Author Topic: Laugh at the grief that poisons your heart! - Arden Stanic, the Jester Ranger.  (Read 8886 times)

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The fact he had spent some days with two people, two women, after months of chosen and willing loneliness, dragged him away in his past, his thoughts becoming like the memory of the woods. Repetitive, cyclical, seasons which follow other seasons, animals who awake and others who mate, plants replacing others, life, sleep and death as different stages of the same whole. And he remembered his father, Ruggerus Stanic, one of the stapans of Sturben, and the dear elder brother Christian. His father wanted for Arden a formal education, had him taught at the local church of Ezra, and personal tutors for the rest of his studies.

The truant spirit led more than often young Arden along the banks of Vasha river, up to the village of Ilvin. He felt more satisfaction at discovering, often in the hard way, the poisonous plants and the edible ones. And he remembered those moments of infinite bliss, the childish laughter with his friends. Stapan Stanic was worried of the frequent disappeareances of his son. Christian was less, he had taken more seriously the role of heir, as eldest son, he knew he was not as free as Arden, yet he was happy of the role which had been chosen for him by the Grand Scheme. Christian kept repeating to Arden he would have become the jester of his court once he became the stapan. Arden never realised how much of mockery or how much of tenderly and brotherly love could be in those words.

Arden liked having others laughing. His public appearance became stranger and stranger, always aimed at moving merry feelings in those surrounding him. He managed with everyone but one. His father did not want that career for him. He wanted a sort of clone of Christian. And of himself. Stapan Ruggerus Stanic started putting links and bonds to the wanderings of young Arden.

And young Arden simply, naturally, followed his spirit. And he fled.
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He knew more or less what he would have found. Harsher weather for sure, and unnatural undead and other beings: at the temple of Ezra in Sturben he had often leant his keen ear to the tales of travellers about the Legions of Evil residing in Barovia. Yet he did not care, he knew his way in woods, and a wood is like another, animals have the same ways of communications in whatever part of the Core they might be. And nothing, at the very end, could be any worse of the corrupted vegetation he could find in some woods between Sturben and Ilvin.

He escaped during the night. He had taken some coins from his savings. He spent most of them to corrupt the guards patrolling bridges and the several invisible, and all but natural, borders of the several lands of the stapans. Some days and he was already in Barovia, Krezk for him was too messy and too close to the Borcan border, he moved further eastward. Where the sun is born and where his new life was being born as well. Mount Baratak and its surrounding during warmer months, east to the Village of Barovia in the coldest months. It had become a routine.

He spent many a night watching the starry sky, safely cuddled in his furs and hidden among the vegetation -yet a couple of times those vrolocks came after him and he managed to escape. And he thought back to his father Ruggerus and his brother Christian. He wondered if they even realised he had disappeared, or if they were concerned at all. His mother would have worried. If she were still alive, of course. Her smile was what he lived for in his childhood. And the beginning of his jester days.

A dream, a vision. "Thou shalt be no more alone, Arden". And he waited besides the Mists which took travellers from other worlds, according to the tales he had heard around, by the animals and the trees. And "Saber" appeared. And after some days, an arrow aimed at his neck introduced him to "Storm". It was being a new beginning.
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He had started to live for the day. And following some routines. There was venison in plenties and the animals, normally, behaved in a quite sociable way to him. He had met in the past some people, his chosen insulation was always somehow close to settlements. He was not stupid enough not to know that no man is an island and that at occasions he needed the crafted goods of the villagers, at least up to the time he became able to produce everything by himself.

He remembered the lessons of the First Book of Ezra. He remembered how during the celebration people were constantly murmuring among each other, mostly of business. Or even of war. North of Sturben, some miles off in the north along the Scythe Highway, the sporadic invasion of Falkovnians. He did not witness any of those, but he knew his father Ruggerus had been a veteran in the frontline. Alive and rewarded, earning coin and fame, and finally buying a land and being named stapan. That foppish man now all resembled but a valiant general to his eyes. He seemed more driven by greed. His brother Christian probably would have become like him. Arden wanted just something else. To rhymes he preferred improvisations, to the violin a pan pipe, to elaborated orchestra music he preferred his wild dances naked in the woods.

The appearance of Saber and Storm changed his routines. They both had some half-secret goal to accomplish, they constantly hinted it, and Arden had realised they both were after someone to kill him or her. He knew after that they would have probably disappeared as they did appear. Saber needed more education in the life in woods, Storm seemed more prepared to fight and survive. Appearances. He started being worried for both of them. And he started actually to -fear- they would have gone away sooner or later.

His thoughts were going too often back in his past. His fears too much towards the future. Arden was not really sure he liked it. But he wanted his new friends at his side. Friends, or as Storm had defined them, his pack.
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He showed her his shelter. She had lied to him on something. She had spent not her whole like in loneliness, but she had a tamed wolf with her. He told her he was taming a female one. He could not resist his jester nature and joking about mating. "NU MATING" were the most common words both Storm and Saber used to tell him all the time. Storm seemed to hide many more things than a wolf. He cared, and he did not care at the same time. The mutual trust in the pack was being built gradually.

Storm made him think about his mother. The presence of the two women made him think, and dream, more and more often about her. Gone when he was just twelve, and to him it seemed a century before, something which was hidden in the back of his memory as the autumn dead leaf among the thousand other ones, fallen. Storm even asked of her. And he spoke, spoke, spoke a lot, as he had not done for ages, remaining serious, no jokes. At some point he had some doubts. Both women had made him used to mean remarks, and he seemed almost to be waiting for one. When she told him she needed to understand, he kept on. And he did not understand what she understood.

The hut on the mountain was cold. The frozen-man was still standing behind them, mute witness of the glimpse of warmth which had appeared, vaguely, on Storm's side. He was feeling new sensations, and he was scared. He had grown too used in the past five years to provide just to himself. Nothing to win, nothing to lose, just survival, and natural needs. Suddenly he felt the whole burden of his years. Compared to a fey of course he was young. But he was young also in human terms. He was not denying the pain or the change, he was aknowledging it. His survival instincts drove him on two opposite directions. Lone wolf or pack.

He would have lived for the day, and tomorrow he would have seen.
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It had been a long and hard day with Saber and her training. He was right, Saber was weaker and less independent than Storm was and that cave in the hills east of Vallaki had proved almost deadly to them both. He knew every pack works when all its components work in harmony and accordingly. He had explained her, before they left, what Storm had told him about the pack. Saber had nodded and aknowledged him as the leader, not the chief. One able to know what to do at any moment.

Like when some hours before he was alone and surrounded by a series of black clad men who could turn into wolves during daylight. Druids in his opinion. Their leader had ordered the others to kill him. And with no second thought, Arden had quaffed a couple of the newest potions he had learnt to brew and ran as fast as winter wind. There had been not much room for thought. It was instinct and sense of survival. And he survived another day. They had asked about a man dressed like them. Arden had met one dressed like them, who had asked, himself, about the young blonde lady the three of them had helped some days before. And that one shapechanged in a white wolf during her sleep, hardly an unaware power of druids. Something was rotten in Barovia.

Storm had told more and more times he would have been better fit for Saber. He had some problems at understanding her age. He knew that compared to the fey he was overly young, and he was young also in human terms. Nevertheless those thoughts were pointless, Saber was bitter to him and claimed again that she did not like him.

For some hours, before watching stars he was trying to get asleep, he reminded the gifts his brother gave him for his 16th birthday. That was the moment he became a man. And the moment he realised he had to take action and receive consequences from those. It was the moment, the very moment, he decided to flee from Sturben. Again, the two women made him think about his past. Too much for his tastes. And, along that, future plans in the dark mists were emerging. And Arden was still young, and scared. But he knew what needed to be done.

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It had happened again, one of his pack had fallen while he was with her. He was angry with himself and less self confident as he was trying to appear. Nevertheless, by selling some of the few things which had a sort of value, he managed to have Storm revived. Then Storm, Saber and Arden went to dwell in the inn of that village in the east. He had not entered an inn maybe in two, three years. He had already gone in some few hours before with the only Storm and in company of a local violinist. The music drove him to lead Storm in his wild dance. Despite not that happy, the elf was dragged by the wild ryhthm Arden led, with hops and jumps, irregular, pure instinct.


That dance had also another reason. It had been the first time he saw her clearly in her face, with no hood. He had already taken a glimpse of her scar, and he thought it was something recently happened which some healing and some time would have fixed. The scar was old. Her eye was closed, probably blind. He felt confused, as many other times in the past. He did not care. It was not the look of people which matters, he repeated to himself, but what they are. And he cared for Storm.

There in the inn he shot a glance at Saber's hair. Unnaturally gray, for a girl more or less of his age. The two of his pack hid him things. He knew.

He was not hiding anything. His past was grevious. And his dready dreams stalked him any time he fell soundly asleep. He remembered more than often his mother, the one who made him feel his was a family. After he death his world started collapsing. And now, in his more lively expectations, he was having a family again, of a different kind. The pack was there, ready to help every member, and ready to start their path in Barovian woods. Marking territory.
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The pack was growing and Arden was communicating most of his lore to its two other members. And they started also to joke and play with him, he was aware any of them had a secret. He had started disclosing his to Storm. And she had hugged him, not really motherly, not as a lover either. And she menaced him not to say that to anyone else. Arden had started to undertand them. Also Saber was, apparently, in a better mood.

He had the feeling for the first time after his mother's death that he had a family again. They kept on pretending to him, but there are things which cannot be hidden for too long to those used to woods. A gaze, a movement, a smell, they were all hints of something. And Arden knew.

Storm told him he used to speak about his mother during his dreams. He replied that he knew he dreamt of her, but dreams had increased since the pack formed. She had asked him if he cried. He did not. He had stopped since the time of his departure from Sturben. There was a grief in his heart, he preferred laughing at it than thinking about it too much. She had a plan. To fight back those who were stalking her. They needed more train, better gear. And Arden knew that Riva, Shore as he called her, might have been a right addition to the pack. He would have worked on it.

The village was calm and cold. Winter was very close. Soon the fields would have frozen. As a pack they needed a re-organization and probably rest. But they had too much to do.
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-The liberty of man consists solely in this, that he obeys the laws of nature because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been imposed upon him externally by any foreign will whatsoever, human or divine, collective or individual-

-It is the peculiarity of privilege and of every privileged position to kill the intellect and heart of man. The privileged man, whether he be privileged politically or economically, is a man depraved in intellect and heart-

He remembered those words, in one of his dreams. He woke up. He shot a glance at his two friends, smiled and went out for another hunt. There would have been a time in which Storm and Saber would have reached the fullest development of all the faculties and powers by education, by scientific training, and by material prosperity, the last not the main of their goals. In his unorganized thought he was developing more than a family, the pack, every member caring for each other.

His father would have him killed if he had told him his theories. He would have spoken of words of a lunatic. And Christian was like their father. Barovia seemed the right place for a new lands where growing. He had started now, after the self-seclusion. The time was right.
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She asked him if he saw her as a mother figure. That question was discomforting for Arden. He was aware of not being the mature lone wolf he liked to imagine himself, or in future to be. He was also aware she was a fey, an elf, thus with a different concept of the time which passes. He had told her some things which were rather clear in his mind, but as soon as he gave breath to his thoughts they became a bunch of confused remarks: too much time spent alone had not helped his communication abilities with beings which were not animals.

She was clearly stalked and he felt helpless. He had found a person who could help the pack with some divine ability, a woman named Riva. He was yet not sure if she could be fully reliable and needed Storm and Saber to meet her and judge. She had proved reliable to him, but he had seen too much happening in the estate of his father to fully trust human nature. Yet things were at a crossroad. No power against vrolocks, so they needed to understand if the newcomer could be of any help.

The village was cold, but sure less cold than the summer season road he had started to step upon since he arrived in the eastern side of Barovia. A cold which had frozen also his feelings, in the past, when he was alone and with no pack around. He was not able to stop talking and telling her his confused thoughts mingled in messed words. Yet she understood him. He felt she did. He was afraid of her. She told him not to be. But he was. She understood him as his mother did.

It was discomforting. He was sure just of the fact he had not watched his mother with that turmoil within, in fact with more a sense of safety. Storm gave him that feeling, and in other occasions made him feel confused. She said he probably deserved more praise than she used to praise him. Yet he remembered the few times she had thanked him, when he had cared for her almost wholly blood-drained, or taking her corpse to the healer, or hugging her to make her feel safe. In those occasions she thanked, or she apologised. He felt proud of himself. As when his mother clapped him. As when his father did not shout at him. He was afraid of Storm. He was afraid, at this point, to lose her.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2010, 04:02:54 PM by +Ciaran+ »
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He was acting more stupidly than usual. She said he was being normal in his curiosity. He did not understand. He just knew the fey named Storm like a real storm had entered his life and changed his usual frame of mind on some things. Kissing her lips made him risking her anger. He was badly afraid of her and he did not understand what led him to act like that. Nevertheless he had some hints she was maybe more tame than when he met her the first time. A tulip for her hair. And a caress for her scar. He was not used to use his hands for something like that. He was not used to give useless things to people.

He remembered some of Christian's tales of his adventures in inns. The women he claimed to have conquered, while they were simply abused because of his money and power. He was his brother and was so similar to his father. His mother had been conquered in the same way by the noble Ruggerus, one of the heroes of the Falkovnian wars in the north. He felt different from them. He -was- different. He liked Sturben and its people. He liked the inns and the bath house, and the market, but he was really happy just in the woods east, towards Ilvin. Sometimes he even missed the smell of sulphur. The memories of his father's estate though made him sick all the time, and he moved on.

He might have abused of her. He was not an animal. He was not Christian. There was a pack to shape and protect. He was just looking for some warmth. She upset him and then with one sentence or a movement made him happy. He thought maybe she was right about his being too young. All this was too new for him. And a constant distraction. He would have grown used to it. He was afraid. He was really afraid. Because he felt he might have become used at it. At being confused and happy.
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Finally Arden managed to have Storm and Riva meeting. The first behaved paranoically as usual, the latter was overly secretive. He could not say the meeting went differently from what he had foreseen, it was just a matter of time, since trust is nothing which can be bought cheap and fast. They adventured together, the three, as a pack in formation, and they risked, a lot. Yet they managed to survive, the pack proved strong this time.

Arden was worried and happy at the same time. Before that adventure Storm had explained him about her problems. She claimed they had asked about him, because they were aware she was actually protected when with him. On a side he felt proud of himself, managing to appear strong. On the other she told also that they might have gone in numbers if she was with him all the time. Thus, he needed to let her go when she felt his own life was in danger. Arden did not understand this at first. He felt just rejection, excuses. Their first kiss, though, swept away all his doubts, and he stopped wondering, he stopped asking.

He was feeling fine. He was losing, though, his attitude to think in present tense. More and more often he started having future thoughts , more and more he started to think about Sturben and what he had left behind himself. Storm kept repeating him he was just nineteen and with a life ahead to live. He looked back in anger to his first fifteen years, the waste, the pain of the loss, the sense of injustice. Borca was not a place where he would have come back. Barovia, his new home in the past year, was proving dangerous in a different way, and sure no less than Sturben. No way to run here, and a reason to fight. She told her this teasing her when she shot an arrow to him. It would have not been a stroll.
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Monja was ready. She had been his only companion for the past months, before Storm and Saber appeared in his life. He had kept her secretly, not telling to anyone about her existance. He had started to hint about her just recently, because he knew she was almost ready to become adult, and follow him in his wanderings. He had gone back to Vallaki for that reason, to reach a specific cave where he had trained her to stay for safety. She was obedient. She was tame. She was ready. And Dom probably would have found a nice companion for her.

He had spent the previous days more with Saber than Storm. He had his problems at understanding fully the former. It was clear she was ambitious and was eager to improve fast. Storm, being an elf, was more used at less fast rhythms. They all were learning several crafts, as a community, everyone sharing what the other needed. For Arden it worked. Arden knew, though, this would have not lasted for long. Saber had come to kill someone, he had even questioned him if, in case that someone had approached him, which of those he would have helped. Arden did not reply. The question was too weird. She hinted of a wolf following her. Chasing. He would have investigated about it.

Storm was cause of worry and constant thought for Arden. When he was with her he felt tongue-tied and able just to tell stupid things, which hid too much in vaguety what he really meant. But probably Storm always understood what he meant, and it was a new situation for her too. He yearned for another kiss. A kiss is just a kiss but it meant a lot for Arden especially for the fact Storm was not really what could be called a sociable person. He saved her again in his last trip to Vallaki. It was becoming a norm. She had saved him once.

He thought less and less about Borca and Sturben. He felt his family was here and now. No looking back. But looking forward meant worry and fear. He broswed his bags, and thought the best would have been thinking to his present and to his learning. Monja howled from beyond the village walls. He recognized her. She needed more training. He flipped his hood on, untied his bow, and rushed in the woods.
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He was working hard. He was not feeling fatigued for it, he knew the pack needed his work. Take what you need, give what you can. He was taking really a little and was giving basically most it all. Many days had passed and none of Saber and Storm appeared anywhere. The company of Monja in his wandering was revealing quite comforting. He had the sense of the imminent collapse of what they called "pack". He would repeat to himself he did not care, but it was simply a lie.

He was not clearly alone in the Village. He could sniff in the air the presence of other people going in the same spots he visited for the several materials he needed to work. As usual he seldom stopped to talk with anyone he met. Yet in a cave a lady asked him questions. He replied, maybe she was not happy of what he said. She was dressed in the same fashion of those evil druids who had tried to kill him. As a matter of fact, at his own question of who she was, she replied she was his nightmare.

And he would dream of his mother and of what he had found out at the age of fourteen. Her fringe permanently covering her forebrow, hiding one of the greatest secrets. And the fight for her his father had fought was not just a metaphor. Arden Lord Stanic. He watched the seal his father had prepared for him. Nonsense, yet he stored it. He had been away for five years, so far, and yet he could not cut that last bond. Dreams. Nightmares. He started missing Sturben. He would have never gone back.
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What was happening around them was dramatic. Storm was chased by vrolocks and by Garda. It was not a simple situation. Until they kept on with that kind of life, he thought, there would have not been any problems. Yet in any rainy day some sunbeam still manages to filter through the clouds giving away a glimpse of hope.

Monja and Dom became very easily friends. She accepted his leading role and they could clearly see all the rituals of the mating. Within the pack, another real pack seemed to be forming. Arden tried his best to keep the training and the equipping of Storm. His hard hours in front of a cauldron, a woodwork or leatherwork table, a forge, and now in front of an alchemical table, were starting to give successful fruits.

They went on the village of Krofburg after having spent the whole night in Midway. They bathed. The joked. He asked her to test one of the varnishes he had prepared. And she harmed him, eventually asking him to do the same. And he profited of that to make a weird blood oath with her. On mount Ghakis they were fine and serene, as if all the troubles around them had disappeared for a moment. And he managed finally to make her laugh. It was an accomplishment, he believed. And then, they slept in the same bed. In her dreams she moved closer to him and embraced him. He felt terrorized.

And he slept too. And dreams came to him. His mother fringe and her tattoo on her forehead. He had told Storm some days before about Borcans and their mingled origins, partly Barovian, partly Mordentish. He knew he was mingled as well. And he had never came to terms with that.
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He remembered how he found out about his mother, helping her with her hair before one of the party Ruggerus had planned in their estate. He had heard many tales about the wars fought in the north, the same ones which made his father known and eventually rich. It was a sad epiphany for him discovering that his own mother had been part of some ancient pundering in the southern border of Falkovnia. Yet he was too scared to ask, too worried to know what he would have not been able to put up with. And his aim was to make his mother smile and laugh, not to sadden her, or himself, with tales which were, at that time, at least twenty years old, the age of his brother Christian. And then there was the party, everyone had to appear happy in their noble outfits. He would have found more, but not that night.

Storm called him "Big child". He was definitely taller than her. They met again in the Village east. She thought he would have waited for her to wake up. He replied he was scared to deal with her and that if he had been in contact to her was unintentional and because she moved closer in her sleep. Her only eye scrutinezed him. And she reassured him. He was not good with words, and felt very goofy in occasions like this one. It seemed it was going to be a new beginning. Uncertainity was the only direction for it.

He helped again Rivanon. The lady was mysterious but she did not seem having second goals in her friendship to him. They went together to explore a cave. They were overwhelmed by giant bugs. Only the stubborness of Arden allowed the three of them to go out and find a way to the temple. There was another man with them, Edvard. His accent seemed Mordentish, Arden at first disliked him by default. The common goal of survival moved away that feeling.

He was learning survival skills. He was no more the young boy crying at his mother's funeral. He would have fight from now on to defend himself and the people he cared for. The road ahead stretched in his mind long and dangerous. He thought he was ready to make his first step on it.

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He had a dreamless sleep with her at his side. It happened again, this time he was the one sleeping though. And he felt comfortable as when he was a child and with his mother alive. Things were going as he wanted. He had even managed to make a bow which proved very effective against undead. It was an unstable balance which could collapse from a moment to another. But for now he was happy.

For some days he did not meet Storm, while Saber had disappeared for quite a long. He spent, thus, some time to make quivers of copper arrows. He was planning to improve also in that, maybe one day managing to work with silver. Silver. That metal which was considered even more precious than gold in Borca.

The Wyrmsbreath. The skin of that man melting like wax in the leatherworker boiler. The punishment. Baroneasa Ritter in her stage, his father and his mother in her very small group. And little Arden with Christian watching that show, half amused, half curious, and at the end completely terrorized. Never again. Punished for a theft.

He would have not watched passively again such a show. Not in Sturben, nor elsewhere. He had something else to do now. The pack. And Storm. Survival was the first goal. The rest would have followed.
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The man named Raven was a good help in trying to retrieve those oozes he was using to make small varnishes. It had not been enough though and Arden felt disappointed. He felt even more disappointed by the fact Raven told him he had not seen Saber in a while. Arden pretended control, but he was worried about her. It simply added to the fact that also Storm was missing, and he definitely knew the reason why. He had left a letter for her. She replied. She was alive. He had ready a spear for her protection.

Then he met again a woman, he named her Fog at first, because she came through the Mists. She seemed not to remember too much about her past, not even her name. The amount of information Arden had provided her was probably overwhelming. After some hunting she remembered her own name, Natsumi, she said. It was clearly an Outlander name. Arden was puzzled by that feeling he usually had when he -knew- from the most intimate of his deep that he had to help someone.

It was like a daydream. The night dreams in fact were getting worse. He soon realised that it was caused mainly in the periods he spent a lot of time all on his own. And he would whine silently, and call his mother while sleeping. The world was harsher than what he had fancied when he had run away. As a reaction he was working harder, as the miner pick which tore the rock.
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He was aware that was not normal, irrational to say the less. He felt he had to stay again around Vallaki because someone he needed to help was coming. His friend Raven showed his curiosity about this feeling, and Arden could not explain it fully. Then their talks, in those wet and dangerous caves, moved in the subject of mothers. And distraction came. And Raven fell and Arden had to take him to be revived.

The man who was with that woman who had given him some minor help for survival when he had just moved in Barovia gave him some materials to work with, in change of something he had found and could not yet use. And he suggested him to check for an alchemy laboratory in Dementlieu. And he went. And he argued with an Ezrite who had refused to heal him. And he found the laboratory.

Then a sudden thought. His mother who wanted him to study in Dementlieu, as most noble sons did, and he went to check. He found a bank account. Heidi Muller Stanic. He proved being her son. He found out the money she had stored for his studies were still there. It seemed his own past was still stalking him. He would have not touched that money unless needed. And his only needs were those of the pack.

He could not put up with the foppish people of Dementlieu. She felt sick for several days. And his nightmares got worse.
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He met his first friends again. Saber told him she was dedicating herself at growing up a wolf. He met also Storm. She was in trouble with law. A man had helped her, about the age of Arden. He was relieved and annoyed at the same time. He had spent many days alone and apart the incidents in the swamps of the Village, he had been very careful on everything. He was not a coward, he was just wise.

The days in Vallaki were rather productive and he managed to improve a lot in making varnishes and arrows in bronze and some harder leathers. His progresses were not fast, but they were constant. He felt as if there was maybe no limit to what he could learn. He felt, sometimes, the intimations of eternity of youth. Vallaki still upset him. He persuaded Storm to move with him, to counter-check the bank-account in Port-à-Lucine.

She wanted him. It was clear. Yet she was there, paralyzed, afraid to get something for the worry of losing it. She said she could not be attatched to him. He said he already was to her. She replied him not to repeat it. She asked him to keep that secret. They had played Jeu Force, the favourite game of Ruggerus and Christian. During those times he simply listened to the tales of Heidi, besides a fireplace. He was wearing the suit he had used for his mother's funeral. He felt her besides him. He told Storm he liked her. Storm told him she liked him.

Yet, Storm and Arden were playing a Jeu Force game. The previous one was going to be won by her, but they stopped. The game now was not played on a board. It was their lives.
« Last Edit: March 18, 2010, 05:19:55 PM by +Ciaran+ »
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Things were becoming more complicated, simply because he did not manage to give the right expression to his own words or actions. They spoke for quite a long and he was not good at words, he felt very more comfortable on a worktable or besides a cauldron, or even a forge. Yes, he was able to dance and sing too, but performing elaborate speeches was not his forte. She explained him the details of the issues she had had with the strong Militia woman. She would have met her. And, as in other times, Arden should have just trusted Storm would have come back.

He had seen her bathing, invisible, curiously, while setting the table for their dinner. Even when he made some noises on purpose to make her understand he was there, she kep on her business. He became almost mute. And she managed to extract words from his mouth. Words coming directly from within him, from his heart. His words were bold. Not romantic, nor rude. They simply were what he meant, he was good at expressing for once. Maybe too bold.

She cornered him, he had no way out from that room. She kissed him. And the twilight covered them. A dusky future well protected in a warm present.
« Last Edit: March 21, 2010, 05:08:18 AM by +Ciaran+ »
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He was sitting there by the fireplace, overwhelmed by past memories and the effects of those on his nowadays. The time of uncertainity, of mutual teasing, of muttered half-words, had ended and the facts had spoken louder. They had been just one, and it was the time he was the most happy, and at the same time the moment in which he started most to fear to lose her.

She had told him of the story of a mysterious book, the militia woman involved and the name known as Poisson. He saw she was badly interested at it, he was not, he preferred leaving the real supernatural to heroes and martyrs, he preferred a matter-of-fact life. Yet he would not have left her alone, despite what he had claimed. He simply could not. He did not want it. The winter had come and they had moved briefly around Vallaki.

He remembered when Raven, the other friend of the pack, complimented his hand-made bows and leathers. He had done many a progress, also in working iron. Steel would have been the next step. Storm and Arden moved to search gargoyle pelts. Those stoney skins were very effective in leather armours, and he was sure he would have been able to make one for her too. They were starting having a decent gear, but he was aware that lowering the guard could have been deadly.

Her scars. Her story. He made her laugh. He would have been the healer of her most intimate self. He would have not lost her as he lost his own mother.
« Last Edit: March 26, 2010, 05:45:12 AM by +Ciaran+ »
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He was asked to get a bear for the local Militia by the one woman who had become Storm's friend, Nephis. Somehow things were gradually changing though not completely. Storm had new issues with Garda and Arden simply paid a fine she had received not to have further issues. Vallaki Garda recognized him because of the box he had found in the Village. He did not believe in Gundarakite revolution. It was nationalistic, people needed a class revolution.

The previous days he had found out, with a mist-surrounded Ezrite, that the priests of the Morninglord were hiding some mystery, some scary mystery. With Storm, Marle and two other people he was not introduced to, they fight hundreds of powerful undead, and chains and books and rooms were all traces to some hidden truth, which remained hidden.

She told him she was worried about him, that she cared about him, that she trusted him because he had proved to be, in time, really what he appeared. She said he was like her, a free mind, fighting for his own freedom and she was glad to be at his side. He was surprised of this declaration. He scratched his back and managed just to say that he loved her. It had been a turning point even more important than that in Midway. He was confused, it was the first time for him, but he knew he would have done everything in his abilities to keep her safe. And they would have gotten used at this new life of theirs. A simple sequel of their lives so far.
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He showed her the maps of Barovia and Borca there in Midway. It was as for the very first time he managed to have her visualize where he came from. He hinted her of his half-Falkovnian origin because of his mother. Eventually, in the museum of Port-à-Lucine, he would have showed her the leader of that land, standing among his victims. Storm joked about it, she liked appearing strong to Arden.

They had moved to acquire some things they knew they could have found just there. Arden persuaded her to buy a dress, to wear when with him. And it was their real first time, the Broken Spire, she gave him the chance to defeat her in wrestling. At first she showed she was actually stronger, then, a mixture of Arden's pride and of her will to lose made the rest. He won the chance, and it was the very first time their bodies became one only, their minds already seemed to be so.

She told him she was happy. He was happy too, and afraid to lose this. While walking on the streets of Port-à-Lucine he thought for a moment this maybe was his mother Heidi wished for him, a comfortable and happy life. His path, after her death, had taken all another direction. He was not being lazy, he was doing it all he could to make Storm happy. She asked him if he was sure. He was. They spoke about her scars. He was not sure she really did not pay attention as she claimed about it. He liked her as she was, he did not mind of her look. Her body was warm close to his, he would have not allowed her more scars. Sometimes he wished to have some scars himself to show her how he was like her. But she knew he was.
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At the midnight hour, or when high up is the sun,
Ready for the future, or thoughts of what's been done,
Destiny is now,
Endless bow,
Never quitting the present, and never the fun.
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Spring finally came, and despite the area where they were residing was in Arden's view the most profitable to gather the newly born blossoms, they decided to move northern of Vallaki to explore new areas, and to improve against their main foes. Arden felt happy, he saw Storm improving day by day, she spoke less and less of her fears and it seemed they had found a sort of balance. It all started with their wolves, Dom and Monja, before of them with all the others who had joined their pack, Saber, Riva, Raven.

Riva was there laying, half-drained. The exploration for her, alone, had not been rewarding. Storm and Arden used all their swiftness, their deadly blows, in a macabre dance with the vampires, the vampires falling down their feet. They exhulted and soon they had to take care of Riva's body. It was heavy, the young priestess did not move, the two rangers had switches in carrying her. Luckily for them they met the elf Aduial, who had helped in the past also Saber. She was there, again, alive, in that sort of miracle only priests could do. Yet both Arden and Storm shared their thoughts about religion: they were not against its power, but the political use the priests tried always to have on others in the name of the faith. No sermon followed, they went to rest to the nearby lodge.

The pack was curious as a cat, they found a secret passage. And wolves against the wolves they fought their way out of that place which smelled of death. At first Arden thought they had been kidnapped by Mists who knows where. After the many hours of fighting they were reached by Dom, and eventually by Monja. They were not far from the lake, they were probably below it, somehow. The wolves tried to kill them. The pack was simply stronger. The strength of a pack.

The following days kept on calmer. Arden kept on working with his varnishes which were revaling very useful in their explorations. And then the earthquake and the smell of rotten. A bad omen. He needed to find Storm...

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