Home Bitter Home - Chapter I: Section I

[Flamebird]

An oak cup of black coffee was placed on a pine table.

The backdrop of people drinking and chattering, dishes clanging and mugs being slapped against sound surfaces, and dim lighting was what Felicity found herself in. The sound of fire snapping and fizzing on a wood pile brought long desired warmth from a fireplace only a table or so away from them. As everyone in the room did their own thing, a quartet of guitarists strummed a ballad so melancholy it sounded like the works of a Raiaeran bard. The tavern this all took place in, Smilidon's Saber, was really no different than any other bar and inn on Althanas. It was full of mostly weird drunkards and one or two sane people talking actual business - that be Felicity and the guy she met back the bounty boards.

This guy was currently gulping down a beverage. After several moments of chugging, he slammed his empty cup against the table, "Ah, nothing quite as nice as a cup 'o steaming Joe on a freezing evening in the mountains, eh, missy?"

Felicity just nervously smiled, taking her own cup's handle.

The man wiped his wet, thin beard, "Coffee, the elixir of life..."

Felicity only stared at him for a moment, "Oooookaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy... What's my possiba mission?"

The man leaned back in his chair, which creeked in response as he rested his legs on the table itself, "Well, miss Knopsnider, I should start by introducing myself. Name's Javan. I'm majorly a scholar and historian. If 'ya ever need a history lesson on Eiskalt, I'm your man. I've been doing lotsa research on one thing recently that has me intrigued, see? I'm in search of a capable man - or lady - to do a bit of more... in depth... knowledge seeking."

Felicity sipped her coffee, one hand on the knob and the other on the heated cup itself, then spoke, "'Fo what?"

The man grinned, "There's rumors that these mountains hold a massive amount of magic. Perhaps, even, shards of the Tap are in the snow covered peeks. I don't know if you know anything about magic, but neither do we. Magic was never popular to Eiskaltian citizens because it was always foreign and we didn't know of our own land's magical capacity. But now, we've developed knowledge on it... All we need to do is go and find it."

"So basically," Felicity responded, putting her mug down on the rich smelling pine, "I'm wunning into a mountain wooking 'fo magical popeties?"

Javan pulled his arms up, hands behind his head, "Half true. I have a map I've compelled that, according to my readings, should lead to a massive magic well. Maaaassive... Huuuuuuuuuuuge magic source. I don't know what, but according to the readings it's there. I bet you'll know it when you see it."

Felicity nodded, "I see." She lifted the cup up to lips again.

"According to the map, it's in the heart of Verbotenfels."

Felicity spit the coffee out, which landed on Javan's snow boots. "That's lovely..." He sarcastically threw in.

Felicity wiped her mount, "Vat's de hugest mountain in Eiskawt!"

"I know."

"One of de tawest of Awfanas!"

"Uh huh."

"How am I supposed to find some stupid magic souwse you don't even know exists-"

"-I know it exists, but not what it is. Which is why I need to send an explorer out to find out. You'll receive the map!"

Felicity stood up, red hair rippling like fire, "Vis is coming fwom someone who is cwazy, vis is cwazy! I'm sowwy, but I have to tuwn you down." She turned her back on him.

Javan jumped from his comfortable position, "But my rewards include-"

"-Neva cawed about de pay." Felicity crossed her arms.

Javan stammered, "I-I understand it is dangerous. Watching you though, you seem to be the person for the job. Miss Knopsnider, I've been trying for a long time to get support for this. If you go then come back with evidence, I can finally begin my more massive magical projects. It would benefit all of Eiskalt!"

The childhood memories of run down huts and poverty spread across Felicity's mind. She turned her head back to Javan, also recalling the starved cougar she encountered this morning.

Javan got up, starting to beg, "With magic, and a lot of it, on our side Eiskalt could become stronger than without. We could build up magical powers as powerful as the monks of Corone's Citadel. We could resuscitate the valley, affected from the plague. We could bring back our dead loved ones like nothing!"

Bring back dead loved ones?

Grief and sorrow glazed across her evergreen leaf eyes. She had learned from an irrational mentor the dangers of wishing so hopefully and wildly, yet... Jonathan came back to her mind. The blood, that final smile on his face before - ... Felicity closed her eyes, gulping to suppress the tightness in her throat. No, she could not think like that.

"Onwy a sewect few can do vat." Her lisp, her her emotional trauma, was worsening.

Her back was still turned, so she could not see it. Javan's smug face said it all though, he had tangled her in. "Miss Knopsnider, I must say I believe that we have something even some superpowers lack. Eiskalt's magically potential cannot be overlooked. We could become a booming success like even Corone. Alerar and Salvar distrust magic, and they have turned to things that make them unique otherwise. If Eiskalt turned to magic though, as well as take advantage of our natural resources as always... Could you see the technology of Alerar and former magical glory of Raiaera?"

Felicity, who had been to Raiaera herself, turned to him harshly, throwing her arms. "Dew yew know de wastand de ewvish wands aw? Dey aw stiw ovawun wid de undead!"

At this point, several drunk folk were turning their unbalanced heads, caught up by the teen's distressed shouting. Javan sighed, motioning the hormone high teen to quiet down. Realizing she was catching attention, as the band had even stopped playing upon hearing her shouts, she slowly turned red.

"Uh... Heh, heh." She cast a nervous smile and sat back down, gripping her coffee mug tightly with her hands. After a long moment of silence in which the everybody went back to usual business, the band started playing a more cheery tune.

Of course, it didn't not quite fit with the mood Felicity found herself in, but that didn't stop her face alone from unsettling Javan, who seemed to be realizing how foul the immensely sick and broken country of the high elves may have marked her.

"Compawed ta Raiaewa," Felicity broke their silence, her voice reaching a low area of anger almost never touched by her, "Eiskawt was de wowk of an infant... and dat was how many yeaws ago?"

"K-Keep in mind," an obviously unnerved Javan stammered, "Raiaera was not destroyed by trusting in their magic alone." His voice steadly grew calmer, he suddenly seemed to know what he was saying, "And if you look at history, kingdoms rise and fall. Corone, your very own homeland itself is tied in civil war, is that right? Raiaera has fallen, Eiskalt has fallen... But kingdoms also have been known to rise. Alerar has risen to such glorious heights since the new elves were exiled, and why? Because Alerar has something special."

Felicity just looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"If we use whatever resources we have, whether it be lividus chalybs, nixstella, titanium, or magic, Eiskalt could grow stronger and wealthier than even the country that attacked us." A new emotion started to steadily grow in his tone. Anger. "I can assure you, Stahl City is the only successful market in Eiskalt right now. Have you not seen what Alerar and their gunpowder has left us behind with!?!"

Felicity's eyes shone with an equal, if not more, fire in her eyes than before. The small, but frightening enough scowl on her face to say it all. Her voice was low, but not soft, "I can assaw you, I've been in dis pace befor ve war, and I can tew you vat heawing de news of dat mighty gate cowapsing fum Cowone was devastating!"

Javan was now engaged in the conversation, "You've been to Eiskalt before? When?! I bet you don't know what life was like before the war-"

"-I spent my days wotting in a stinkin' cowection of puny wittle huts of stwaw! I saw de fweaking most butaw of et!!-" Realizing her secret was out, her eyes changed from furious to fearful. Her eyes softened in delicate terror, her hand flying across her mouth."

Javan's emerald eyes were wide in confusion, shaded with shock, "Y-you sai-aid 'Ya hail from Corone..."

Felicity slumped in her seat, almost sinking beneath the pine table, "I was bown hewe."

[Flamebird]

Javan looked at Felicity long and hard, his face twisted with various emotions and heavy thoughts. Why had this child lied about her true origins before?

Felicity pulled herself up again, seated in her chair. She was obviously full of hesitation and paranoia. This was the result of losing everything, then being forced to look back. Tears of insecurity were visibly threatening to fall from her eyes.

Javan finally emitted a heavy sigh, "Miss Felicity Knopsnider was it?"

The lost child shook her head, pulling a pen from her pocket and scribbling on a napkin. After several moments of watching her hunkered over the delicate paper cloth, he was rewarded with the dead eyed girl sliding it over to him. Javan placed his hand on the paper to read it, realizing with horror a detail he had never noticed up until now - her pinky was revoltingly twisted beyond repair, a lack of blood making it white like the frothy snow outside Smilidon's Saber. Cautiously, Javan took the napkin and read the sloppy handwriting on it:

Felicity Rhyolite of Deerhorn, southwest eight hours of Stahl.

Javan continued to eye the paper as he spoke, "Many Eiskaltian surnames take after some sort of element or mineral, Miss Rhyolite."

Felicity's voice was soft, almost as frail as the napkin in his hand. The parallels between this and the spitfire brawler he was acquainted so far seemed so odd and unnatural in every way. "Yeah..."

Javan winced at her thin, wrinkled voice far worse than even her shouts from only a moment earlier. "Deerhorn was indeed a poor community. There was only a population of about sixty, and most were acquainted well with each other. In these forested outskirts, however, one thing made that mining settlement a house hold name if anything... and perhaps, we both know what it was..."

A moment of silence was broken by the sound of a light sob, a voice that confirmed she was shedding tears releasing one word into the somber air.

"Me."

"Neanderthals have been bitter enemies with humans since the beginning of our history here." Javan spoke in a surprisingly sympathetic tone, one that puzzled a discombobulated Felicity.

"And yet..." Javan lowered the paper, revealing a curiosity struck face, "Here, across the table from me, is the lovechild of them. I mean, where else does one get red hair like that around here?"

Felicity only kept staring at him. All the while, the adrenaline amped child's hand was slowly edging towards her sword. Beneath the table, Javan would not see it. However, the man could instinctively catch how terrified she was, enough to go for the one thing she had left, her blade.

He slowly dropped his smile, "Child, I lived in the neighboring metropolis of Granite, hearing of a half breed was quite intriguing. Perhaps, it within itself gave me a hope for the arguments today... Our country's new government has been discussing new, more human routes with our natural enemies. I'm pretty sure being treated humanely ourselves has swayed this, alongside the appearance of the Rhovanians."

Beneath the table, Felicity's hand moved from her sword's hilt, to the arm of the pine chair. Her eyes darted, paranoid and confused.

The dark haired Eiskaltian spoke calmly, "What if I told you I too had lied about my own identity? I can understand your reasons for hiding from a world of hate."

Felicity gripped the chair tightly.

"Devlin Cordierite. That is my name. My mission was spoken in truth, I seek to find out more about the magic wells here, and I have a map to boost. However, I do this for my people and my government. Miss Rhyolite, you are speaking to an agent of the Eiskaltian Legal Agency."

[Flamebird]

The Eiskaltian Legal Agency.

Felicity had - unintentionally - revealed her Neanderthal heritage to an agent of the E.L.A. Legal agents and crime snuffers, the only rumored government organization were no warriors, rather just detectives.

Still, despite the warmth of the fire in the tavern, Felicity felt triple times more petrified than Eiskalt's frigid climate.

This Devlin Cordierite tilted his head, "I see a lot of potential in someone who's obviously seen the true worst of this hunk of rock. Not the war, not the poverty, not even some back splitting plague, but our people."

Felicity's hands loosened, "So you want me to be some type of pawn?" Her eyes narrowed in cynicism, "You want me to just hewp de countwy vat abused me and weft me 'ta-"

"-Why are you here, Rhyolite?"

The hot head was completely thrown off, and could only stutter, "Uh-um wut - excuse me?"

"If you hate your homeland so much," Agent Cordierite asked more slowly, "Then why are you here, Felicity?"

Silence. The longest moment of silence yet.

The sound of many folk drinking merrily was the filler noise, the static in Felicity's mind.

More silence, more waiting...

After heavy thought, the conscious child responded, "I wost evewyfing in Cowone, maybe I'd find somefing in Eiskawt."

"And what have you found, a thriving market?" Agent Cordierite questioned further, "My child, you are just as lost and jaded as this entire island. I am lost and jaded, and look where I'm at. I'm turning to bounty hunters to do my dirty work..."

"Obviouswy."

"But Rhyolite," Cordierite continued, "Eiskalt was half destroyed by a war from the outside, then the other half was destroyed in a civil war. Your own village is long gone, lost in a graveyard too plague ridden to visit. It all comes to prove we've all been wrong. At the lowest of lows though, can things not get any worse? Can it get better? That is why I joined the borough... I think a young person like you can make a difference as well. The Eiskalt you grew up discriminated against was all but slaughtered, optimism's in the air. We have reached a new era. How about you?"

Felicity bit her lip, pulling her sweaty hands back onto the table. More bar music and mindless laughing filled the space unoccupied by words. Felicity once again moved, placing her big forehead in her palms. "Oh..." She moaned.

"You're not the only one who has lost everything, Felicity," Cordierite spoke, "But I'm not going to let the losses be in vain."

Felicity pulled one arm down, a tear flooded eye staring into his, "Can I weawy twust you?"

Cordierite's became somewhat more shaded, "I work for a government, what do you think?"

As much as laughter was natural to Felicity, the cleverly pulled joke only received a scoff. She looked away, apparently at the rich wood walls next to them, and thought even more. Cordierite waited patiently.

Felicity finally started sipping her coffee again. After several moments of Cordierite watching the kid drink, she put her empty mug down and spoke.

"De past is in de past,you can't change it... but you can make a betta futuwe."

Cordierite's eyes brightened in hope as Felicity finally smiled at him.

"What's ouw fiwst move?"

Done.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Congratulations!

Flamebird recieves 1145 EXP and 160 GP

I will now post this in the workshop area for peer review. Well done on an excellent thread!

[Rayleigh]

All EXP and GP have been added!