Riding the Storms (random backstory snippets; open to OOC cooments)

[Fystrael Abylstyrwyn]

The young Roegadyn female was staring out of the window again.

 

At 14 cycles, she was already tall and strong for her age, but her face still clung to youthful chubbiness around her jawline; the little of it that could be seen.

 

Almost her entire head was swathed in bandages.

 

"A tree.  A tree of all things!" her younger sister chortled next to the bed. "Yer usually chopping those things down, not skinning up them like a skrat."

 

Without turning, the bandaged female made a rude hand gesture towards her sibling, who only chortled louder.  The laughter caused tears to stream out of her eyes, her long black hair whipping around her pale-green face even as her short, lithe body doubled over, arms wrapped around her stomach.

 

"And lilac smallclothes!  Ha!  Shown off to all two of your lovers and half the village all at the same time.  It was brilliant to watch!"

 

The patient turned to glare pointedly at the smaller Roegadyn female.  She looked ready to leap from her cot, injuries be Twelve-damned, if only to pummel her sister.

 

"Enough, Syhrrael.  Let her rest, as Wyznwyb already told you last night," Styrblyss stated coolly as she smoothly shouldered the giggling girl to the door.  The village undertaker held a large, wooden tray bearing a bowl of river-cold water, towels, bandages, and a spool of waxed cotton with a needle stuck in the centre.

 

Syhrrael was too busy laughing to complain as the door was shut soundly in her face.

 

Styrblyss, dressed as always in black robes with her cowl and hood drawn back, made her way to the small bedside table and chair next to the patient, who had already gone back to looking out of the window.

 

"Time to change those bandages, Fystrael.  Also going to re-clean and stitch back up those deeper gashes."

 

Slowly, Fystrael turned away from the window to face Styrblyss.  Her eye - one was hidden under the mass of bandages - was wet, but the tears weren't falling.

 

Styrblyss nodded and hummed in response as she worked the end of the bandage free.

 

"You know full well Syhrrael knows that you'd never give your virginity to those two oafs, but nothing riles you up faster.  She was probably just trying to make sure you hadn't rattled your good senses out of your head with your fall."

 

Fystrael harrumphed and closed her eyes as the bandages spooled over, under, and around her head in complex patterns.

 

"You spent almost two days half-asleep, you know.  Your brains have taken a worse beating in the twinkle of an eye than your body has over the past 14 cycles," Styrblyss informed Fystrael as she elegantly seated herself next to the bed.  Fystrael watched her motions with an uncommon interest.  

 

The look certainly changed as the cold, wet towel began scrubbing away grime and gore from a face covered in lacerations.  One eye, surrounded by an enormous mass of bruised tissue, was slightly darker than the other and did not focus well in the bright sunlight.  Styrblyss noted this and other physical issues as she lowered the bed sheets to cleanse Fystrael's body; the dislocated shoulder sitting in a sling after a vain attempt to halt gravity, the twisted ankle from an abrupt collapse to the ground upon attempting to stand, the bruised ribs where painful contact was made with tree branches on the way down and the ferociously red and throbbing lump on her head, where it first made contact with the tree trunk.

 

"Oh darling, Swyrswys, what on earth drove you to climb that monstrous living log?" Styrblyss cried out as she watched Fystrael grimace with each pass of the towel.  The rough cotton was turning an ugly shade of maroon and brown even as Fystrael's skin came out squeaky clean under Styrblyss' ministrations.

 

The younger Roegadyn winced and dropped her head.  Styrblyss only sighed and continued the towel bath.  Fystrael winced again as an unbidden thought raced across her foggy mind.

 

'Is this how she bathes them 'fore the shrouding?'

 

The tension that the thought caused made muscles that should have be resting seize up painfully. Styrblyss placed a calm, strong hand on her charge until the cramps subsided.

 

"And no, this does not remind me of the rigor mortise of a corpse."

 

Fystrael gave a bashful, snorting giggle at that, embarrassed at being caught.  Styrblyss gave a small smirk in response.  She knew that her job was uncommon in a world of aetheryte attunement, but Nald'Thal's scales always tipped the other way at some point.

 

 

Silence reigned for a while longer.  Soon, the bath was done and Fystrael was back in bed, carefully re-clothed in a long, clean night-shirt.  As Styrblyss tucked her in for the remainder of the day, she used her words to pierce the veil of silence.

 

"You were riding a mast on your father's ship, weren't you?"

 

Fystrael visibly shuddered, then awkwardly slid down under her blankets.  Styrblyss waited patiently.

 

Finally, after almost one bell, the undertaker heard the first snuffle.  The sheets shuddered roughly, constantly as broken sniffles became rough wails and harsh cries.

 

The storm, long building, had finally broken.  Wyznwyb closed the bedroom door as her husband's mistress tenderly cradled their first-born, satisfied.

 

The white mage's tears left a trail on the wooden floor as she hurried away.  She had a birthing to attend; as always, it was best to leave death and its aftermath to a black mage.

[Fystrael Abylstyrwyn]

She was pretty sure that she hated them.  Syhrrael even said as much.

 

"I hate you!  You can do Hydaelyn a great favour by crawling back up the arses of the dodos what shat ye!  Twelve's-damned whore-spawn, all three of ye!"

 

She quite literally spat the venomous words at the heads of the other black-haired Sea Wolf Roegadyn seated in the main room of the abandoned cabin before scooping up Blanrael and marching off.  Her foot left a rather impressive print in the door and nearly splintered it off its hinges.  The air behind her was foul with invectives, which Fystrael ignored as she and Awyrhund waved at Blanrael.

 

Sthalzwyn snorted roughly, his brow sinking deeper as he shrugged his already meaty shoulders at his retreating sisters.

 

"That went better than I expected," he muttered.  "She's even managed not to repeat herself when cussing."

 

"Indeed," Saelbzwyn agreed amicably, his speech as elegant as his courtesan mother's own.  "Although, to be absolutely precise, I'm the only whore-spawn - not that she's a practitioner any more."

 

Sthalzwyn's eyes almost completely disappeared under his frown.  He snorted once more, this time in the direction of his 'twin'.

 

"Swyrswys, I'm heading down to Ol' Dog's mine.  Need to take some of this out on some raw metal."

 

Fystrael nodded.  As her brother passed, he wisely took the dozing Awyrhund from his older sister, arranging the baby in the sling that pass over Sthalzwyn's chest and shoulders.  Fystrael smirked and ruffled his haphazardly chopped and scorched hair before pushing him out the door as gently as possible.  Sthalzwyn grunted in response, annoyed but accepting of many facts, including the fact that his older sister would most likely forever be taller than him.

 

But that was the least of the facts that they had to accept - and now, she was alone with three of the hardest that she'd ever faced in her short life.

 

 

Fystrael found it hard to be angry with the 5 year-old huddling in the corner.  The little girl had no say in whatever dalliances her father had been up to throughout his many absences.  Indeed, it was almost impossible for her to be truly angry with any of the three in the room, though Saelbzwyn's manners irked her in ways she could not fully explain.

 

But the whole situation was creating more mouths to feed at a time where most of villagers were still sleeping in tents and food was in direly short supply.  She was earning money as a temporary woodsman, but she wasn't making the best wages; her strokes were often sloppy and she was still too young to cut enough logs to meet the demands of the village's re-building effort.  With that and the small lands she managed, she and her Ma were barely able to feed her fully-related siblings, far less these extras.

 

So she hated them instead of embracing them.  She was just too tired to show empathy.

 

Without another word, Fystrael turned and walked out of the cabin.  After looking at both Swynborg and Ourarael, Saelbzwyn followed her, urging the younger ones to come with him.

 

 

They walked for most of the evening.

 

 

"Are we bloody well crossing the island?" Saelbzwyn snarled as he felt brambles catching at his clothes again.  Swynborg sighed and used his teeth to pull another large thorn out of his ham-like hands.

 

Fystrael did not act as if she registered their grievances - she only stepped further through the briar. Something about her demeanour rubbed off on Ourarael, who followed the teenaged Roegadyn closely.

 

 

They finally stopped in a clearing, outside a small shack built against a rock face of a looming cliff side.  The waves could easily be heard as they relentlessly slammed against the rocky coast. Swynborg - now carrying an exhausted Ourarael on his back while lending an arm to the similarly Saelbzwyn - arrived just in time to see Fystrael slamming the door shut.  Her steps were receding oddly as Saelbzwyn tried to pry the door open, but whatever lock had been used inside was well-wrought and sturdy.

 

Disconcerted and in unfamiliar territory, Swynborg and Saelbzwyn set to work on making a small camp.  Fortunately, all three children were still in their thick, woolen travelling clothes and boots, complete with small hooded-capes. The three half-siblings waited for some time under that tree.  Shortly before moon rise, a ball of bed-sheets was thrown out the door and over their heads.

 

"How considerate," Saelbzwyn grumbled as the door slammed shut again.

 

"Not sure they're for us," Swynborg murmured, his boyish voice already showing signs of cracking.  Saelbzwyn turned to face the trail that they had carved in the underbrush of the woods, listening as footsteps cracked twigs and disturbed leaves.  A light bobbed towards the trio in the regular manner of a lantern being carried and an eerie voice wafted in the air.

 

Ourarael hid behind Swynborg with Saelbzwyn close behind her.

 

"Gh-ghosts?" she squeaked loudly, her eyes wide and her skin paling.  As the bushes at the edge of the clearing parted, she gave a little shriek and buried her head into Saelbzwyn's abdomen, clinging for dear life.  The boys readied for an attack.

 

"No, not tonight," Blanrael hummed as she stepped into the clearing, her small hands holding a hurricane lantern.  Behind her came Syhrrael and Sthalzwyn, who both winced as they walked.  Their buttocks were suspiciously taut under their simple tunics and leggings.

 

"Looks like your bottoms got a jolly smart hiding," Saelbzwyn chortled, his observant eyes picking up a gait that he had used more frequently than he would like to admit.

 

"Shut yer crab-hole," Syhrrael snapped, although much subdued from earlier.  "Our Mas made us come out here to keep house for the next week."

 

Sthalzwyn went to the door and knocked solidly on it.  Swynborg sniffed loudly as the scent of food came from a large package under his half-brother's arms.

 

"Swyrswys, look alive in there!  Ma's stated plain that the whole lot of us are to live together on the land.  It's no use worrying and drying planks all night.  Let us in to eat and we'll make it work somehow."

 

Silence seemed to coat the clearing and weariness weighed on the children.  Ourarael and Blanrael were snuggling up to the fire, already snoring lightly. Swynborg's head kept dropping onto his chest.  Saelbzwyn's eyes drooped like they were weighted with sand as he leaned on the door of the hut.  Sthalzwyn grudgingly stood nearby, ready to stop the boy from falling to the ground and breaking his nose.

 

Syhrrael took a spot to herself and worked on her opo-opo stance, sparring with imaginary foes, but even her hyper-energetic moves had slowed.

 

 

Just when they had all slipped into slumber, the door opened.  Sthalzwyn and Saelbzwyn tumbled right through the doorway, landing in a heap of gangly, knobbly limbs.

 

Fystrael laughed heartily and gave them both a taste of her boot before stepping outside to help Syhrrael get the youngest girls inside.  Once Swynborg trudged through the doorway and saw the seven hammocks made of fresh bedclothes, stretching from wall to wall, they all realised that Fystrael had just grasped hold of another fact and moved her life along.

[Fystrael Abylstyrwyn]

The first time she stopped speaking was when she was 6.  Her father had left port, her mother's eyes had been suspiciously wet, Syrrhael was annoying and Sthalzwyn was colicky.  Speaking just seemed to be too much trouble fo rtoo little reward.  None of her pleas had stopped her father from walking out the door with the turn of the seasons and the tides.  No complaint made it less necessary for her to babysit while her mother attended to her healing duties. Words didn't stop Syrrhael from whining or Sthalzwyn from bawling.

 

So, she didn't bother speaking them.  Not a word passed her lips, despite her family's attempts to the contrary; not until her father's ship came back into port.

 

Then, she couldn't stop.  She had so much to tell him and his stories deserved her enthralled whispers and terrified cries.  She wasn't the sole babysitter and she wasn't the silent underboss of the household anymore.  She was just a girl with a little brother and sister who was being doted on by her Pa.

 

Until he left again.

 

 

This pattern continued until Blanrael's nigh disastrous birth, when she didn't cry until her father rowed into port, summoned by the unknown message of another villager.

 

She stopped speaking completely when her father left for Carteneau.

 

When the moon disappeared from the sky, she thought her voice had vanished with it, shattered for all eternity.