Name: Olvann Coia
(elven origin - "to have lost- or misplace- life")
Race: Half-Rhagrhnd
(only apparent deliniation - eye color)
Age:
Overview:
Starting: 22 patterns
Time Since Start: 2 patterns
Current: 24 patterns
Physical Description:
Overview:
Height: 5'8"ft./1.7m.
Weight: 155lb./70kg.
Build: Slender/Athletic
Hair: Black
Eyes: Blue
Detailed:
Unnervingly quick and precise; every feature about the man spoke of control. He was small and slender like an elf, and barely as tall. Every muscle in his compact body was toned to marble; his very presense spoke of prowess and strength. He was unshakeably confident, but not the brash cockiness of a youngster... Confidence that eluded to a calm humble air of superiority. His angular features were unmarred by blade or time, and we're enhanced further by his shoulder length raven hair. A shadow of a beard covered his face, one that no amount of shaving could stifle. The only mark of his mother's people was his eyes; an edifying tingling brilliance of blue, like the chilling waters of a frozen pond that revealed wiseness beyond his years. They spoke of intelligence, calm, curiosity and restraint. Often donning only the humble robe of his adopted-fathers craft, he is from a far, outwardly unremarkable.
History:
Her broken body shivered responsively to the cold climate on the hard wooden surface. Slowly she had adapted to the less frigid environment. Just as slowly, she had lost her hardy resistance to the cold of the Arium Mountains. She had become soft traveling the lower planes of the Arhegc land. It had been more than a pattern since she had been closer than a league from
Trhaksii. It no longer mattered. She had long since stopped harboring any thoughts of escape; her body was now incapable of more than the most basic movements. In the beginning, her strong will and indomitable spirit had kept her alive. She no longer possessed such luxuries. Her pride, the pride of her people, was as tattered as the dank piece of canvas she clung to for warmth.. Her life had been broken and stolen shortly after the first month of repeated ****.
Her legs had set awkwardly, having been broken in several places; she was incapable of standing on them. Even shifting to relieve the weight of her body in a certain position was agonizing. The beatings had been brutal. She was a slave, a slave who nurtured his child; her child. Once she had finished, he would kill her. The
Arhegc kept her
vhatcha pinned on the wall, a symbol of her hopelessness. In the eyes of the
Cherhcsa, she had left a child; she would never return. She would die here. It was beyond hope that her people would investigate the fire. So long as no
Arhegc ventured into the mountains, they would not reveal themselves.
His men howled around her rough wagon, their drunken silhouettes framed against the crisp frozen canvas. She was not close enough to feel any warmth from the fire. She shivered again and emptied her stomach onto the rough wooden floor. He had kept her well fed since the birth of his son. He wanted the boy strong. The child slept noiselessly, it had not even screamed as it entered the world; she had thought it blessedly dead until she felt its small chest rising. When those brilliant and chilling blue eyes had opened, they had frozen her like a gust through an open tent flap. Her son’s vivid life tensed her body and frightened her with its suddenness. The child would have the build of its father. She could see already that the child would not possess the sturdy build of her people. She had thought many times to spare the world of the misery her son would impose upon it. Once he disposed of her, the
Arhegc would pollute the his mind. She swept a lock of the malignant raven hair from the face of the child, also a quality of his father. She could not bring herself to kill the babe, he was her only joy, and she grasped tightly on her last gasp of life.
She vomited again, shuddering at the thought of his cold snakelike grip upon her. At least she was better able to control her stomach around him; she vomited very little after being so wretchedly violated now, choosing to save her disgust for private. That control however, did nothing to dispel the cold lean figure that darted across her mind with the malice of a horde of orcs and the pity of a hunting snow lion. He was the father of her slavery, and the father of her babe. She could not escape him. The caravan of brigands had captured her during her Vhatchrhak, her ascent into adulthood. Amongst the lower planes of the mountains they had been camped. She had been alone in the snows for over a cycle and her innate curiosity had driven her to investigate their campfire. Yes, she had grown up quickly indeed in the back of a roughly hewn wagon.
As she sat huddled in the cluttered neglected space that was her prison, she reflected on the Arhegc caravan’s journey. Their route was always the same; mostly the men seemed to collect contraband along the borders of what they called, “Arakmat” and distributed it among the plains below her people’s home. She knew little of their language, it was filled with odd accentuations and flowed too quickly from their cruel mouths. However odd their language, she had not needed to learn it to understand their business. They mostly kept her hidden during the long journeys. Her body had become so logged with atrophy that she had little chance of even being able to roll helplessly out of the wagon… not that she hadn’t tried. Shortly after she was captured, hope had pervaded her senses when an apparent person of authority had checked their wagon upon entering a city on the plains. She created enough ruckus for the man to open the wagon flap and peer inside. She had been overjoyed at her chance of salvation from the snake man. However, the man had looked upon her with disgust and hurriedly carried out a dogged conversation with the father of her son. The Arhegc currency passed between the men and the wagon continued into the city. How she had hated the noise of the city, how she had hated knowing that it mattered to no one that she was a slave.
Her body was caked with the grit of the road. She had not been washed in a cycle and the sores on her back and legs from lack of movement smelt like rotting goat cheese. Her alabaster skin was vivid only through the channels of tears that had eroded the filth from her face. She looked down upon the cherub face of her son and smiled. The little boy was still fast asleep. He slept through the initial surprise of his mother when an arrow ripped through the side of the wagon and took her through the throat. The woman grasped desperately at her gurgling wound and again an arrow slammed through her chest; still he slept. He slept through the slick, warm sticky coat that enveloped him. He slept through the screams of the men as they died. He slept through the clatter of steel. He slept through the horror of the horses as they were driven by wagon away from their old, now silent masters. He slept through the rough entrance of a man searching the contents of their wagon. He slept through the abandon of the murdered camp. He slept through the silence that remained with only the dead. He slept alone.
* * * * *
He watched from afar as they fell upon the camp of drunken fools. They must have believed themselves safe within the harsh cradle of the mountains. He had watched the criminals like dark felines on the moon swept plane, slipping gently across the dunes of steeped snow with the alacrity of stalking assassins. They had been following the caravan for as long as the gnarled healer could see from his perch atop the mountain. Fools. He knew well that few caravans filled with
legitimate goods were shipped this close to the mountains. The paths into and out of these high passes were simply too treacherous at this season. He watched the quick battle enfold. They were all dead in a half-toll and their wagons driven off in half that time over. A raking of arrows followed by the quick clash of steel was the only testament to the night’s deeds, within a cycle the bodies would be eaten by carrion and various scavengers. Such was the way of this harsh environment. The scenic and utterly raw beauty of the mountains still astounded him. Winter’s unceasing and merciless grasp upon the country had snared his senses. He was utterly taken by his home. He had found his place.
The Rhagrhnd had accepted him eventually, dismissing a broken healer as a corpse in the snow. But he had outlasted the harshest snows of the season, once, then twice and ten times over that. They had come to trust him and provide him with a comfortable enough living now to have only to exit into the snow for the sake of enjoyment. He enjoyed servicing their people in exchange. Hearty folk, and truly naïve. Their ways were a mystery to the outer world, it was good and well that they responded accordingly by keeping them out. He treated their worse maladies, often only healing a frostbitten limb of a child when their shamans could do no more. He enjoyed their stoic company. He had gathered much knowledge in his long years, earned the rites of a priest, abandoned the living world for the solace of knowledge, returned, abandoned it, found love, lost it, and repeated the cycle many times. He was old. He had found his place of rest. Here he would die, as a part of nature, his bones would join the snow, such was the way of this place.
He made his way to the remainder of the caravan slowly, his staff supporting his crooked body. One wagon burned, two others remained, one was bare bones and filled with several dead men, the other still had a canvas covering, though it was peppered with holes from the shafts that had penetrated its thin surface. He moved about casually, examining the littered corpses. They had been killed to a man. Such was the way of these brigands, they left none alive to return the favor. Their weapons had been taken naturally… These men were like the carrion that would soon be relieving them of the tissue covering their bodies. They had taken everything of value. Curiously, he meandered over to the remaining canvas covered wagon. One side of the canvas wall was hardened already with frozen blood. He carefully used the tip of his staff to move apart the wagon flap. Inside lay a woman penetrated by two shafts, her wounds had spurted blood. To his surprise, he found that she was a mountain woman, of no more than 18 patterns he guessed. It was also odd… She displayed no scar of her profession. She was too old not to have one.
It was then he noticed the tight bundle, covered in her vital fluid, move. He took a step back. Startled, he let the flap close. He took a deep breath, considered the possibilities and once again opened the flap. He crawled inside and carefully unwrapped the sealed layer of canvas. Out peered the most breath taking set of eyes he’d seen in all his years. He shook his head in disbelief and clasped the child to his chest, sheltering him from the wind. The protective shell of his mother’s blood had kept the child alive. Even in the hour it had taken him to reach the wagon, the child could have died from the cold. The barrier had trapped the remaining heat of his mother to him. He should have been dead. But he wasn’t. Without another moment of hesitation, the old elf started for the dell.
* * * * *
“They will not accept you Olvann. I’m sorry my son, they look upon you with shame. The shame of your mother has marked you as Arhegc.” The gnarled elf replied with an empathetic patience. How many times had he attempted to explain this to his adopted son? It saddened him to see the deep and hidden rejection his son had displayed at even an early age.
“You are a cursed seed to your mother’s people. They have never encountered something like you before, they fear that you will infect their people, there has never been a half-breed amongst them before.” He had reiterated this response perhaps a score of times in the last half-decade, each time explaining the principles that governed his dead mother’s people. He was sixteen patterns now and more intelligent than any the healer had seen amongst his race at his age. He exhibited a thirst for knowledge, a yearning that even the old elf had not displayed a century into his life. Each time the explanations had become less diluted; his son was growing quickly, his grasp on the realities of life becoming more complete every brightening. To shield his son from the emotions which he would inevitably have to deal with seemed a vain and almost deceitful effort.
“They will not allow you into their fold.” He said, resignation lacing his voice. Olvann slouched, his strong body nearly fully developed at sixteen patterns. He was dismayed as usual, but he had known the answer prior to asking it. He hid his disappointment poorly, but even now he was honing that skill. Hiding his emotions was a skill he would soon master.
This generally happened when he had the opportunity to view the Rhaghrnd people, his half-blood kin. Only two days prior had a Rhagrhnd party come to collect a mountain-man who had fallen prey to a snow leopard and spent the better part of a brightening, laying face down in the snow unconscious. His father had seemingly done the impossible with the dying man. Bleeding from multiple wounds and suffering from advanced stage frostbite, the elf had the man out of bed in less than a cycle. His father had been a holy cleric, among other things, before retreating into the mountains. He had considerable healing talents and the Rhaghrnd respected him as
the local healer, often turning to him for the healing their shamans could not provide. They let him live in peace within their domain, something that generally wouldn’t be allowed for an Arhegc if they managed to survive longer than ten brightenings in the harsh conditions.
Olvann often questioned the old elf on his reasoning for leaving the civilized states of the Empire. He could barely comprehend what it must feel like to live without snow, and in a city housing more than a hundred thousand souls! It seemed impossible and simultaneously completely drawing. To live among so many people… His father dismissed society as a festering boiling pot of ignorance, arrogance and evil. He often told Olvann that the most beautiful part of life he was already experiencing; a family and the natural wonders of Telath, a preverbal vein of throbbing life, vivid in all that surrounded him. Olvann was not entirely convinced however, and thirsted for an excursion to the outer world. However, his adopted father was old and had trouble going further than a few miles. He had become old and frail in the eyes of a human, that said something of his years. Nonetheless, he was his only family, he had saved him and he would not abandon him up in these mountains to die. He loved the old elf as his father.
The healer had taught him most of everything from the volumes of books he possessed.
That was quite a bit of knowledge; those volumes had laid unused in seemingly disorderly heaps long before Olvann had entered the life of the old healer. He was even now, learning his father’s trade. The Rhagrhnd had no form of currency per se; however, Olvann had quickly come to understand that many things, other than conventional coinage, had economic value. For instance, food; the Rhaghrnd had kept the healer and boy in quite a comfortable lifestyle in exchange for the elf’s sporadic services. His father rarely ventured outside any longer, braving the elements had become increasingly difficult over the patterns, and so Olvann was mostly left to his own during the brightenings. He spent most of his days following the Rhagrhnd hunting parties, examining their hunting techniques and generally just studying the people. He yearned for interaction outside his cave. He never interfered, so they dismissed him as the son of the elf healer and let him be. They always knew he was there of course. An outcast to his people, the son of a whore.
How he hated his mother. How he hated that he was the outcome of a nameless man. His father had explained to him the circumstances that he had found him in. He would never be accepted into the mountain culture, he accepted that now, yet that did little to quench his thirst. He was no longer bitter towards the Rhaghrnd, he had come to understand their cultural hierarchy, and knew he couldn’t fit into it. He knew his place lay with his father; the only acceptance he would find among his people would be to learn his father’s craft. As long as his father lived, his place was here, among the snow…
to be continued...
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