Homecoming

[Mikayla]

Homecoming

The cargo hold of the Neverwinter Lady was dark, wet and near to freezing. The ship’s timbers creaked incessantly, punctuated by the periodic crashing of waves against the wooden hull. It was no place for people to sleep, but that was exactly what Vellya Alfarsdottir was trying to do. She lay in a hammock suspended between two posts, her bottom brushing across the tops of barrels stowed just beneath her. She was wrapped in a bearskin, near to soaking as the hatch above her leaked in streams of salty water with every wave that crested over the prow of the ship. Vellya, however, was no stranger to this hold. She had made this journey before …

***

The sky above Ruathym was the dull gray of a sword left untended for far too long. It was, Vellya thought, the exact same sky she had seen when she left the island many years earlier, running away from an arranged marriage to seek her destiny on the mainland. It was the sky of her youth. No sun, no blue, just gray; as bleak and as cold and as unforgiving as the rocky coast beneath it. Vellya stepped from the Neverwinter Lady’s longboat onto a small gravel beach sandwiched between two menacing rock formations that kept the ship itself far from shore. She was home. After years abroad, living in the Silver Marches on the mainland, Vellya Alfarsdottir had returned to the place of her birth. This beach was but a few miles from her Jarl’s steading. She could smell the pines in the forest up ahead, the salty sea, and the earthy fragrance of the rocks themselves. The scents brought back a rushing tide of memories, threatening to drown her in melancholy reminiscence. But she did not drown. She was no longer the young, illiterate girl she had been when she had fled this place. No, Vellya Alfarsdottir was a woman now. She had learned to read and write; she had taken lovers; she had fought battles and she had been made a Knight of the Red Falcons. No man, not even the Jarl himself, could bend Vellya to his will if she did not wish it. And that was why she had returned. It was time to see her mother again, and time to show her village what she had become; a woman and a warrior, with nothing to fear and no man to call lord.

Vellya wore her crimson armor; heavy plate, embossed with the symbol of the Red Knight. On her left arm was her matching shield, and on her hip was her sword. In her right hand she carried her war-axe. Her arms and armor were more than mere tools of her trade or signs of her office; they were a challenge to the Jarl, his son, and their fighting men, the housecarls. Vellya would not be cowed. She was a warrior, worthy of respect. And she was prepared to earn that respect with the edge of her blade. She was prepared to fight with each and any of them, one at a time or all at once if need be. Tempus would favor her courage, and the Red Knight would reward her skill – win or lose, live or die, Vellya would make her gods proud. She would not suffer the unjust commands of the Jarl, she would not remain quiet just because she was a woman, and she would not give way to any man that had not proven himself her better. She would inspire the women of the village, lead them if need be, and she would withstand whatever the Jarl threw at her.

But none of that ever came to pass.

When the village learned that it’s prodigal, half-breed daughter had returned, it simply welcomed her. The welcome was neither a great celebration nor a heated confrontation. It was the welcome of a polite people to a distant acquaintance. It was the welcome that the village might give to a wealthy merchant from the mainland who had come to discuss mercantile affairs with the Jarl. Indeed, the Jarl had invited Vellya to his table at the hall, to recount her tales of war and bravery. The Jarl’s son, that “pig boy” Vellya had so despised, was married now to another girl. They had two children already. The Jarl’s son had filled out, and parenthood had matured him faster than any confrontation with the new Vellya could have hoped too. Vellya’s mother had remarried and moved out of the Jarl’s hall. She lived on a farm with her new husband now. Vellya’s beloved Uncle had finally passed, quietly, in bed. A shame she supposed, as he had been a warrior of Tempus like all the fit men of the village, but a fitting end in its own way to a man who preferred peace over war.

Vellya stayed for a few nights at the Jarl’s hall, waiting for what she thought was the inevitable confrontation, but the confrontation never came. She spent a month living with her mother on the farm, but found herself ill suited to the lifestyle. There was too much work and too little fun. It was good to see her mother again and even better to see her mother happy. But the farm life was not for Vellya. She went back to the Jarl’s hall, in the heart of the village, and stayed there for many months. She did not return to serving mead of course, no, that was handled by other women. Indeed, the folk of the hall treated Vellya more like one of the Jarl’s housecarls than anything else. Leaving her armor behind, Vellya tried her hand at joining the women of the hall, but Vellya had no skill at sewing, weaving or cooking. The women watched her with some amusement and Vellya knew she was subject to far more gossip than she was privy too. Surprisingly, she found greater camaraderie with the men of the hall, with whom she would often go hunting. They too kept their distance however, as Vellya simply wasn’t one of them.

During the winter, Vellya lay about the hall, occasionally making forays out into the snow to hunt the few creatures still moving about. She tried again to help with the chores around the hall, but found she caused more difficulties than she solved. The women who really ran the hall had been doing so for years, and they did not need a bumbler like Vellya interrupting their routine. So, to pass the time, Vellya drank, and on more than one occasion, got so drunk she made a fool of herself, either professing her great love for the folk of the village or challenging them to fight her and test her mettle before Tempus and the Red Knight. The folk of the village paid little attention. They were used to the Jarl’s fighting men getting drunk and saying stupid things; it was the norm. The only thing that was different was that it was a half-elf woman doing it now, not one of the regular men.

The truth was that the village had moved on. It had not dwelled on Vellya and her departure in the way that Vellya had dwelled on the past. Instead, it just kept plodding forward as it had done for generations. It was Vellya that had been living in the past, not the village. And it was Vellya that needed to grow up, not the villagers.

Come spring Vellya drank less and hunted more. She got fit again, and when the weather broke, she was invited to go on a raid by one of the village’s ship captains. She was tempted. It was her chance to prove herself in battle to her people. But what was the point? She was already treated like a housecarl, and perhaps even better since she was not really subject to the Jarl’s orders. What was left to prove? And there was something worse; she did not want to raid the mainland. The raiders were not going to be raiding in the Silver Marches per se, but Vellya had come to know the mainlanders and she no longer thought of them as decadent, dishonest evil-doers who deserved the Ruathym raiders’ ire. They were people, just like her people. So, she declined the invitation.

And that was when she knew what she had to do …

***

“Wake up lass.” Said a gruff voice. “This be yer port I reckon.”

Vellya blinked and squinted against the harsh, bright light streaming in from the open hatch above her. Her hammock was no longer swaying, and while the timbers still creaked, there were no waves crashing against the hull. Seeing that Vellya was awake, the gravel-voiced sailor moved on. Vellya swung herself out of the hammock, keeping her damp fur wrapped tightly around her body. She walked up the steep steps that led out of the cargo hold and stood on the deck.

The ship was anchored near the shore of a river that cut its way between rocky hills on either side. The crew was loading cargo, including Vellya’s bags, into a longboat they were preparing to launch. Just upriver from the ship was a small island in the river, ringed by a wooden palisade and the occasional tree. Sharply peaked rooftops poked up from behind the wall, as if to peek over, their chimneys slowly leaking dark smoke into the bright blue sky. Along the shore of the reed-filled passage between the island and the river bank were the remains of a dozen wooden barricades and defenses, used and broken during the many orc raids that descended from the rocky hills like an avalanche. This was Rivermoot. Vellya had come home.

[danielmn]

YAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!

[Riotnrrd]

oooooooooh snap!

WELCOME BACK CANT WAIT.

[dergon darkhelm]

I know you did not have the power to escape ALFA's gravitational pull!

Welcome back to ground ....err......home.

[Magile]

Welcome back. Even though we had our differences before your departure, I'm glad to see you back to playing again.

[mr duncan]

Welcome back. Cant wait to see you in game. As always, masterfully written.

J

[Aitana]

Welcome back Mik... it will be great to see you in game again.

[Vendrin]

None can resist my siren song!

[Mikayla]

It looks like I posted too soon. I had intended on playing with Vendrin's Exalted campaign, but then I had something come up on Monday. I will try again next Monday.

[Rotku]

Welcome back, Mikayla!

There's still an AR spot open for you if you're ever interested

[darrenhfx]

How did I miss this? Welcome back