Little Curiosities
Hazel Talvathar


Age: 45 | Height: 4ft (121cm) | Race: Fae | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Greatwood
Level: - Strg: 2 - Dext: 3 - Endr: 9 - Luck: 21 - Int:
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#1
A familiar, musty breath wafts up from Undercroft’s belly to greet my anticipating nose and I descend the staircase with measured, almost paranoid steps; one fall could be catastrophic really. The temperature shifts to a more comfortable warmth, like that I’d expect to find beside the fireplace in winter, even still close to the surface, and with a white-linen sleeve pulled over my knuckles I wipe the sweat beaded across my brow. Perhaps I should have freshened myself before pursuing this sacred sanctuary. A smear of filth now sullies the fabric and I stare at it with weight like lead forming in my stomach.

Untidiness is one thing, but uncleanliness is another…

Rolling the length back along my arm, I manage to hide the mark and satisfy, for the time being at least, my intrusively obsessive nature. In a final gesture I tug the now layered cuffs to flatten out formed creases.

Moving forward

I have taken the time to unstrap and remove these old leathered boots (a task made harder by my inconsistent strength), before entering of course, a habit fondly adopted over the years. Naked toes curl around the rigid curve of the mighty Oak’s roots, smoothing along each polished surface and revelling in the feeling of stability and safety that the ancient tree’s longevity implies. The long, heavy cloak always upon me, is resting now pushed back behind my shoulders and both arms are bent at the elbow, hugging my boots tightly to the chest.

When at last my soles plant safely upon the polished clay floor of Sidhe’s sunken treasure-room, I draw in a long breath and exhale after at length, pushing out all of the (secret) nervousness that has lured me to these depths.

Lit lanterns, perhaps by some magical flame for they never seem to douse, cast a welcoming hue across my feet as I step between polished wooden shelves, each tier stacked neatly with bound histories, tales and other records. My hand finds the leather cover of my own unfinished journal, caressing it affectionately. Dilated pupils, suddenly ringed by very thin green, pass intently over thick and thin spines; none are dusty, I note. In fact, there hasn’t ever been a finger come away unclean from these perfectly made and maintained artefacts.

Thoughts wonder quietly, fascinated, who keeps them so?

Who’s are the eyes that have witnessed so much, to fill so many pages?


I wander for a good while, viewing and musing over the hundreds of titles available. Then at last, compelled by mounting intrigue, fingers ascend and find the top of a considerably thick tome, a brown one, and they leaver it free: A Short History of the Gods, is impressed upon its cover. The book rocks off the shelf and falls like a boulder (a considerably oversight on my part), before colliding with my unsuspecting toes and landing with leaves exposed on the floor.

Heat flushes my cheeks and I glance around the small corridor, feeling more than mortified. As luck has it, nothing moves; not even the golden light flickers on the wall behind me.

I sigh heavily and climb awkwardly down to join it, coming to rest cross-legged on the floor. Rubbing bruised nail-beds, I flip back to the front cover, pressing it closed sub-consciously, before turning again to the very first page. Again the title reads A Short History of the Gods, but this time I smile, relaxing forward, and whisper dryly, “short indeed!: On the next page there’s a foreword from the author (a name I neither know or care to pronounce), and I gather the relevant pages to skip over. In truth I’m only here to learn of Mort, his herald Ludo too, so I skim through the countless pages before his turn is revealed.

Briefly I think of Jigano. He is my motivation after all, and then begin to read, digesting each paragraph with interest and intent.
Delah Tàirneanach
the Greatwood Guardian
War Chief

Age: 108 | Height: 4' | Race: Fae | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Greatwood
Level: 5 - Strg: 11 - Dext: 30 - Endr: 25 - Luck: 28 - Int:
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#2
if you throw me to the wolves
"All of it. I want every record of sickness." Delah says in a voice that sounds like leaves rolling across a dry branch. Even in this place, the Undercroft where many of their most valuable secrets are kept, Delah does not speak the common tongue. She uses instead the language of the Fae, of the trees and the earth. Her words are like tangible things, her orders absolute.

Immediately one of the curators is escorted out by a number of Delah's soldiers and the war chief is left simply to wait.

Crossing her arms and turning to survey those within, Delah's eyes alight upon a figure that she does not know well. Hazel. Those with physical limitations such as those that the younger fae have are one of the main reasons that Delah has remained as determined and militaristic in her thinking; to keep safe those who cannot fight for themselves. It is why she awakes each morning, why she stays awake into the wee hours of the night. They can call her a tyrant, a predator, hostile, but at the end of the day, her family—all of them—are safe.

"Reading anything interesting?" Delah asks dryly, wings folded tightly behind her back. Though for all of her predatory prowess, today her moss-green eyes are kind, her youthful face almost soft as she peers at Hazel.
i'll come back leading the pack

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Hazel Talvathar


Age: 45 | Height: 4ft (121cm) | Race: Fae | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Greatwood
Level: - Strg: 2 - Dext: 3 - Endr: 9 - Luck: 21 - Int:
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Posts: 38 | Total: 58
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#3
Words appear and disappear as my eyes flit across the yellowing pages, quickly picking out anything of importance from the jumble of sentences that litter the world I’ve become immersed in. The sound of many feet descending the timber staircase into Undecroft escapes my notice. All sense and feeling are lost to the wonders I absorb, closed to the commotion rising around me; Sidhe Village is a haven, I have no reason for high alert here.

The fragile old pages are almost delicate snowflakes beneath the soft caress of my fingers and I turn another, and then another, until the voice of a stranger pulls me sharply back to life. My head, long auburn hair running down its back, part braided, dreadlocked and free, jerks up to find tender moss-green eyes set upon a young face, staring down. I have not seen them before, nor do I realise that the cunning of the War Chief lurks behind.

“Uh…”

My voice hesitates, thoughts still strung uncomfortably between the realities of old and new, and my lashes flutter as I reconcile beneath a shy smile.

“I’m reading about the gods. Mort.” I tell her earnestly, though withhold the reasons for my research. Unable to resist, for the topic I find fascinating, I share with the stranger a little of what I’ve learned. “The Abandoned were called the Acquired a long time ago and they challenged our gods for power over the world…” Drawing further reference from the weathered leaves before me, I flip the paper backwards once and point a gentle finger towards the middle. “It says they very nearly won!”

Slumped shoulders shrug slightly and I draw a pensive breath. “A world controlled by humans. No Mort to carry us to the afterlife either... It would've been like a nightmare we couldn't escape.”
Delah Tàirneanach
the Greatwood Guardian
War Chief

Age: 108 | Height: 4' | Race: Fae | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Greatwood
Level: 5 - Strg: 11 - Dext: 30 - Endr: 25 - Luck: 28 - Int:
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#4
if you throw me to the wolves
Because the fae cannot lie, instead of listening for falsehoods they are more likely to listen for inaccuracies of answers, for responses that don't quite match what was asked. With Hazel however, despite how little Delah knows of her, the war chief is not concerned. There is also the fact that she doesn't care much.

"Mmm." Delah agrees with a wry smile. "They almost did." Coming to peer over Hazel's shoulder at the words written on the ageing parchment, the war chief tilts her head thoughtfully. "It is why they were placed in that barrier to begin with. To isolate the disease." Raising a brow at the younger woman's show of empathy, Delah merely shrugs at the emotion, her face like etched marble in its vagueness. "It was a human problem, and so it was a human-based solution and isolation. It was not merely chance that none of our kind were within the barrier when it was created. I suppose it was a kindness of sort, that Mort sent Ludo within to deal with their deaths."

Another casual shrug. "And now that the barrier has fallen already they are up to their own tricks." She adds with the beginnings of a scowl.

"What has you so interested in this now? Merely the fall of the barrier?"
i'll come back leading the pack

Coding base by Sky!
Hazel Talvathar


Age: 45 | Height: 4ft (121cm) | Race: Fae | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Greatwood
Level: - Strg: 2 - Dext: 3 - Endr: 9 - Luck: 21 - Int:
Played by: Nat Offline
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Posts: 38 | Total: 58
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#5
Eyes, so earnest and enthusiastic, turn their whole focus toward the woman as she speaks. The hair framing her face is as waves of pure earth, softly reflecting the warm light of the lanterns; her words fall through the air like the old evergreen’s leaf, their transient beauty drawing me closer.

There almost seems to be an aloofness about her though, I think, an enigmatic edge quite beyond my narrow realm of experience and that is quietly unnerving. Nevertheless, the woman is engaging, intelligent and fills my ears with a plethora of complimentary information.

These lips, rosebud red, carve a smile through my expression.

“They are finding passage through our woods,” my own, far plainer tone suggests, indicating the incident consuming my thoughts. It is not in my heart to be secretive though, and, while my smile weakens to a more sobered length, I openly reveal the moment spent recently with Jigano. “…they offer at our shrines and bond with our wild creatures. I spoke with one maybe a month ago.

I’ll admit, he seemed nothing like the awfulness we are taught.”


A pang of guilt resonates in my stomach and the heat of wildfire touches my cheeks. Perhaps if it had been the red fox (the Greatwood's famous merchant...), encountered first, instead of Jigano and little Isuma, my opinion of the barrier-folk would be less. My gaze returns abruptly to the page where my finger still rests.
Delah Tàirneanach
the Greatwood Guardian
War Chief

Age: 108 | Height: 4' | Race: Fae | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Greatwood
Level: 5 - Strg: 11 - Dext: 30 - Endr: 25 - Luck: 28 - Int:
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#6
if you throw me to the wolves
"Mmm." Delah intones, her hum like gravel. "They do indeed." The warrior continues, thinking of Amalia and Jyoti and the unlikeliness of the starcalf falling from the sky at precisely the right moment to be melded against the heart of one of the barrier-folk.

At the notion of any sort of duplicity on the part of the fae's teaching, Delah only shrugs. "It is not that they are awful necessarily. But think of the species of beetle that once invaded the forest, relentlessly eating the trees. They were merely doing what it took to survive, but were going to kill the Greatwood in the process. An invasive species." Pulling out a chair, the war-chief sits with her wings folded tightly against her back and a glint of amusement in her verdant stare. "It is why I have no problem with the exploration of our people, but why I refuse to let any of them within our village. Co-existence does not mean free reign on their part. They demand access to our archives, saying they want to learn about our ways, that they have much they could teach us. But there is an undercurrent of righteousness in it. A demand in their inquisitive natures." For a moment Delah's fingernails turn to claws that tap out a gentle rhythm across the desk.

Delah shakes her head, her hair like malleable iron. "I care little that they do not understand our ways. That they think me a tyrant. We are not them, and they in turn, are not us. The forest is not within their bones."
i'll come back leading the pack

Coding base by Sky!
Hazel Talvathar


Age: 45 | Height: 4ft (121cm) | Race: Fae | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Greatwood
Level: - Strg: 2 - Dext: 3 - Endr: 9 - Luck: 21 - Int:
Played by: Nat Offline
Change author:
Posts: 38 | Total: 58
MP: 0
#7
The explanation handed to me is grounding. Suddenly I feel very small as I sit below the Fae woman’s stare, like a child almost, as though every word I have spoken thus far, has only served to betray the level of my ignorance further. These gentle green eyes retreat to the warm hue of the paper, burying themselves in the sanctuary of scrawled text; a furrow in the brow-line above deepens the shadow which has fallen over them and my chest expands visibly around a long, pensive breath in.

”That makes sense,” I state simply, exhaling after a while, when the images of voracious beetles finally leave me space to think.

My mouth feels suddenly parched, dry. No-

...what I feel is thirst far deeper than tissue and bones.

A soft hum, barely audible, rises from the back of my throat while I wonder, and then my more enlightened gaze lifts to meet the dark-haired stranger. “He told me that Arduinna led barrier-people here, into Sidhe.” Though it isn’t directly a question, the tone it rides is questioning, curious. “…and that the War Chief kidnapped others. He implied that knowledge of us, or of ours, was lost by them and that they were (are), trying to retrieve it.”
Delah Tàirneanach
the Greatwood Guardian
War Chief

Age: 108 | Height: 4' | Race: Fae | Nationality: Natural | Citizenship: Greatwood
Level: 5 - Strg: 11 - Dext: 30 - Endr: 25 - Luck: 28 - Int:
Played by: Admin Offline
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Posts: 156 | Total: 3,206
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#8
if you throw me to the wolves
Delah scoffs, arms folded in a posture of incredulity and annoyance. Not at Hazel, but at the outside world. Closing her eyes, the warrior strokes the bridge of her nose as if trying to ease something which has tightened far behind her skull. Her lip curls upwards in a snarl; clearly the touches are not having their desired effect.

"They were captured. Two were given to the tulmhainar. If they invade our home, why should they not feed the great turtle with their memories?" Had Delah made the sacrifice to the tulmhainar seem lethal? Certainly she had.

There was nothing wrong with that.

"It is there presence here that is killing our woods. With the barrier now, the Voice returned...the peace brokered by the gods centuries ago has been disturbed."

Then, with a thoughtful twist of her lips, Delah's eyes narrowed as she regarded the girl who appeared so young—or would have to eyes belonging to anyone other than the fae. "Tell me. What would you have done? Had you found them in the woods?"
i'll come back leading the pack

Coding base by Sky!


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