trembled with his words, and breathed in the incense scent deeply. Below it all was the stench of horse flesh, the charred smell of the cooking fires, the sweat smell of the tribe, and the fresh breeze of the plain. She could hear the laughter of the children, just a few years younger than herself, outside of the ceremonial tent as they played some game or another.
"Let the Nameless One proceed. Let the Storm grow." Krom intoned.
L I F E A T T H E O R P H A N A G E
L I F E A T T H E O R P H A N A G E
I will admit that I never thought of my father until the days of the orphanage. Life in Ardenfeld had been peaceful enough, and whatever troubles I had were tolerable. The orphanage, the city of Sarinan, the strangers who knew me only as Tetchy Teth and not even as merely Teth... It was unbearable. The only solace I had was in the companionship of my friends, for adoption was truly never an option for one such as me. The humans had the grace to not spit on me, or beat me when my own actions had not warranted it, but the nickname stuck and my wrath boiled ever upwards. As I watched children get adopted, forgotten, released, and apprenticed, my mind turned inwards. My rage became cool, my strength grew, but I thought of my father.
I have never met the... man. All I know of him is that my mother was a refugee when she came to Ardenfeld, her home village destroyed in some far off reach of Pallaviel. She arrived in Ardenfeld and I was born less than a month later, but rumour had already spread even before my birth of her origins. Of my origins. Of the horrendous crimes that must have been committed upon the woman who birthed me. Of my complicity in those crimes due to my drawing breath. Arriving at the orphanage only revealed to me the cruelty of true strangers who did not know. My dreams were haunted by the bloody smile of Priest Duvam, the screams of my mother, and the ghost sensation of my ear being pulled by Rithri only to see her broken body cast upon legions of spears in my nightmares. My waking days were spent bearing the brunt of cast stones, namecalling, and many other infinitely small-seeming tortures by my peers. I did my best to silentlty bear it, to not make things worse for my friends, but at last push came to shove.
I did not cast the first stone that day. A rock hit me and put a cut on my brow. Their laughter died when I threw the stone back. I had always held back, and for the first time my strength revealed itself unrestrained. My aim was good, the tribe would have been proud of the throw, but the target was just a boy. In my mind, the insignia of those damnable brigands was burned there upon his forehead where my throw struck. He fell to the ground with a sound that placed me back at the shrine in Ardenfeld. When his body slumped to the ground, there was fire and blood all around me. Five others rushed me then, and I swear to you I thought they held biting steel in their hands and wore shirts of mail and wore helms. My mind had gone back to Ardenfeld when my blood was drawn, and for the first time in my life I could not exercise the restraint that Duvam had tried to teach me. No, instead it was Rithri's advice I heeded in my mind.
"Tetch, if someone wants to make themself an arse, you let them. If they want to make you a fool, be silent and don't make it any easier for 'em. But if anyone dares to lay hand on you, then you hit them back twice as hard so they get the idea nice and crystal-like." She had said to me.
On that day I do believe I was striking those boys twice as hard as they were striking me. I cannot call it a fight, but by the end of things I was bruised and battered but had come out the better of things; my nails were bloodied, and I'd taken a bite out of one boy's ear at some point in the scrap. I had blood in my mouth and I couldn't tell whose it was, but I remember the taste. When the orphanage mother finally separated us, I gave her a bloody-tusked smile and she nearly fainted. I should not be proud of that moment, but it felt right.
I was strapped to my bed without meals for a week. They fed me, brought me water, but I was prisoner and not permitted to leave or eat more than the bare scraps they brought me. Three years of good behavior had bought me zero tolerance for my 'outburst' as it had been writ. I was Eleven then. It had been three years in Sarinan, three years at the Landeil Family Orphanage. Three years of looking out a window and seeing the smoke of Ardenfeld in my dreams.
My friends and I made an oath. I cannot remember when, or how, but I do remember them sneaking into the room and loosening my bonds so I could get comfortable. That was more than enough for what was to come later, and I'm not sure what compelled me to say what I said at that time.
"Do you all remember our promise?" I had asked like the fool I was. "To meet again? Ten years, we all said, ten years. No matter what, we'll meet again."
Once I had verified that everyone still remembered—at least, those who had not already left the orphanage if any had, things are fuzzy for me about this time—I resigned myself to breaking free that night. The straps were loosened, I broke free, gathered my rage about me like a cloak against the cold, and fled into the night.
"A bond over blood." Krom intoned in a voice that reminisced of the ocean depths, rolling and fathomless as it echoed into her head. "A sacred thing. It will keep you."
The simplicity of his words in this regard still carried immense weight, and the memory of the oath she'd made with those other children filled her with chills. She was sweating, and not only from the heat in the tent. The swirling incense cloud about her, the rising tendrils of smoke from the fire pit, all of it blended with her words in the air and the sweat from her body to create ghostly premonitions in the air around her. Memories danced in her vision figuratively and literally. She licked at her wet lips, tasting the salt of her sweat over her lightly protruding tusks. She had to convince herself the tears that fell unbidden were welcome, too. Her voice had begun to quaver slightly as she spoke, prompting Krom's interruption.
"This is when you planned your revenge, hm? The bold young thing, no name, no home, leaving her only friends behind to try and find a weapon and a direction. You found neither?"
"I found neither." She answered quietly. "I found more, but also less."
"Such is the way of things. Proceed." Krom thumped his staff thrice, a reverberating hum rising in his throat as he began to chant a low incantation beneath the woman's continued story.
O N W A R D: A N E W P A T H
O N W A R D: A N E W P A T H
I starved. I had no plan, no direction, just the rage to carry me on. I clawed at trees. I gnawed bark and chewed roots. I risked strange berries and unknown herbs. I drank from a still pond. I got sick. My plan had been to go back to Ardenfeld, to find evidence, a trail, anything at all to lead me to those brigands with their strange symbol. Anything to get my hands on their necks. But, I got sick. I was delirious. Fever claimed me. I saw visions swimming before my eyes. I lost my way. I saw myself walking into Ardenfeld one hundred times in seven days, saw myself walking streets now beginning to be overgrown from abandonment, saw myself stacking bones into cairns because I was too weak to dig graves as they would have wanted.
The truth of the matter is, I was raving and mad and had stumbled my way onto the plains. I had walked for days on end until collapse brought me down, then repeated this process in increasingly mad boughts of passion and energy. Collapse, rise, eat the grass, dig for water like a hound, then walk into Ardenfeld. Again. And again. And again. The same vision playing out in my fevered mind. Until, at last, I collapsed and could rise no more.
A horse, then. Its breath hot in my face. A boy. Older than me by two and a half years, I later learned, with his father. You all knew them as Fikhan and Bem the Younger. I knew them as Tall and Lanky. Bem put me onto his horse and walked alongside me as I struggled to hold onto the life my mother had paid to give me. Over the coming weeks, I was nursed to health by horsewives and matrons of the Thunderhooves. By the time I could walk again, I owed a debt beyond anything I could repay.
"Do the deed for the sake of it.", I know, is the Thunderhoof code. I did not know it then, and I felt a powerful obligation to earn what I'd been given. I had only known village life, then city life, and had never had to fend for myself in any capacity thanks to the charity of others. I had not realized that burden until the Thunderhooves began to teach me the ways of the plains. Those three years were the best of my life. Fikhan and Bem the Younger treated me as family from the moment I asked to learn your ways. They were quick to anger, as I was, and though I was stronger than Bem I could rarely best him in a fight if our bickering rose to that. We were nearly the same size despite his age advantage, but he was a clever bastard and had far more training than me. Fikhan, while stern and nothing like Duvam, was much like Rithri with his straightforward mannerisms. I learned to love them both dearly.
That love kept me distant. I took to the training with a vigor that surprised even myself. Fueled by a sense of obligation and debt, I pushed ever harder to try and impress and earn the favor of my hosts. Within the year, I was put into the education circles with the other children of the tribe. Within a year of that, I was being taught to ride and handle a horse. By the end of the third year, I was taller and broader than Bem ever was, and was starting to rival Fikhan in stature. During this time, at the end of the third year, I was tasked with caring for the foal who would one day grow into the horse named Altair. I think that horse caused me more harm than any fouled and accident ridden sparring bout ever did, but I endeavored and have reaped the benefits one hundredfold for my patience and dedication.
And yet, during this all, I could not help but think of my father again. Over the years, as I realized I loved these people and this tribe, I thought of how I'd lost or abandoned all that I'd loved before. I thought of my father, and the horrible fate his existence meant for my mother, how his existence meant all the suffering I had endured, how his existence had meant this wondrous exhultation of the plains and the Thunderhooves and that painful longing for Bem the Younger that I refused to realize was inside of me until it was far too late. It confused me and enraged me that one man's existence, let alone the reality of his actions, had caused so much suffering and sorrow and joy and love in me.
I wanted to kill him. I still want to kill him now.
I was fourteen now. Bem the Younger was sixteen, and handsome, and looking every day more like his father. He was sought after by many suitors, but refused them all; I was too jealous and embroiled in my now multiple plots of revenge to understand why. I was not his equal, but I was his partner in all things. Under his tutelage, and the guidance of the clan as a whole, I was growing into the stuff that someday becomes a warrior. He was ahead of me, and I was racing to catch up.
When it came time for me to face my Trial, he volunteered to be my Watcher. I thought it a good omen. Fate, I should have realized, does not wish for me to be happy. I, atop Altair, and Bem, atop Spirit, rode hard to reach the Trial Grounds in time for the New Moon. That week of hard riding, yelled directions and jokes, freshly killed game, and racing across the plains will always be cherished in my heart. Bem may have been a fell hand with the blade and keen eyed with the bow, but Altair was always the faster steed and I enjoyed running circles around him. When we arrived, we had but a few hours to rest before nightfall. I wish I had kissed him then, said something foolish like 'for good luck', but I did not. I was not thinking of kisses, of love, of futures. My mind, then and now, is shackled to the past.
The moon rose. He struck the ceremonial gong upon the hill of the Trial Grounds. What was drawn by the sacred rites of that place and of his song was a cruel twist of fate; a dire wolf, larger than even Altair or Spirit, manifested itself as if from shadow itself. The darkness was near total, but my eyes are sharp even in the light of the moon and I kept my spear steady. I was on the ground, my leg broken and my vision black in an instant. When I came to, it must have been less than a minute later, my blood was on fire. I sat myself up and saw that the Shadow That Moved had four arrows already in its shoulders and neck, and that it was sprinting up the hill towards Bem. The fool had intervened in the Trial. The fool had saved my life. I whistled for Altair, the horse was braver than I felt in that moment, and as I pulled myself heavily into the saddle I saw as Bem's next arrow took the beast in the eye.
But that did not fell the creature. Its jaws broke through bow, string, and jerkin alike. My world went red, the blackness of the night ebbing and fading into blood red speared through by beams of silver starlight that painted the world in perfect outlines for me. I somehow still gripped my spear. I could no longer feel the pain in my leg as I witnessed the Dire Wolf tear out Bem's throat. Just as fast as the Shadow had moved, Altair maneuvered. My spear lashed as steed fled snapping jaws. In the end, Altair and I both came tumbling down as the beast leapt from upon the hill of the Gong! My spear held true, raised as it was to meet the beast, and when dawn's light finally roused me from my darkness I was alive and the Shadow dead. My spear had lodged straight through its breastbone and protruded through its back from the force of its own leap.
I wept. I wept there, trapped beneath the beast's body for at least an hour. At last, I endeavored to get myself from beneath its corpse. The effort took another twenty minutes, but in the end I had managed to rise to my feet, using the broken haft of my spear as a crutch. Bem was unrecognizable, but I knew it to be him. I wept again. Then, I put the Direwolf upon Spirit; it took most of the day to manage this task, but I was not leaving my kill behind when I had traded my love for it. Bem, I wrapped in a cloak and carried in my arms atop Altair.
That, Stormcaller, is the tale of how I returned and Bem did not. That is my tale, of how I got here and who I am.
She lifted her head, dizzy from the smoke and incense. She trembled as she uncrossed her legs and rose to her feet. Krom's hand was there to steady her as she rose and she was grateful for the stability it granted. Her mind swam, the visions before her eyes visceral. His humming incantation came to an end, and she felt a fur be draped about her shoulders.
"You slew the creature, which took the blood of your blood from you. Its hide is yours, as is a place here amongst the Thunderhooves."
She brought the Dire Wolf cloak tighter about her despite the heat of the tent and glowed with a pride and exuberance. She could not see Krom in the swirling mists of the tent save for his hand still upon her arm. She let out a breath, long-held.
"The spirits name you in our sacred tongue; Eesha, She Who Lives. Carry this blessing with you until the end of your days, sister of the tribe. Carry it with pride. You may take the clan name of Fikhan and Bem if you so wish, or you may declare your own clan name when you exit this tent."
Krom stepped away, leaving Eesha to broil in her own thoughts and memories. By the time she emerged from the tent, the night was waning and the sun was rising. She stepped out of the intensely hot tent and cast a hand over her eyes to shield from the glare of the rising sun. The tribe was there, surrounding the tent, now silent as she emerges in a cloud of incense and vapor. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight. Her new family. Even Fikhan's eyes did not hold hatred or anger with her, just their shared sorrow at the loss of Bem. She cast her gaze high, her eyes taking in the sight of a sky that seemed bluer than it ever had before in her life. She howled into the air loudly, her cry being met by the tribe around her as ululations and calls of celebration rose, then at last she roared her new name out and heard it repeated by the tribe around her.
"Eesha Dawnstar!"
She would forge her own path, claim her own name, with the rising of this new sun.
That was four years ago. She was eighteen now, and had become one of the tribe's most relied upon warriors. She ranged far over the plains, worked to bring the rising evils of the far wilderness to fierce ends with her people, and had brought war to ranging Orc bands wherever they roamed too close to the homes of the Stone Peoples or the Plains of the Thunderhooves. Never once did she hear news of the party that attacked her mother's home but her Blood Bond held true. The stars showed her time had come.
She, with the blessing of the Stormcaller, turned back towards the Stone Peoples and the kingdom of Pallaviel and rode to meet fate with the tip of her spear. |
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