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+---- Thread: [o] unexpected ramification (/showthread.php?tid=10911)
unexpected ramification - Ravenna - 03-19-2025
[say]"What am I going to do with you?"[/say]
Staring crestfallen at the ram, Ravenna was torn between laughter and tears. Her own face reflected back in his purplish brown eyes, and like an echo of her emotions something plaintive and vaguely sheepish resounded in her mind.
There wasn't much choice, of course. He was in an appalling condition, skinny and dirty with a nasty cut near one eye that oozed pus and smelled terrible. The merchant that sold him claimed he'd been like that ever since a trapper sold him off before Deepfrost, but who knew what the truth really was? Venna just knew she couldn't leave the poor bugger, and she'd bought him off the trader for dirt cheap... But now she had some fast thinking to do.
What did sheep eat? Would an alpina eat the same things? How was she to house him, and how did you clean an animal with a coat like that - like a fluffy white cloud, only splashed with mud and matted into plates of armor at the bum.
Hunching down at the far end of the marketplace with the rope tied to his neck in one hand and the other slowly stroking his nose while he bleated bloody murder, the girl looked around for a sign of what to do next. Food... It had to be food, right? And an animal mender. She'd need to buy lumber for a shed, too, but that was low on her list of priorities.
And she still needed to write a bloody poem for the voice in her head. That Vox fellow. Looked like that was going to wait for a while longer.
RE: unexpected ramification - Noah - 03-26-2025
It took a little while to find Ravenna in all of Snowcloak. She was a busy girl, it seemed. It reminded him so much of her aunt that it made his heart twist. Weaver was never in one place for too long, always on the move either in the tundra or among the settlement. Never a homebody. Asking around, the Forsaken was finally able to get an idea of where the newly-aged girl was, so he headed that way.
He hadn’t expected to find here where he did, but when he finally approached he did so warmly. He had time to clean himself up from his time on the tundra — his hair was clean and pulled back, his beard trimmed.
But there was a sadness in his eyes that couldn’t be shaken.
[say]”Venna, what have you got there?”[/say] he asked, looking down at the spitting image of Weaver with the sheep screaming for its life.
RE: unexpected ramification - Ravenna - 03-26-2025
A shadow fell over her and the alpina, and as one the girl and the ram turned to look up at the Forsaken. Their reactions were eerily similar. The ram went silent, it's plaintive bleating fading from the din of the market (to the relief of many passersby) and the girl's expression turned from a moment of sharp relief into something closed off and prickly that Noah wouldn't need any attuned bond to figure out.
[say]"Oh. You're back."[/say] Where have you been? went unsaid; Ravenna stood up, dizzied for a moment by the sudden change in perspective since she last saw her adopted uncle. Before he left to hunt dragons, she'd barely reached his knee. Now she barely had to crane her neck to meet his gaze, and did so with something cool in her jade-green eyes that whispered of hurt. [say]"This is Ramund. I saved him from a trader..."[/say] The name came to her in the spur of the moment, as if she'd always known it. Bemused, the girl cast a glance down at the ram, who blinked back at her with sheepish contentment.
Huh. Today was a strange day, indeed.
RE: unexpected ramification - Noah - 03-27-2025
[say]”I am.”[/say] Noah said, a sadness shifting over his eyes. The warmth he brought forward for the girl was still there, in th corners of his mouth and in the softness of his body, but still the veil of grief was present. [say]”I am sorry I was gone so long.”[/say] It had taken longer for the demigod to find and destroy the dragon than he had anticipated — and part of that were the weeks he was passed out on the tundra, alive when any other man would have been dead alongside their bride.
Noah let his eyes shift from Venna to the alpina, and his head tilted. He held back the comment he really wanted to make — which was that he hoped she didn’t spend too much on this thing — and chewed on the inside of his cheek for a second. [say]”He looks like he could use a good bath.”[/say] He said instead. [say]”And this.”[/say] He added, then around them his magic ignited. Bright and brilliant, the dome did not expand in its full power, but just enough to cover the three of them. Whatever the alpina felt before would be brought back to vigor and health, and if there was any weariness within the young abandoned it would melt away with a tingling warmth.
RE: unexpected ramification - Ravenna - 04-26-2025
A muscle feathered in her jaw as the apology warred against all the resentment built up over the time he'd been away. Abandoning them - abandoning her - on some pursuit of vengeance she didn't see the point of. Being shunted off onto well meaning but overwhelmed grandparents with whom she had no real connection, to feel like a burden –
[say]"Was it worth it?"[/say] she wanted to know, in a tone much older than her years.
At least her stance shifted to one less closed off when the healing light fell over Ramund. It bled tension from her shoulders too, and erased the beginning of a cold incubating in the back of her throat. Rubbing her nose against the ticklish feeling, Venna stroked the ram over the nose, more than a little envious of how her uncle had made all the sores and scrapes just vanish.
[say]"He needs a good shear, and a place to stay, and you're going to help me. Right? Since you're back and not about to go anywhere else. Right?"[/say]
Looking up to meet Noah's gaze, there was a challenge in those green eyes that suggested her forgiveness would depend on what his answer would be.
RE: unexpected ramification - Noah - 05-19-2025
They had wept into his shoulder the night he told them, risen from the tundra after weeks of being unconscious in the frozen hellscape, their grief raw and bewildered. He had held them with blood still on his skin. He hadn’t known what to say. He still didn’t. Justice didn’t cradle a child. It didn’t dry their eyes or rebuild lullabies out of ash.
Ravenna knew that.
But The dragon was gone. He had made sure of it. Vengeance had no tenderness. It had no way to answer a child’s aching. Noah knew, though, in the depths of this soul, that if Ravenna's father had had the strength to kill the dragon that took Weaver from them he would have. He knew, somewhere within that child before him, was the same flame.
He knew she understood, he just wasn't sure she knew she understood. [say]"Yes."[/say] He almost whispered, voice low but steady. [say]"Whatever you need, we can make it happen. There is an older couple who live at the edge of Snowcloak, and they used to live in the grounds. They raised some sort of fiber animal, I can't remember which kind. I think they would be able to lend a hand."[/say] He tilted his head slightly. [say]"From what I know, you've found a little place for yourself. We can accommodate him in it."[/say] She could thank Margot for that information, the girl having offered it to her father freely.
I will always help you, his eyes said as they landed on her again, moving from the sheep-creature.
RE: unexpected ramification - Ravenna - 06-19-2025
His reply came quickly and without hesitation, causing the girl's gaze to soften into something warmer. Unfurling the arms she'd kept crossed over the chest, she considered the suggestion for only a moment before agreeing; even smiling, at the prospect of building a pen for her new companion.
[say]"Sounds good. Let's go! It's actually perfect timing to learn this stuff, as I got hired by a weaver just the other day - "[/say] Like water from a broken dam, words began to overflow as Venna fell in beside her adopted father, the cold reticence forgotten now that he was forgiven, replaced by a bubbling excitement to fill him in on all the things she'd done while he was away. Visiting the shrine, finding a place to stay, searching for work - and somewhere in the torrent of information, a quiet [say]"Welcome home,"[/say] was slipped in. Because as it turns out, she really had missed him.
[FIN]