Shatogtar's House

[Shatogtar]

The small derelict building was located on the outskirts of Acumin. It wasn't the most luxurious house in the city, but for a half-Orc it would do just fine. Shatogtar wasn't used to luxury, after all.

The exterior was plain, with filthy walls and rotting window blinds. The house was lightly damaged in the war, but it was still inhabitable. A small garden was in front of it, but only weeds and thorns grew in it. Boards were nailed across one window. The roof had several holes in it, and a small chimney.

The interior wasn't any better. The house had only one room, which contained a makeshift bed, a small table (but no chairs) on which lay a few candles, a rotted chest (2/3rds of the lid were gone), and a cupboard which contained a rusty cooking pot and three cracked plates. Cobwebs 'decorated' the corners. A hearth was built into the wall. The house had a dirt floor, and small insects frequently scurried across it.

The building was obviously not in use for eras, and now housed Shatogtar the half-Orc, whose halfling mother lived here some thirty eras ago.

[Shatogtar]

'Home...', Shatogtar muttered as he crawled into the house. Finally, he can get some rest.

He stumbled in, lurched across and jumped on the bed. It crashed under his weight, but he didn't care, and fell asleep immediately. The long walk through the protective field had totally worn him out, and all he wanted to do was sleep, sleep for at least a cycle.

[Kalirren]

(OOC: Shatogtar, welcome to Alleria. Enjoy your stay. Post continues from my own entrance to Acumin.)

The half-Orc got his first taste of welcome before he was ready for it. It came in the form of an elf, young by her own standards, not exactly welcome herself in the small town. She knew that home wasn't going to be the same after two hundred patterns. She just wasn't prepared for it not even looking the same. It was the same location, all right, across the third side street from the birch tree...and that tree did take some time recognizing, not having seen it in as long of a time as she had been gone, when it was still shorter than she was, now towering over her fivefold. But where there had once stood a two-room cottage with tiled roof, cloth-covered front porch, herbal garden, and rain barrel, there remained a ruin.

Her steps slowed visibly. A hand moved to her chest. On one hand she couldn't believe it was there after all this time, and on the other she couldn't understand why it had fallen into such disrepair. For a moment she refused to believe that this was what she had come back to after two hundred patterns, but she knew her own memory, and she knew where her home was, and she knew that she knew well, better than anyone. Yet nothing was explained. What had happened? Vashna and her garden were absolutely inseparable. Where was her mother? And what of Aziroth?

Her steps took her past the ruined door and into the single room that was left, the smell of her mother's cooking flooding her memory as vividly as the rosemary was strong. Some things she found familiar, yes...the table wasn't, the chest a bit so, though in its condition she wasn't sure if it was the same one or not. The stone hearth was soothingly unchanged. Yet as she glanced about idly she came to realize that the home which she had grown to know so well was no longer the one she had remembered living in. Everything had been moved around twice, the other room was gone, there was new furniture that had already gone rotten, and somehow everything was off-size...

She moved to the bed, which to her seemed more like a cushioned seat, and was about to sit before elven prudence got the better of her and forced her to make sure there weren't spiders or the like underneath the layers of fabric. Casting aside the top layer she found herself most rudely surprised and unable to suppress a sudden, piercing scream which couldn't possibly have failed to arouse the half-Orc from his theretofore peaceful slumber. He was so small and curled up, and sleeping so softly, he had seemed like another clump of thick fabric she would have to straighten out...

Blue-grey eyes flashed red. "What in the Goddess's name...out! Out!" Angrily she pointed at the doorway. No matter what had happened to her mother, no orc...goblin...furry-toed thing could ever possibly have found its way into rightful possession of this house, said her presumptuous elven mind.

[Shatogtar]

Shatogtar jumped to his feet, startled by the elf girl's scream.

'Eeeeeeeeeyaaaaaargh!', he screamed back, his eyes bulging with fear, and ran off into the shadowy corner. The elf pointed angrily to the door.

Shatogtar was confused, and still half-asleep. This was his house, at least the deed said so. What is this scary woman doing here, disturbing his sleep in his house?

'Who is you, lady? Why is you woken me up?', he asked, keeping his right hand on his rusty dagger just in case the elf woman tries to violently solve the problem.

OOC: Thanks for dropping in. This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

[Kalirren]

"Who are you, orc, and what are you doing in my ... in this ... fine ... house?", retorted the elf impusively. A few seconds had restored to her some of the reason which had been taken away by shock. She corrected herself because she didn't even know if it was still her house or not, which it might well not have been, seeing as the one whom she had woken up was not her mother but instead this small, cowering figure two-thirds her own size. And if it wasn't her house, then what sort of a right did she have to be waking people up and scaring them like that? A bit of the red left her eyes and made its way into flushing her cheeks instead.

She took a step back to avoid looking so imposing, though she never lost mind of where the doorway was were the tables of circumstance suddenly to turn on her, forcing her to flee. This was an orc in front of her, and even if he had a squeamish voice and not even her height, she would rather have been dealing with a Vysstichi. At least it would have been an elf, and elves were more predictable. "Do you know who lives here?", she said, in a tone calmer but no less demanding. If he didn't have a good answer, she was ready to go grab the Aedile.

[Shatogtar]

"I is Shatogtar, lady. I is only haff Ork, otha' haff o' tha family is haffling. I is got hairy feets to prove it.", Shatogtar replied, "And I was sleepin' until you comed here an' waked me up. Mumma telled me tha' izza bad manners to go into summun else's house without knockin' first. You shudda knocked on tha doo' first, lady. Scared me rilly rilly bad."

He let go of the dager as the elf woman took a step back. She obviously didn't want to hurt him. She asked him if he knew who lives here.

"I lives here, lady.", he replied, a bit confused.

"Looka dis, lady.", he continued, pulling out a crumpled piece of paper, "I is got this deed to prove I lives here. This house is belong to me. Mumma gived me this deed, said this house was house in which she was livin' before tha Orks maked her slave. Telled me tha' if anyfin' evahh happen to her, that I is s'posed to run away an' find this house. Mumma die one era ago, so I ran away, came to Acamon an' here I is, livin' in this house. Now, what is you doin' here, lady?".

[Kalirren]

Shatogtar saw the expression on the elf's face change as she tentatively took hold of the precious deed. It was crumpled, worn, and smelled of half-orc sweat, but was legible, and which appeared, regrettably for her case with the Aedile, valid...signed by an Aedile whose last name alone she recognized. Perhaps a great-grandson. As she strode to return the precious paper, the stone hearth caught her eye once again...and therein arose a glint. After counting the blocks, she tested the seventeenth, budging it. It took some kicking, and some language unbecoming of a lady, but it moved, eventually. All the meanwhile the half-orc was undoubtedly wondering just what exactly this crazy lady was doing to his house.

The two thanked the fates for the roof having holes in it, for the musty stench that emerged was most overpowering. A centipede crawled out over the rim of the exposed compartment. Inside was a small hinged stone case, three times longer than it was wide, twice as wide as tall. The lid was decorated in relief in a style so grotesque that an unknowing person might have said the sculptor was blind. How correct he would have been.

The elf sighed with relief as she recognized the design. Removing it from its sanctuary and setting it carefully upon the ground she replaced the stone, apologizing to the half-orc for her unintentional transgression as she walked out. She didn't go much farther than her old front porch, partly because she was merely looking for light, and partly because she felt sad, sad and attached to the shanty relic that used to be hers, from which she had just been kicked out by its new midget Orc owner. Sighing, she opened the box, finding inside, just as she had set them aside patterns ago, her first set of calligraphy brushes. Covering them was a short slip of paper with handwriting so distinctive it didn't need to be signed.

Dearest daughter Kalirren,

Father sends his greetings.

Our words cannot speak of our sorrow in that you never came back to us, save in the form of four letters in your handwriting. Too little for two hundred patterns. Ever since a new thane took office, even the fugitive Vysstichi have become even less welcome than they were before. It has gotten intolerable for your father, and we are leaving.

We've sold the house to a kind halfling woman who should have shown you this note. Bless her. If you ever do come to visit us in Medonia, do bring your children? Your father is dying to meet them, as am I.

I miss you still, as I will always.

Medonia. It was only ink on paper, but the word itself had weight to send Kalirren's knees to the ground. Medonia was Poxed, she knew, and had been so for too long. She had been fortunate to escape it once through having chosen to return via Port Alyxandrya. If her family was still there...she turned, hoping she hadn't heard the door close behind her. "Your mother lived here?" asked she. "How long ago?" Uncertainty was the worst of mental bothers. Not knowing, it was as if she had been orphaned for a third time - strange how elven lives were. In the human universe it was common to lose one's parents before losing one's mate. But it was almost a joke amongst Dalticean women that by the time they were on their third husband they should choose particularly well, for they would be too old for a fourth. Bouncing from exile and separation from her chosen mate, to her first son and his family who collectively accepted yet resented her, and from there in turn to this, Acumin, her last recourse, she found each one gone, changed, never to again be the way she had left them again. It had been the first time in her life she felt truly, unwittingly, and unwillingly alone...

[Shatogtar]

"Wha' is she doin'?", Shatogtar wondered, scratching his head as he watched Kalirren kicking the hearth. He was just about to ask her if she needs assistance when the stone moved, and a pungent stench filled the room.

He kept watching as Kalirren took out a small metal box, put the stone back in it's place and walked out.

"Wait, where is ya goin', lady?", he asked, following her. He stopped at the entrance as she walked out to the porch and opened the box. She feel to her knees in sorrow, confusing Shatogtar even more.

She asked him about his mother.

"How long? I thinks Mumma lived here fordy, mebbe fiddy eras ago. She got slaved by Orks dhirty eras ago, thazz wha' she telled me. Why is you axing? Is your mumma lived here too, before my mumma mebbe?", he replied, "An' nudder fing... You is still not telled me whazz yo' name."

[Kalirren]

Shatogtar's last question brought a comfortable yet distant smile to the elf's face. His asking her name made her laugh at how she had treated Aidan only moments before, and the temptation was great to treat Shatogtar similarly; yet after the way she had half-introduced herself before, she found herself unable to further fathom the thought. "Kalirren is my name," she uttered with relent. Looking the half-Orc in the eye she sat herself down on the porch, facing the all-too-familiar yet ever-so-changed street - her eyes stood then at his chest. "Ka-lir-ren," she repeated slowly, enunciating each syllable clearly, a bit afraid that the half-orc wouldn't ever be able to pronounce her name in anything approaching a refined manner. "See, this is how it's spelled. This is my mother's handwriting, here, so much better than mine..." She handed him her mother's note, clutching it with thumb and forefinger, indicating where her name was written. Precious parchment it was. "...She told me to thank your mother for keeping this, but I can't, so I'll have to thank you instead. My mother and I used to live in this house before your mother did, that's all, that's why I was confused."

Her amber eyebrows tilted the other way. For an instant she debated whether or not to leave right then. Curiosity eventually got the better of her; that, and she didn't want to leave just yet, not with her most sentimental possession in someone else's hands. "What's your name?"

[Shatogtar]

"Ka-li-rren... Thazz a preddy name. Kalirren.", Shatogtar muttered.

He flashed a toothy smile as Kalirren told him about her mother.

"O-o-ooh! Thazz wha' is going on here! I is understanding now. I is glad we is finally solved this fing.", he said, holding the parchment in his hands, "If you is got no place to stay in, I is going to let you stay in this house, if you wants. This was yo' house before, not my."

She turned around and asked him his name, which he already gave to her.

"You is got short memeray, Kalirren. I is telled you before, I is Shatogtar. Sha-tog-tar. Thissiz how you spelling the name.", he replied, and wrote 's HA t 0 g t A r' in the dirt with his dagger.

[Kalirren]

"Oh, that's your name..." Kalirren eyes grew wide for a second. "I thought that was an orcish word for a half-Orc..." She picked up a wayward stick and copied Shatogtar's name in finer, more delicate script, however more fine and delicate it could be with a stick in the dirt. "Sha-tog-tar..." she mumbled as she wrote, playfully underlining her new companion's name upon finishing it with a loose squiggle. "And thank you, that's very generous of you to let me stay." The half-Orc lived up to his heritage; at least, he knew his bit of halfling hospitality.

So it was that as Majora left the sky, tucking Telath into a pleasantly cool summer blanket of night, Kalirren found herself falling asleep on a makeshift hammock suspended between opposite corners of the house that used to be hers, at once both sad and happy to have found home again.

(OOC: Curtain. Sorry for the short and late post, especially for a final. It's been a pleasure.)

[Shatogtar]

Shatogtar went to sleep as well, lying on the old bed, slobbering on the pillow and muttering something unintelligible in a mixture of Orkish and Allerian.

He woke up before dawn, and sat up in bed, thinking about his mother, the house, Kalirren, and everything that happened to him lately. It was still eaarly, and in the morning he has to go to town, to find himself some work. The 500 crowns he had won't last a lifetime, especially now with Kalirren living here as well.

With a sigh, he went back to sleep.