Although quite the prevalent face about Rhydin city and the countryside rambling out from either end of it's cobbled streets, Lilliana McClae had been more absent as of late. The lack of her vivacious person both in body and spirit had been noted several times over by many a common patron to the Red Dragon. Even during one of the witch's most favorite times of the year, Beltane, when she was due to frolic and pass the May Queen rites to another, she'd been little more than a phantom; merely a fiery golem or nothing at all.
There were reasons for these frequent spells of time she spent away, and those closest to the gypsy witch knew those reasons, yet none really offered the business up to inquiring minds, simply because it wasn't their business to discuss. When asked, her suitor, Lord Zayveon, only had a tired smile for an answer, while the closest bits of her family Brishen and Niamh Garridan, held a sympathetic expressions; their eyes swimming with unspoken answers. Whatever it was that was keeping the boisterous buxom at bay, it wasn't for anything as fine or frivolous as a personal holiday, but something a bit grave and hushed.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The Garridan caravan, not a month's hard travel from the city...
Just off a beaten roadside, all the wagons had been grounded in a great communal semicircle. Bodies were abuzz and activity aplenty, but something was amiss here; the faces that milled about looked haunted with worry. Children too young to help with menial chores were quiet, and not because their appointed sitter held an excellent sway, but because they too seemed to have the same dark clouds settled over their heads. Nearby looms and reed bushels went unmanned today, however, because the need for quick, skillful hands were needed elsewhere. Younger men hauled firewood and tended the horses while older men sat and smoked in beneath the shade of canvas awnings; all severe lines in their faces. Lines that deepened as the sounds of soft, painful wails occasionally needled out from the heavily shuttered windows of the caravan's center wagon. The piteous cries were broken by the sound of stronger voices with a soothing chide to them, and the whisper of quick, paced feet rushing back and forth through the wagon's dark doorway. The feet belonged to women and a few sure-footed lads, all of which carried some manner of linen or bloodied refuse, transferring them from fingers to flame with worried eyes.
Inside that wagon was where one would find not only one witch, but two; Melina and her daughter Lilliana. Elbow deep in injured limbs more char than flesh. The air within was thick with grief and worry, with sweat and soporific herbs blended down into droughts meant to soothe the injured to some kind of oblivious sleep where gnarled-toothed men with axes and shamanic pillagers weren't carrying torches and peeling bodies in twain.
Life wasn't always full of good magic you see. It wasn't all unicorns and pixie dust, or kind hearted witches performing simple deeds to help simplify the lives of their simple friends. It could be blood. It could be loss. It could be watching the world as you knew it being smashed and broken to pieces so fine that the hope of rebuilding them seemed too impossible a task to even spend a passing thought on. Lilli had learned this lesson quite early in life, not only by fire, but by blood. Looking across another fresh water basin turned pink, the gypsy witch felt a few of her mother's tired wrinkles etching themselves into her face. Age suddenly weighed on her in that moment, each and every of her thirty years to be precise. The number didn't often show, but for the past week and the following to come it just might. There was the quiet snip of a scissor through fresh linen, another lingering whimper of pain, and then nothing. Silence, sweet, blissful, soul-healing silence.
"Lil'... Ge' the bowl an' giv'i a tossin', would ye, m'sweet?" Melina's gentility had always been commonplace, but lately it'd just become idle chatter and pleasantries to help curb the grim reality of her and her daughter's tasks just a little. There between them lay the reason, a family of four, the sole survivors to what they could only surmise had been a horrific village raiding.
Two weeks prior, Maddoc and a few of the other men that often scouted out ahead of the caravan on horseback came across the blackened, still smoldering skeletons of the place they'd found their refugees in. There was no waiting for safety's sake, Maddoc lead the men in, simply because survivors were of the utmost importance, as was dealing with any remaining marauders. The rest of the caravan was miles back, but they had Melina; they also had one another. There was no need to fear swords and torches with such an old-veined, vagrant band of gypsy folk. Once they'd caught up to Maddoc and his men, however, all were called to pick up buckets and wade through the burnt remains. The debris was almost too much for some due to the grisly sights lying in wait, half hacked and burnt, beneath the destroyed homesteads- they'd even found a body in the town's well. The poor soul was either thrown down in, or drown trying to find some means of escape from the carnage. All they found were buried with the proper rites, but unfortunately, despite their efforts to save some of the small town, there was nothing left to pull from it apart from the small, broken family now lying within the safety of Melina's caravan.
Death by the sword. Death by fire... These were not the tidings of spring, and certainly not the tidings of the coming summer sabbath.
"Lil'... Lil' m'babe." Melina prompted Lilli again, her expression softer now once she saw the shadows on her daughter's face. Sighing, the elder gypsy nudged open the nearest set of shutters and dumped the bowl herself. The crack of the water hitting the ground outside jarred Lilli from her stupor and sent her eyes reeling over towards her mother.
"Sorry ma', I didn' mean t'die off there like tha'." Smiling tiredly, the younger witch sat up and gave a slow, steady stretch from finger to toe tips. Her hair caught the wayward beams of sunlight like colored glass and spun all sorts of brilliant patterns onto the wild oriental that carpeted the floor. Melina eyed her daughter again as she set the bowl on a nearby rung to dry. Wiping her hands, she reached across and pulled her in for a hug.
"Lil'... Go home. Jus' fer a while. See yer man, see your brother an' yer sister an' tha' lovely grandchild o' mine." Running a hand up through Lilli's wild curls, Melina touched her lips in against the broad, pale freckles she found beneath them. "Come back in the mornin', I think it's done fer the day, save another round of bandage changin', an' Bathilda can help me w' tha'." Lilli opened her mouth to start something, but Melina chided her with a quick thumb on her daughter's lips. The younger gypsy felt ten all over, and in reality that'd only been a month prior; a little something she didn't care share with her mother just yet.
"I mean i'! If ye' don' res', I'll have yer mage box an' bind yer ears." Melina drawled in warning as she released her daughter with a gentle swat to her big, skirted behind.
Gold key in hand as she began a slow, distracted pace towards the door, Lilli turned back to her mother with a half cranked smile dimpling off in one corner of her mouth. There were newer grays around the left edge of her mother's brow, Lilli noted. And a few more crows feet than she remembered. The grays concerned her, but the crows feet, well, those were that made her smile; as did the deepening laugh lines. Because her mother toiled, it was obvious to any who had the eyes that Melina Garridan loved and laughed quite often during her many years. It was times like these, the rough ones especially, that made the both of them cherish what they had all the more. Even the clan as a whole, who's bodies boasted blood from every corner of the known realms, beat them all with the same big, bawdy heart, knew what preciousness they had in one another. They all shared the same stalwart soul, just like a family rightly should, and no matter the forks that tried to take and divide them, they carried on. Through the thickest and the thinnest, one Garridan could look to their side and see a cousin staring back at them, or look to the ground to the grass beneath their boots and see their Goddess staring up at them. This was the home that Lilli had known her whole life. Strength, unity, trust, and the magic the roads of the world could hold, both the good and the bad, for better or for worse, were as deeply entrenched in the gypsy's person as the veins beneath her skin.
Sighing a slow, heavy sigh as she watched her mother turn back to tend the family that'd fallen into the clan's care, Lilliana shook her head and slipped that little wrought key into the door. The wave of magic that followed was subtle; like the ripples caused by a rock as they reached the ends of the water body it'd been cast into. Light spilt from the space still left between the key in the skeleton lock, just as it did through all the creaks and little imperfect fissures that followed the grain of the wood. The light dissipated, however, the moment the witch walked on through the door, and upon closing it.
Just like that, she was gone.
As the door closed, Melina glanced over her shoulder with a fond sort of sadness dusting her weary features. Unbeknownst to the gypsy matron, however, her eyes were not the only eyes settling to the door her daughter had slipped out through. There were several other pairs watching, two of which belonged to a few of the unfortunates from the family that'd survived the violent attack. The other eyes, well... Those eyes were the same old, careful eyes that'd crafted the little key that transported the fiery Garridan buxom to and fro between great distances. Deep red things that held all the secrets of old and then some.
http://th04.deviantart.net/fs11/PRE/i/2006/230/0/6/Burnt_by_dejavu122.jpg
There were reasons for these frequent spells of time she spent away, and those closest to the gypsy witch knew those reasons, yet none really offered the business up to inquiring minds, simply because it wasn't their business to discuss. When asked, her suitor, Lord Zayveon, only had a tired smile for an answer, while the closest bits of her family Brishen and Niamh Garridan, held a sympathetic expressions; their eyes swimming with unspoken answers. Whatever it was that was keeping the boisterous buxom at bay, it wasn't for anything as fine or frivolous as a personal holiday, but something a bit grave and hushed.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The Garridan caravan, not a month's hard travel from the city...
Just off a beaten roadside, all the wagons had been grounded in a great communal semicircle. Bodies were abuzz and activity aplenty, but something was amiss here; the faces that milled about looked haunted with worry. Children too young to help with menial chores were quiet, and not because their appointed sitter held an excellent sway, but because they too seemed to have the same dark clouds settled over their heads. Nearby looms and reed bushels went unmanned today, however, because the need for quick, skillful hands were needed elsewhere. Younger men hauled firewood and tended the horses while older men sat and smoked in beneath the shade of canvas awnings; all severe lines in their faces. Lines that deepened as the sounds of soft, painful wails occasionally needled out from the heavily shuttered windows of the caravan's center wagon. The piteous cries were broken by the sound of stronger voices with a soothing chide to them, and the whisper of quick, paced feet rushing back and forth through the wagon's dark doorway. The feet belonged to women and a few sure-footed lads, all of which carried some manner of linen or bloodied refuse, transferring them from fingers to flame with worried eyes.
Inside that wagon was where one would find not only one witch, but two; Melina and her daughter Lilliana. Elbow deep in injured limbs more char than flesh. The air within was thick with grief and worry, with sweat and soporific herbs blended down into droughts meant to soothe the injured to some kind of oblivious sleep where gnarled-toothed men with axes and shamanic pillagers weren't carrying torches and peeling bodies in twain.
Life wasn't always full of good magic you see. It wasn't all unicorns and pixie dust, or kind hearted witches performing simple deeds to help simplify the lives of their simple friends. It could be blood. It could be loss. It could be watching the world as you knew it being smashed and broken to pieces so fine that the hope of rebuilding them seemed too impossible a task to even spend a passing thought on. Lilli had learned this lesson quite early in life, not only by fire, but by blood. Looking across another fresh water basin turned pink, the gypsy witch felt a few of her mother's tired wrinkles etching themselves into her face. Age suddenly weighed on her in that moment, each and every of her thirty years to be precise. The number didn't often show, but for the past week and the following to come it just might. There was the quiet snip of a scissor through fresh linen, another lingering whimper of pain, and then nothing. Silence, sweet, blissful, soul-healing silence.
"Lil'... Ge' the bowl an' giv'i a tossin', would ye, m'sweet?" Melina's gentility had always been commonplace, but lately it'd just become idle chatter and pleasantries to help curb the grim reality of her and her daughter's tasks just a little. There between them lay the reason, a family of four, the sole survivors to what they could only surmise had been a horrific village raiding.
Two weeks prior, Maddoc and a few of the other men that often scouted out ahead of the caravan on horseback came across the blackened, still smoldering skeletons of the place they'd found their refugees in. There was no waiting for safety's sake, Maddoc lead the men in, simply because survivors were of the utmost importance, as was dealing with any remaining marauders. The rest of the caravan was miles back, but they had Melina; they also had one another. There was no need to fear swords and torches with such an old-veined, vagrant band of gypsy folk. Once they'd caught up to Maddoc and his men, however, all were called to pick up buckets and wade through the burnt remains. The debris was almost too much for some due to the grisly sights lying in wait, half hacked and burnt, beneath the destroyed homesteads- they'd even found a body in the town's well. The poor soul was either thrown down in, or drown trying to find some means of escape from the carnage. All they found were buried with the proper rites, but unfortunately, despite their efforts to save some of the small town, there was nothing left to pull from it apart from the small, broken family now lying within the safety of Melina's caravan.
Death by the sword. Death by fire... These were not the tidings of spring, and certainly not the tidings of the coming summer sabbath.
"Lil'... Lil' m'babe." Melina prompted Lilli again, her expression softer now once she saw the shadows on her daughter's face. Sighing, the elder gypsy nudged open the nearest set of shutters and dumped the bowl herself. The crack of the water hitting the ground outside jarred Lilli from her stupor and sent her eyes reeling over towards her mother.
"Sorry ma', I didn' mean t'die off there like tha'." Smiling tiredly, the younger witch sat up and gave a slow, steady stretch from finger to toe tips. Her hair caught the wayward beams of sunlight like colored glass and spun all sorts of brilliant patterns onto the wild oriental that carpeted the floor. Melina eyed her daughter again as she set the bowl on a nearby rung to dry. Wiping her hands, she reached across and pulled her in for a hug.
"Lil'... Go home. Jus' fer a while. See yer man, see your brother an' yer sister an' tha' lovely grandchild o' mine." Running a hand up through Lilli's wild curls, Melina touched her lips in against the broad, pale freckles she found beneath them. "Come back in the mornin', I think it's done fer the day, save another round of bandage changin', an' Bathilda can help me w' tha'." Lilli opened her mouth to start something, but Melina chided her with a quick thumb on her daughter's lips. The younger gypsy felt ten all over, and in reality that'd only been a month prior; a little something she didn't care share with her mother just yet.
"I mean i'! If ye' don' res', I'll have yer mage box an' bind yer ears." Melina drawled in warning as she released her daughter with a gentle swat to her big, skirted behind.
Gold key in hand as she began a slow, distracted pace towards the door, Lilli turned back to her mother with a half cranked smile dimpling off in one corner of her mouth. There were newer grays around the left edge of her mother's brow, Lilli noted. And a few more crows feet than she remembered. The grays concerned her, but the crows feet, well, those were that made her smile; as did the deepening laugh lines. Because her mother toiled, it was obvious to any who had the eyes that Melina Garridan loved and laughed quite often during her many years. It was times like these, the rough ones especially, that made the both of them cherish what they had all the more. Even the clan as a whole, who's bodies boasted blood from every corner of the known realms, beat them all with the same big, bawdy heart, knew what preciousness they had in one another. They all shared the same stalwart soul, just like a family rightly should, and no matter the forks that tried to take and divide them, they carried on. Through the thickest and the thinnest, one Garridan could look to their side and see a cousin staring back at them, or look to the ground to the grass beneath their boots and see their Goddess staring up at them. This was the home that Lilli had known her whole life. Strength, unity, trust, and the magic the roads of the world could hold, both the good and the bad, for better or for worse, were as deeply entrenched in the gypsy's person as the veins beneath her skin.
Sighing a slow, heavy sigh as she watched her mother turn back to tend the family that'd fallen into the clan's care, Lilliana shook her head and slipped that little wrought key into the door. The wave of magic that followed was subtle; like the ripples caused by a rock as they reached the ends of the water body it'd been cast into. Light spilt from the space still left between the key in the skeleton lock, just as it did through all the creaks and little imperfect fissures that followed the grain of the wood. The light dissipated, however, the moment the witch walked on through the door, and upon closing it.
Just like that, she was gone.
As the door closed, Melina glanced over her shoulder with a fond sort of sadness dusting her weary features. Unbeknownst to the gypsy matron, however, her eyes were not the only eyes settling to the door her daughter had slipped out through. There were several other pairs watching, two of which belonged to a few of the unfortunates from the family that'd survived the violent attack. The other eyes, well... Those eyes were the same old, careful eyes that'd crafted the little key that transported the fiery Garridan buxom to and fro between great distances. Deep red things that held all the secrets of old and then some.
http://th04.deviantart.net/fs11/PRE/i/2006/230/0/6/Burnt_by_dejavu122.jpg