Topic: Weaving Paths (OPEN)

Gillian O'Halloran

Date: 2007-11-17 14:01 EST
Gillian believed in fate the way some people believed in fairy tales. Fate. Her own fate hung in the balance. Upon a segment of an antiquated plate, broken in to three pieces, evenly.

Was it happenstance" No, it was fate.

Fate that had three young sisters, unequaled in their inquisitive nature, dig into a crate, unfettered by convention and order, to each snatch a piece of life. A plate perfectly broken into three equal pieces.

It was fate that had brought them to the window. Fate that had them each bring their special pieces together, fitting the sections back together in harmony. And in doing so, sealed their fate. A flash of dazzling light. The buzzing of a thousand voices lifted in song. Or had it been a warning"

Fate as each girl vanished from the bosom of home and hearth in that instant to be carried into their separate destinies, into strange lands. Separated by time, distance and reason.

It was fate that evening as well, as Gillian sat among the soft radiance of dozens of smoldering candles in an upstairs room above the cobblers store. Her fragment of the plate held up in the wavering light to be examined again. Just like the hundreds of thousands of times before, just like this very moment, when it had been examined before.

A plate, when whole, had depicted a scene of three other sisters; the daughters of Zeus and Themis, these three women - Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos - were the one's with the power to determine the outcome of the lives of all. Clotho wove the Cloth of Life. Lachesis measured the threads that made the cloth. And the thread of life was cut by Atropos. Each of these aspects of Fate had a hand in determining the outcome of any individual life. One could not escape the destiny that Fate holds for them.

Upon that fractured plate, Gillian possessed the sister known as Clotho, the spinner. The thread she seized trailing off to the jagged edge of the plate where it was broken off abruptly. The giver of life. Painted to perfection upon her slice of that platter.

From what she remembered of that fateful day twenty years back, Kathleen had held Lachesis, the sister that determined the length of that thread. And Atropos, who cuts the thread when the proper time has come for death, was in Charlene's custody. Each O?Halloran sister holding a part of life of another set of sisters. Each destined to be scattered across the heavens, until they could find their way back to the other and the plate rejoined again.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff193/GillianO/fates03.jpg

(As an aside to any interested, the SL is very much open for any to join in if they wish to do so. As noted, there are two other sisters, though one I think is already spoken for. So feel free to join in and play a part that one of the sisters has to interact with along the way to the present time period in Rhydin. Or let me know if you want to play a sister! )

Gillian O'Halloran

Date: 2007-11-18 13:57 EST
Gillian was not exactly an orphan. Not in the true sense. More like a displaced child of five in a world that was wholeheartedly extraordinary and alarming. Landing on a dark and wet doorstep in the middle of the night, clutching only a third of a plate painted with a figure she could not as of yet identify, well, she was an orphan by inconvenience now.

But for many orphans life was a constant struggle as there were not many choices one could make to guarantee survival. Charity was the only way an orphan was afforded a chance. Being allowed to enter a relative's home, stealing and panhandling on the streets, or going to a workhouse or school were the basic choices for an orphan. Workhouses were usually the last place orphans would end up. With each of these options there were obstacles in the path for survival. If there was no family, as was the case for Gillian, whose family was now in a location completely mysterious to the precocious child, her chance for survival became complicated.

She learned quickly, falling in with a gang of vagabond street urchin. They would beg for scraps of food or change so that they could buy themselves some food to make it through the day. By the age of seven, she had become a cunning pickpocket, stealing items that the band of misfits would in turn sell in order to buy food or trade for shelter. These innumerable multitudes of neglected, destitute and criminal children swarmed the large cities and haunted all its by-ways; some naked, all filthy, were roaming, lawless, and deserted. Gillian's merry band of imps. They sought shelter at night in sheds and cellars or lodging-houses, when they could find sufficient pence to pay for a bed for the night.

And each evening, like clockwork, Gillian would reverently unwrap her section of the puzzle, studying the lady painted on the plate. Two years turned into three. Her skills were honed to an extravagant level. Envied by the older children in her assemblage for her skills, she was entrusted to the cultivation of the younger sect that was without question pulled in to ranks of the band of vagrants along the way.

By her ninth year, her eyes held the revelation of an old lady, entrenched perpetually in the dainty frame of a child.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff193/GillianO/ruffians.jpg

Gillian O'Halloran

Date: 2007-11-30 13:05 EST
Gillian labored for four hard years. There was never enough food to go round and the merry band of misfits had to eat sparingly. They had no tutors, no governesses. They ran wild and they were free.

Unlike the others, with one goal in mind, Gillian struggled, fought, cried and coaxed her life onward. It was a winter to make bitter all souls. So cold the birds froze midcall and the little fire couldn't keep ice from burrowing into bed with them. The fleas froze in the straw beds, bodies swollen with chilled blood.

Experience often repeated, truly bitter experience, had taught her long ago that with decent people, especially moneyed people—always slow to move and irresolute—every intimacy, which at first so agreeably diversifies life and appears a light and charming adventure, inevitably grows into a regular problem of extreme intricacy, and in the long run the situation becomes unbearable.

But at every fresh meeting with an interesting person this experience seemed to slip out of her memory, and she was eager for life, and everything seemed simple and amusing for a child of thirteen tender years.

She was hungry.

Desperately hungry. But the promise for food and hope for a reunion with her sisters kept her going.

The pretty white mare she been given for this expedition came to a halt in a cloud of snow-dust before a large, stone cathedral. The light of the full moon cast a subtle glow upon the church's huge doors and Gillian could make out the elaborately carved figures on each of the door's panels. She led her horse towards a sprawling oak tree not far from the road.

A different sort of hunger delivered her to the stone altar of a man filled with his own desperations. "Whoa, girl?Easy now," Gillian cooed in her horse's ear.

Gillian shivered; it was a cold, damp night. The breath of the horse merged with her own in the night air, forming a swirl of white vapor. She knew it was unwise to travel alone so late at night, especially given she often wandered the world without benefit of a map or plan, but her future depended on this encounter. She carefully dismounted and tethered her horse to one of the low branches of the oak tree, unaware that Madame Lambeth of the lodging-house had sold her off for a meager bag of coins. Gillian was sure Lambeth would not send her to a job that would wound her in any comportment.

The doors creaked as she pushed them open. Darkness immediately engulfed her as soon as she entered the church. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the blackness. In the distance, a small pool of light could be seen coming from the candles burning on the high altar opposite where she stood. Clutching her threadbare cloak tightly around her shoulders, she nuzzled her chin into the scratchy wool and walked down the long aisle where she crossed herself when she finally entered the rim of candlelight and knelt before the altar.

She could feel the Priest's eyes upon her; he was watching silently from the shadows.

After a long moment, he made himself known. He emerged from the darkness in full clerical regalia made of finely cut black velvet lined with miniver. As a second son who was forced to procure a living by means of the Church, he had done very well for himself. Gillian kept her head lowered and noticed the gold thread embroidery on the hem of his robe as he stood directly before her.

This is My Fate.

He extended his hand to her, exposing the large gold ring on his finger. He wore the title of Bishop like a king. Gillian dutifully kissed the ring. She did not see his eyes close for a brief second in pleasure as her silken lips brushed against his finger.

He stared down in admiration; her dark hair parted in the center, her perfectly shaped head, and the low cut bodice of the gown that was slightly visible beneath her cloak. Despite being the youngest ever sent to serve the Bishop, Gillian was lovely and desirable. He wanted nothing more than to ravage her then and there.

"Rise, my child," he whispered, offering his hand.

It sounded like a hiss in the dark.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff193/GillianO/cathedral.png

Gillian O'Halloran

Date: 2007-12-23 11:47 EST
Dead littered the streets everywhere. Cattle and livestock roamed the country unattended. Brother deserted brother.

The snow fell with rare and determined force, clinging to the ground with a refusal to melt. Almost an hour later, the streets had quieted, the continuing snow blanketing the city with an eerie hush. Gillian walked through the silence with proficient calm toward the appointed destination where the townsfolk were known to gather and whisper among themselves.

Four more years had passed since she had been sold into service at the Church, answering only to the Bishop himself. His bidding often required she go out among his people, into the village, to spy against his imagined and not so imagined enemies, those that would plot against him and his laws. The villainous Bishop was seizing lands, convicting the innocent, and burning them at the stake. As the plague raged on, the tension was intensifying. For good reason, he had cause to worry for his own safety.

Gillian entered under the swaying sign of the "Wig and Quill". Although the small ale room was filled with noisy patrons, her arrival caused but little stir. They raked her over with bright or bleary eyes without a break in conversation, and then ignored her entirely. She was surprised to see so many people. She had thought the public alehouse to be deserted during the required Mass for the many recently departed.

"No credit here. Not even fer a pretty little freckled face child. No debts. Pay fer yer drinks as ye drink "em and yer bed afore ye sleeps in it. No one'll be cheatin" me out of me dues complainin" their head aches and their arm pricks so as to be sent straight off without payin". Nah, there'll be none "o that in my alehouse.?

Gillian blinked at this long discourse, took out her purse and paid for a meal and a bed for the night, though she would be staying only long enough to eat the meal and listen as the adults spoke. A child in their midst was never seen as a threat. The Bishop plotted against his people well.

Her face is thin for her tender age, but well formed. She has the snub nose and round cheeks of so many other girls whose raw ancestors tramped down from distant lands or washed ashore lo those many centuries ago. Hers is a more Gaulish beauty, with delicate arching brows, a reasonably straight nose, and large, dark, almost black-blue eyes. Her slightly sunken cheeks are drizzled with light freckles, hereditary, you would wager, for surely freckles coaxed out by a pleasant day at the shore would not sit so starkly against white skin. And she is very pale. Her face and exposed arms are the color of cooling milk, faintly blue in the bucket; they possess the sort of pallor that scatters light, the sort of luminescence that great ladies, it is rumored, take small tastes of arsenic to achieve. Hers is the skin of a girl who never sees the light of day.

Daintiness is bred and daintiness is manufactured. This girl, for surely she can be no more than thirteen, has had daintiness thrust upon her. She seems stunted and underdeveloped beneath that dress of bright blue; her shoulders are painfully thin and her belt hangs loosely at the waist. Her shoes, the universal giveaway of poverty, peek out from under the skirt, revealing themselves as mud-spattered, worn-heeled work boots.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff193/GillianO/plague2.jpg

Gillian O'Halloran

Date: 2007-12-23 12:12 EST
While she ate, Gillian feigned disinterest but kept her ears opened to the conversations around her. At one table sat a very grave looking fellow dressed all in black. He spoke in somber tones of the influence of the stars and the conjunction of certain planets, which must necessarily bring sickness and distempers and consequently, the plague. All that sat around him nodded vigorously, for was not the plague among them even now" And they begged him to tell what would become of them and should they stay or go.

Another group discussed the Bishop's outrage over the various remedies, potions and preservatives offered by all sorts of conjurers and witches, dispensing 'sovereign cordials against the corruption of the air", "the only true plague water," "the royal antidote against all kinds of infection." They spoke of eminent physicians newly arrived from across the sea and having choice secrets to prevent the infection and cure any who had the plague upon them, despite the Bishop's ruling against such things.

It seemed the Bishop had need of concern, after all.

Gillian heads away from the alehouse toward dark linen and woolen shops, bakeries, booksellers and stationers shut up tight against the raw night. Carts clatter by, not pausing to see why a respectably dressed woman might be walking alone in a closed neighborhood without a cloak or umbrella at half past nine at night. A few merchants linger over their locks, peering into the dark windows as though sure of having forgotten something very important.

Gillian looks up to where the atmosphere is supposed to be. She wonders if one night it will merely begin to rain disease. She wonders if any could even make it through the heavy gray clouds on this moonless sky begot by the town's hardworking chimneys.

Behind Gillian her shadow pauses, and it too cocks an eye at the sky.

"Damn it!" Gillian turns and yells at the creature behind her. "Will you please just sod off?"

In the distance, on the other side of the city, the bells of the Cathedral were ringing for Mass. The girl gathers her dress and sprints away down High Street. She takes a right and then a left and then another right, trying her best to shake the old woman who follows her every night. The old hag who dogs her every bloody step by order of the Bishop.

The old woman does not run after her, for shadows need never run; they are, by their nature, inseparably, inexorably pulled along in the wake of their objects.

http://i240.photobucket.com/albums/ff193/GillianO/hag2.png