"Lady Xenedra, please take the stage and share one of your delightful stories with us all. Shall be happy to hear one of your wonderful fables."
Xenedra Ambreaus nods and waves to the crowd, "Hello, everyone! Are you pleased it's finally Spring? I *certainly* am."
Lottie smiles widely. "Yes m'am!" Ikuri waves. Mikha calls out, "Yes!" Arrelaine smiles and Reima lets up a quiet, laughing cheer.
"I'll try not to bore you with cliche words about how SPring is a new beginning... but that's what my story is about today."
"So I'll get right to that, shall I~?"
Xenedra Ambreaus nods and waves to the crowd, "Hello, everyone! Are you pleased it's finally Spring? I *certainly* am."
Lottie smiles widely. "Yes m'am!" Ikuri waves. Mikha calls out, "Yes!" Arrelaine smiles and Reima lets up a quiet, laughing cheer.
"I'll try not to bore you with cliche words about how SPring is a new beginning... but that's what my story is about today."
"So I'll get right to that, shall I~?"
![[Image: h6eYLYQ.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/h6eYLYQ.jpg)
There once was a young woman, strong and joyous in body and mind. She was strong because life is hard and what better way to deal with it than to be an immovable rock yourself?
She was joyous because she had found happiness, both through her strength and with a young man who she'd fallen in love with.
The two were slated to marry as soon as the woman finished weaving a tapestry for the region's royalty. It was a huge thing, intricate in pattern and color and it had already taken her half a year to piece together all on her own. There was no one else in the land with quite the hand for weaving that she had. and so it was demanded that she be the only one to touch the work until completion.
And~ she was almost done.
As the days ticked by, the two lovers grew more and more impatient to wed, until they eventually decided they simply couldn't any longer.
With only a few more days' work left on the tapestry, what could the harm be? It was always best to finish a work contentedly rather then hurried, anyway, right? Against the wishes of their Ruler, they set their wedding date and began the preparations.
On the day of their wedding, the woman stood proudly at the alter, swathed in the best and brightest silks of white she could manage with her master weaver's hands.
....But her lover never came.
Time passed, the sun falling lazily toward the horizon and the crowd began to buzz.
Something had to be wrong. He would never stand her up, the two were inseparable. But, then... where could he be? Those gathered for the celebration dispersed to find the missing groom.
The young woman found him first, bloodied and beaten, on her doorstep. He was already gone. No final words. No bright future.
Something in the woman snapped and she rounded the body of her deceased love to enter her home and workshop. Her eyes fell upon the barely unfinished tapestry and she knew who'd done this. Selfish, selfish nobles who'd never known strife.
Well, they'd not have this tribute, and if it cost her her life to take that small joy from them, so be it.
She ripped the tapestry weft from wain, threads filling the corners of the room, tangling around her fingers, arms, her throat. She struggled against the enormous thing to destroy it and free herself from the cutting pain of its grip and the anguish in her heart.
But it wasn't enough.
What was some wall rug throw together by a back-water to the royals? How did laying waste to her work do ANYTHING to make others understand the loneliness.. the EMPTINESS she now felt!?
She sank her knees with a hollow cry, her head falling backward. When she forced her eyes open again she saw her solution blinking back at her.
"The stars. I'll take them. I'll make the very Night's tapestry empty and everyone will know the bleakness that I feel."
And so she began the long, arduous process of lassoing each and every twinkling bit of light in the sky. Tangled in her ruined work as she was, she had no need for rope. She simply pulled each frayed thread from where ever it had made its home and looped it with horrific accuracy around each delicate teardrops of light. A swift tug and each was pulled tight and added the growing army of celestial leashes.
This was to be a grand gesture. They'd all come down at once.
Xenedra nods grimly.
Finally, the last star joined her collection of captors and she gave their lines a tremendous pull, shifting the very heavens. With one, great, frightened voice the stars called out to her:
"Please! We know you are wounded, but don't do this!"
"Why!?" she bellowed back. "Everyone should be made to know this pain!"
And the stars called back, "Everyone does know this pain, child."
One by one, the stars told her of what they'd seen from their vantage. Of the great joys and sorrows of the world and of how she wasn't alone even in her emptiness. Their words stilled her and her lariats slipped from her hands.
"This was a mistake," she intoned hollowly up to the listening stars. "Or could have been, but I think now I know what I was meant to do. I was meant to come and catch you this way, but never to pull you down..."
With each word, her voice grew stronger and her lungs refilled with life. She was no longer empty, brimming now with knowledge instead of joy.
"I accept," she told the stars and they nodded their approval. "I understand life, I have come to understand true misery, and now I understand Fate. I will see to it that people receive what Fate has in store for them, just as I have accepted my own."
She knelt to bid a final farewell to her lover, for she knew that he could hear her now, then bowed her head and was in our realm no longer.
To this day, the spinster woman still wears her veil to remember her lost love, but we don't call her a spinster anymore. Instead, she is The Spinner.
Xenedra bows her head, signalling the end.
![[Image: WD6NIfp.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/WD6NIfp.jpg)
Reima lofts a hand, trying to paw discreetly at the moisture in her eyes before applauding. Lottie calls out through the applause, "Lovely!"
She was joyous because she had found happiness, both through her strength and with a young man who she'd fallen in love with.
The two were slated to marry as soon as the woman finished weaving a tapestry for the region's royalty. It was a huge thing, intricate in pattern and color and it had already taken her half a year to piece together all on her own. There was no one else in the land with quite the hand for weaving that she had. and so it was demanded that she be the only one to touch the work until completion.
And~ she was almost done.
As the days ticked by, the two lovers grew more and more impatient to wed, until they eventually decided they simply couldn't any longer.
With only a few more days' work left on the tapestry, what could the harm be? It was always best to finish a work contentedly rather then hurried, anyway, right? Against the wishes of their Ruler, they set their wedding date and began the preparations.
On the day of their wedding, the woman stood proudly at the alter, swathed in the best and brightest silks of white she could manage with her master weaver's hands.
....But her lover never came.
Time passed, the sun falling lazily toward the horizon and the crowd began to buzz.
Something had to be wrong. He would never stand her up, the two were inseparable. But, then... where could he be? Those gathered for the celebration dispersed to find the missing groom.
The young woman found him first, bloodied and beaten, on her doorstep. He was already gone. No final words. No bright future.
Something in the woman snapped and she rounded the body of her deceased love to enter her home and workshop. Her eyes fell upon the barely unfinished tapestry and she knew who'd done this. Selfish, selfish nobles who'd never known strife.
Well, they'd not have this tribute, and if it cost her her life to take that small joy from them, so be it.
She ripped the tapestry weft from wain, threads filling the corners of the room, tangling around her fingers, arms, her throat. She struggled against the enormous thing to destroy it and free herself from the cutting pain of its grip and the anguish in her heart.
But it wasn't enough.
What was some wall rug throw together by a back-water to the royals? How did laying waste to her work do ANYTHING to make others understand the loneliness.. the EMPTINESS she now felt!?
She sank her knees with a hollow cry, her head falling backward. When she forced her eyes open again she saw her solution blinking back at her.
"The stars. I'll take them. I'll make the very Night's tapestry empty and everyone will know the bleakness that I feel."
And so she began the long, arduous process of lassoing each and every twinkling bit of light in the sky. Tangled in her ruined work as she was, she had no need for rope. She simply pulled each frayed thread from where ever it had made its home and looped it with horrific accuracy around each delicate teardrops of light. A swift tug and each was pulled tight and added the growing army of celestial leashes.
This was to be a grand gesture. They'd all come down at once.
Xenedra nods grimly.
Finally, the last star joined her collection of captors and she gave their lines a tremendous pull, shifting the very heavens. With one, great, frightened voice the stars called out to her:
"Please! We know you are wounded, but don't do this!"
"Why!?" she bellowed back. "Everyone should be made to know this pain!"
And the stars called back, "Everyone does know this pain, child."
One by one, the stars told her of what they'd seen from their vantage. Of the great joys and sorrows of the world and of how she wasn't alone even in her emptiness. Their words stilled her and her lariats slipped from her hands.
"This was a mistake," she intoned hollowly up to the listening stars. "Or could have been, but I think now I know what I was meant to do. I was meant to come and catch you this way, but never to pull you down..."
With each word, her voice grew stronger and her lungs refilled with life. She was no longer empty, brimming now with knowledge instead of joy.
"I accept," she told the stars and they nodded their approval. "I understand life, I have come to understand true misery, and now I understand Fate. I will see to it that people receive what Fate has in store for them, just as I have accepted my own."
She knelt to bid a final farewell to her lover, for she knew that he could hear her now, then bowed her head and was in our realm no longer.
To this day, the spinster woman still wears her veil to remember her lost love, but we don't call her a spinster anymore. Instead, she is The Spinner.
Xenedra bows her head, signalling the end.
Reima lofts a hand, trying to paw discreetly at the moisture in her eyes before applauding. Lottie calls out through the applause, "Lovely!"
![[Image: hpThOka.png]](http://i.imgur.com/hpThOka.png)
