The days began to stretch, on and on as the party of refugees left the road in an effort to shake quick pursuit. The Chosen stayed silent, still not comprehending their state, not saying a thing to one another and thinking themselves the only ones. On and on the little band plodded, the weight of creation on their shoulders. None moreso carried this weight than Ourna, it seemed. She came upon the idea of daily tasks for the poor people of the group, thinking that distraction would keep the band from despair. She knew, for she herself fought it each moment, each step, only responsibility, the fiery passion of her promise, and the closeness of the Twin and the Fey-Touched keeping her from it.
“The dew of the morning, Sunk chill on my brow—
It felt like the warning, Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken, And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken, And share in it's shame.”
—-George Gordon, Lord Byron, “When we two parted”
Start Date: 4 Ascending Air, Realm Year 768
Then, the tired monotony of this newfound existence for people of peace was broken by a voice from above. It was no spirit, no lesser god that called out to the band, but a man. High up in a tree he sat, clothing like the bright plumage of a grand bird, calling for assistance in tones that spoke of some far distant land. After deciding the stranger was, in fact, no spirit, Ourna asked others to bring the poor, funny little fellow down. And thus did Albrecht Torsten find his feet on solid land once more.
Ourna and Xylanthe questioned the man as to how he found himself up in the high trees of the Eastern forests. And what a tale Albrecht spun! He laid claim to being a captain of a ship, but no kind of ship any had ever seen, for this ship rode the currents of air as others ride the water! He said there had been mutiny, and he was tossed over to fall from above into the savior branches that caught him. Ourna, like many that would hear such a thing, thought it madness, but Xylanthe wasn't so certain. Perhaps this plumaged man spoke of something of the First Age! He also claimed a nation no traveler or scholar among them had ever heard of, so none knew what to believe. Part of the truth, however, Albrecht kept hidden, and none suspected! Madness or no, the man surely needed the strength numbers would give, and he was brought into the band of refugees as one of them.
And so the little band plunged onward through the trees with their new number, and soon stopped for the night as always. Watches were set, and to the surprise of the young captain Ourna, Albrecht immediately volunteered to take the second. And after, all save a handful of remaining militia went to sleep.
At that moment, back in Rane-tah-serat, a conversation took place between Xylanthe's father, Arskelos, and the female Deathknight seen at the battle of Small, who was taking her to see the Deathlord Tears of the Bloodflower. The father felt as though the woman was known to him, but for her part she denied this.
Sometime in the night, Albrecht woke on his own. It took him not long at all to realize it was well after he should have been awakened for the watch, and he looked about. He found that the previous watch was missing! He went and woke the young captain, who drew blade and began seeking for her lost people. And then, Xylanthe woke, roused from sleep by the strange masked woman she was dreaming about. And in turn, Develan woke, and all began creeping about in the stillness of the forest floor.
For a time, no one saw a thing, save that more than first watch was missing. Then there were Eyes! Large, shimmering eyes surrounding the camp, watching with golden glow reflected by the campfire! Some up in the branches, some on the ground. Ourna went toward one on the ground while Develan shimmied with ease up one of the trees. As they approached their quarries, the great shining Eyes blinked out as if they never were. Time and time again, they chased the elusive Eyes, Ourna calling out in fearful greeting, Develan making a grab for whatever may own the Eyes.
And finally, as the Thief caught one high in the branches, others stepped out to Ourna's call. The huge Eyes were attached to sticks. Yes, small branches with stick arms and stick legs! And they carried swords of carved wood, tiny for their small hands. No one had ever seen the like!
One of the stick-people introduced himself as Arbel, and he was their leader. Arbel introduced a few of his fellows as well, but remained the speaker. Arbel explained that they had taken the people to their king, the King of the Wood, for care and healing, but they were upset that the people were burning their fellows, even if it was only their dead. Xylanthe came beside Ourna and tried to explain the human need for fire, but it only seemed to trouble the stick-people further. Therefore, Ourna stuck to the task of trying to get the people back. Develan found the ground again, struggling stick-person in hand. He set the skinny creature down and watched it.
In some sort of token, Arbel offered berries. For fear of offending the Stick-people again, Ourna ate one at the protest of Xylanthe and Albrecht. For a time, Ourna was fine and kept speaking with Arbel.
Arbel finally agreed to go speak to the King of the Wood, and the camp waited under the watchful Eyes of the Stick-people. There was nothing to be done otherwise. In the mean, Ourna discovered that the berry she had eaten made the world strange, seeing things that were not there, yet her mind remained clear otherwise.
After a time, Arbel returned, now garbed in armor of bark and leaves, with word from the King. The missing people, now healed, will be returned. They were walking out of the trees as they spoke, in fact, and there was joy. Arbel, in the voice of the King, told the people that he and the Stick-people would see them to the edge of their lands on the agreement that there would be no more fires. Wanting no more trouble with these strange watchers of the woods, Ourna agreed, though knowing it would mean lean days for her and her people. And so, the camp slept again.
For days, the band of survivors of Seven Willows moved ever onward in the escort of Arbel and the Stick-people. They lived even more meagerly than before, eating only what they could find among the plants of the forest and wrapping blankets tightly around them at night. Ourna was relieved that after the first day, however, that the berry she'd taken from Arbel wore clean, and the strange sights that surrounded her vanished, and took great comfort in being with Jiulan in the night hours, for the Twins had each other, and both were glad of it. Finally, they reached the edge of the Kingdom of Sticks and bid farewell to Arbel and his kin.
Oh, but the band enjoyed the fire that night, lit after the trees of the Kingdom were long behind! Hot rabbit and quail lifted the spirits a bit, and each person left to their own thoughts. But one soon realized that some of her thoughts were not her own. Xylanthe began to hear the voice first heard in dream the night the Stick-people appeared, and found she could converse with it. The feminine voice claimed to live in a ring Xylanthe once found in a ruin. Xylanthe decided to speak with the Lady of the Ring and went a little ways from the camp to do so. She did not know that Develan was skulking around in the trees around and that Ourna had heard her speaking, to all appearances, to herself.
In her spot away from the others, Xylanthe continued to speak to the Ring Lady. All at once, to prove a point, the Ring Lady asked Xylanthe to repeat something. She did so, whispering strange words, and Xylanthe called up some emerald sphere around herself, and she began to glow with the light of the sun, mark of Twilight faint upon her brow. She did not go unseen, for the Thief saw from the trees and the Captain saw from the side.
Ourna came out in a rush and held Xylanthe at sword point. With her fire-passion, Ourna began to berate Xylanthe for consorting with the demon kind, despite the protestations of the new-minted sorcerer. Without realization, Ourna began to glow herself in the passion of her speech, but Xylanthe was quick to point it out, the faint glow of the sun and the mark of the noonday Zenith on her brow. A moment, stretched, of discomfited realization struck both, and they compared what they had been through. Yes, they had both been Chosen by the Sun!
From the trees, Develan continued to watch and listen, until the two women wondered if there were others. At some point, Xylanthe thought she had saw something about Develan, and he took his moment to drop from his perch to the middle of the conversation, and joined. The mark Xylanthe had seen upon him once was that of Night, though none knew what to call each other. At last, the three new Chosen, born of the strife of the fall of their land, stood revealed to each other, but none other.
Or was that true, for upon parting, Xylanthe found Albrecht had also heard part of the talking, but he said and revealed nothing of it. What motivated the strange man?
Develan went about his usual nightly routine.
And Ourna? That night, she wept. None thought it strange, for in all the time, the steadfast Captain had not fallen a moment to the despair that threatened to sweep them all under and drown, and most thought it was time. What was strange was the shoulder her bitter tears wetted was not the Twin's, but the Fey-Touched, who stood confused himself. Jiulan paced the camp, speaking not to his sister once in the latter hours. A talk with Xylanthe troubled him too.
And in the morning, when dawn kissed the land, Ourna railed at the sun, unheard by the rest. What she found, what Tremaen told her, was that Jiulan was gone, and by his own choice.
For Ourna had revealed herself to her Twin that night, and he rejected her.
End Date: 9 Ascending Air, Realm Year 768
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
—-Robert Frost, “Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening”
This session was entertaining, but since the week prior was dead week (lots of papers and studying to do) I couldn't plan much detail ahead of time. As such, there wasn't a lot of complication to the story. Thankfully, the introduction of Ray's character and the last second inspiration of how Jiulan would react to his sister's Exaltation made the session more interesting than it otherwise would have been.
Converted from old logs