Within the swirling Mist (IC) > Biographies
By the Moonlight: Anastasia 'Nastia' Caris
Euniana:
Prelude
The Carises were not devouts of Selūne. Though they sought her blessings at times as most Faerūnians do, their faith lay elsewhere. Cander Caris was a woodsman, a follower of Silvanus. Elena Caris (née Blake) had been an itinerant priestess of Ilmater who retired from her active ministry to raise a family with her husband. The two somewhat settled in the small village of Northbrook, not far from the great city of Silverymoon. Though the couple were formally retired from the dangerous lifestyle of adventurers, the Carises maintained something of their old wanderlust. Travelling much of the year, Cander worked as a hunter, and Elena as a healer.
The Carises were Illuskan through and through, but Elena was said to have a Rashemi ancestor, though she knew hardly anything of that side of her heritage. The only remaining aspect of it was a family tradition, where the female offspring were given Rashemi names -- so it was that their child came to be named Anastasia 'Nastia' Caris. Despite their different faiths, all the circumstances surrounding their child's birth convinced them that their daughter was meant for the Moonmaiden. Conceived under a full moon and born under a blue moon in 1362 DR, Anastasia 'Nastia' Caris was dedicated to the goddess as a newborn babe. Her affinity to the wild and inability to sit still for long, traits inherited apparently from her parents, made her a curious child who accompanied her parents on long treks into the mountains, as far as the Spine of the World where the Carises maintained a lodge. Despite the difficult physical demands, the young Nastia would learn to love the frigid north despite all its challenges, and they would go on to remind her of the happy years she spent with her parents.
Nastia was a quiet and introspective child with few friends, a consequence of her family's near-constant movement and lack of strong roots. Nonetheless, she would come to make a lifelong friend in the young reclusive wild elf Callithyra, when she found the child obliviously lost at night in the woods. The wild elf would come to be something of a guardian angel for the child, watching her grow up and occasionally visiting her to provide much-needed company. Though Nastia never realized it and always credited Selūne's watchful eye, it was the wild elf's many private interventions that kept the child's curiosity from leading her into doom. When tragedy struck in Nastia's seventh year, it was again Callithyra who whisked her back to safety.
The Carises had planned a trip deep into the Spine, tracking a group of yetis that were harrassing local Uthgardt camps. Though they left Nastia behind in the lodge for safety, the child rather recklessly followed in secret. Nastia would slip and fell into a crevasse, where Callithyra rescued her and brought her back to Northbrook. For her parents, it didn't work out so well. They went on to find that the Uthgardt camps they were intending to help had been devastated by tribes of bugbears driven out from their lair by orcish activity. Something was stirring in the Spine and causing a chain of disruptions and displacements that threatened to spill further south, potentially threatening even the Silver Marches. Without warning, Northbrook would not stand a chance.
The Carises fled back to their lodge, which they found ransacked and occupied by an orcish warband. Assuming the worst and driven to despair, they threw themselves at their daughter's presumed murderers. only to be mortally wounded. Cander was carried off by his vanquishers, never to be seen alive again, and Elena fled down the mountains, barely able to pass warning to a frontier settlement before succumbing to her injuries. Thanks to their sacrifice, armies from the Silver Marches and their allies mustered in time to put the hordes from the Spine to rout before they could fully assemble. Though some speculated that the drow were the true masterminds, no concrete proof was ever found. The frozen, half-eaten remains of Cander Caris would only be found years later in the mountains by a traveller. The remains of the Carises came to be interred in Northbrook, where the two were remembered as heroes.
As for the newly orphaned Nastia, it was the church of Selūne that opened their arms to her. The priestesses Bethany Helder and Mara Bergen would raise her as one of their own, schooling her in their ways. They would quickly realize, however, that the child's destined path, though illuminated by Selūne, was to be a different one from that which they took. Nastia's blessings made her more suited as a champion than for the priesthood. With no suitable Selūnite warriors to serve as Nastia's mentor, the priestesses turned to an old friend of Elena Caris's, an Ilmatari paladin serving in the Knights in Silver, Sir Dimitri Duskwood. Nastia served under him first as a page and then as a squire, blossoming under his harsh but competent tutelage.
The quirks of Sir Dimitri's brand of discipline would mould Nastia in particular ways. Her curiosity would be reshaped into a keen love for learning, her wanderlust into a deep compassion for the realms. The chaste and austere knight -- it was said that he took up a vow of chastity after a failed suit for Elena's hand -- would teach Nastia the values of propriety and modesty, something that would come to play a role in her inner turmoil as they battled her youthful yearnings for something more than lifelong celibacy. Still, she never found love in her brief life in Toril.
On her eighteenth birthday, in 1380 DR, Nastia Caris was due to be knighted. Unfortunately, orcish hordes once again stirred in the north, and the knights were mobilized. Preferring a formal ceremony to an impromptu dubbing, Sir Dimitri delayed her knighting as they rode out north. What was supposed to be a weeks-long delay would turn out to be much longer than they had anticipated, as the tendrils of the Mists wove their way into Toril and snatched Nastia into their dreadful embrace...
Euniana:
*This is the beginning of a new journal, written in an Illuskan shorthand of Nastia's own devising. Code is used to substitute keywords and phrases, and the text is likely to be illegible and innocuous.*
It has been months since I arrived in these misted lands. I suppose it's past time I collected my thoughts on parchment. Though it has not been long by any objective method of reckoning, I feel as though a lifetime has passed. It seemed eons ago that She last spoke to me in a way that elicited no doubt. And the harshness of this cursed world has been harrowing on my soul, though it has also strengthened and hardened under the pressure. I suppose there is much that I have survived, and I now wield blessings that I could've only dreamt of back home. Everything I knew back home so ill prepared me for all this that I feel I've learnt more here than I had in a lifetime of devotion.
Despite all that, I'm still only an eighteen-year-old, with the kind of worldly experience that would entail. I'm young, naļve, and incompetent. I wish to help but know not how to use my strengths properly. I'm weak, not just physically or spiritually, but also in not knowing how to help without it backfiring. I've made more friends here than I ever had back home, and for that, I'm grateful -- but it also means I lean on them more than I truly should. I have to learn to stand on my own two feet one day and not just count on others to clean up my mess -- literally as well as metaphorically.
Rhea [the word 'the artificer' is used in here, and the pronoun 'he' is used from this point on in reference] is perhaps a prime reflection of all my failures. I want to trust her, despite knowing that she has repeatedly proven less than trustworthy. Her life of crime [the words 'his mischief' is substituted for the phrase] troubles me, and it is perhaps for the best that I know as little as possible. Nonetheless, I fear that in lending her my sympathy and aid -- though there is precious little I've truly done for her -- I help to perpetuate a greater evil. Thaelandriel and Hestiana [initialled as T. H. and referred to in the singular in the coded text] are often here to counsel me, but I fear my idealism will drag them down with me.
Thaelandriel [written only as 'Th' in Espruar, the elven script of Faerūn, referred to hereafter in the feminine in code] has come to mean much to me. This is a relationship [the word used seems to refer more specifically to a business relationship] the ways of which I'm unfamiliar with. I hope I do not hurt him ['shortchange her' is used in code]. He is older and wiser, and I am young and foolish. It's my fear that I will bring him down into ruin, and I fervently pray I do not do so out of ignorance and incompetence.
It is strange to think that I am a knight now. I shudder to think that the girl I was some moons ago was even supposed to have been dubbed. I feel less ready than ever, and this burden is not something I feel ready to bear. At times, it feels less of an achievement and more of a hollow symbol, as my new title is recognized nowhere in the Core. Nonetheless, I must resist this tendency of despair that I've experienced lately. I must not bring dishonour to Her.
I hope to revisit this journal soon after and record more of my thoughts.
Euniana:
*This entry contains three Illuskan-themed ballads.*
1.
Eala, westerlies wax,
For winter comes; it is well-nigh.
Sing the song of the longspur,
For winter comes; it is well-near.
Last of the leaves, lost to the winds,
Rimed with the last of my love,
Sing the song of the longspur!
The bear buries her weary weight,
And the ermine wears her white.
Fowl hum at last their farewell hymn
And ride the azure road.
The bunting croons his lullaby,
And may it not soon cease,
For winter comes; it is now here --
My heart in hoarfrost throbs.
2.
Rising, rising, leap and fly,
May the risen moon shine tender.
Ere I close my dying eyes,
I pray the moon my heart to comfort. [or should it be I pray Selūne? I am uncertain]
Take my hands and take my ears,
Take my greying hair and lips.
Let my feet one last time walk
To climb that silvery light above.
3.
Let wintry winds sweep that old grave
That autumn leaves had covered up.
Deep drifts of snow shall be his cloak,
Selūne his only loyal friend.
Oh how I mourn and how I sigh,
How this world's joy all goes to naught.
Heartbeats shall cease -- or they may not --
A difference I do not perceive.
Spring rains descend on that old grave
And batter down the silent ward.
New flowers sprout, though soon they die,
Lathander his lone faithful guard. [switch line with above?]
Oh how I mourn and how I sigh,
How this world's joy all goes to naught.
Heartbeats shall cease -- or they may not --
A difference I do not perceive.
Dry warmth creeps round on that old grave
And wears away the faded words.
A death forgot, amidst life lost,
Jergal his only silent judge.
Oh how I mourn and how I sigh,
How this world's joy all goes to naught.
Heartbeats shall cease -- or they may not --
A difference I do not perceive.
As autumn sings on that old grave,
A cycle once more come and gone,
The harvest comes to reap anew,
Silvanus his last comforter. [or Mielikki?]
Oh how I mourn and how I sigh,
How this world's joy all goes to naught.
Heartbeats shall cease -- or they may not --
A difference I do not perceive.
Euniana:
*Another Illuskan-themed ballad*
4.
A parting from thee -- unbridled my sorrow;
A lachrymose gaze -- unstopping my ache.
Remembrance of love is a song writ for twain.
I will not soon change -- and neither willst thou.
So brighten thy tears and with booming voice sing:
This song from my heart, 'tis for thee and for me.
Gaze upon me, and say 'Forget me not.'
Thine eyes I too see are alight with regret.
Our parting was done; the past is now past.
And yet in my heart -- thy visage still shines.
So brighten thy tears and with booming voice sing:
This song from my soul, 'tis for me and for thee.
Art thou now embarking for places afar?
A desolate ending is not what I have sought.
Will there be a morrow to greet my bleak heart,
Or will it too wilt like this snow-mantled rose?
So brighten thy tears and with booming voice sing:
This song from my mind, 'tis for thee and for me.
Euniana:
*A frantic journal entry, written in a trembling hand in Illuskan*
By the gods, it was like nothing I've seen. A giant, monstrous, serpentine thing, with mist snaking around its grotesque form.
It opened its gaping maw, and I felt a tinge of queasiness, which grew explodingly into a tidal wave of nausea. All my strength drained out of me. My knees buckled under my weight, and the thing pounced on me.
Its attention wasn't even on me. I was just an obstacle in its way: something to be batted aside, no more than a bug in the path of an advancing wagon. Crushed under a wheel without anyone taking notice or giving it a second thought. Probably the only reason I even lived. And for what?
I want to go home.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version