Unfounding

[The Mongrel]

Solo. Characters who don't belong to me used with permission of their owners. Many thanks to Doctor Flames of Hyperion for his help in polishing this story up.
Forty-eight years ago I stood at a dock, balancing on the precipice between the lingering death that was my birth and the rebirth that could easily have been my death. My trembling hands clutched a frail slip of parchment, a ticket purchased with funds pilfered from the family coffers. This wasn’t the first time I’d stolen money from my mother’s husband. This wasn’t the first time I’d run away from home. The household’s relief when I did not return was likely boundless.

My name is Illara. Just Illara. I will not add more shame to a name I have no right to claim, so no patronym belongs to me. I am a bastard halfblood, skin light to the fallen elves who inhabit the lands to the west and dark to my native culture. I am the result of my mother’s degradation. She could hardly bear to look at me, from the day I came squalling into the world to the last time I saw her. To her husband and other daughters, I barely existed, a blight on his family’s honor. And my older brother… Well, by the time I was old enough to really form memories, he was off learning how to defend the weak and fight for truth, justice, and the Raiaeran way. He did try to pretend that he didn’t hate me.

But sometimes…

Everyone lies, you know. At least he tried to lie kindly. When I was little, that kindness gave me hope, because I thought he meant it. But the truth is like a zombie: it always claws its way out of the ground, and then it attacks with all its rank ugliness.

How could someone so noble as that shiny booger do anything but hate something like me, anyway?

A tenday had passed from the time I’d slipped away from the clutching confines of my chambers, but I doubted anyone had so much as noticed my absence. If they had, it wasn’t a cause for concern. I’d been gone for up to six months before, surviving by picking pockets and petty theft. When you grow up needing to be invisible, you get pretty good at it.

The previous time I’d run away, I was surviving pretty well. It was my brother who found me and brought me back home, all shiny and self-righteous in his new Bladesinger couture. He was always the perfect child, Siegfried. He exceeded everyone’s expectations, he was very shiny, he was even decent to the bastard half-sister that just kinda plopped its way into his life when he was just on the verge of becoming a man.

Oops.

They didn’t catch me the day I caught a ship out of the country, though. Corone is well out of everyone’s way, and not somewhere my family cared to come, anyway. Ever since Uncle L and Uncle G made their relationship official and permanent, my family pretty much kept away from theirs. They exchanged letters from time to time, but visits between them were very, very rare.

But you know what? Cousin Daisy’s kinda a freakish creature that wouldn’t have naturally occurred herself. On the occasions we seen each other, we’re abominations together and everything is all right. To her, I’m just another cousin. To her fathers, I’m an unfortunate consequence of an unfortunate thing that happened to their sister and sister-in-law.

I need someone like cousin Daisy in my life. Someone to whom I’m not special, but I’m not un-special, either.

A step that made no sound on the gangplank, a breath of sharp, salty air. Ropes, swears and shouts flew, and I ran away from home for good.

Goodbye, Raiaera, land where a half-Alerian has no chance of making it.

Hello Corone, where I might have a chance to stand on my own two feet, on my own merits.

Goodbye mother, goodbye not-father, goodbye brother, goodbye sisters. Goodbye bright, gloomy room and beautiful, stifling house.

Hello open sea, hello open road, hello uncertainty.

Hello, Illara.

[The Mongrel]

Let’s not make any mistakes or have any misunderstandings: I’d spent time on my own before, and Eluriand has… Eluriand had an underground. I’d learned to keep my feet under me real fast there. Some folk are as likely to attack a perceived Alerian as others are to flee them. But in Eluriand, if things got too bad, there was always the option of sneaking back into my room and having my return be every bit as ignored as my absence. Or I could have let my brother find me and have the heads of the household wearily scold me for existing (I think; I didn’t listen) while praising him for my safe return. Or for simply existing (again, I didn’t pay attention).

I didn’t have that safety net in Radasanth. Sure, if I was in dire need and up for spending a few days tramping through Concordia, I could always drop in on my uncles for a day or two. But… just in case you’re enough of a badass that that sounds plausible: for most people, it’s not. If you’re half dead of hunger, cold or injuries, you probably won’t make fifty paces in certain parts of Concordia.

I was fine with that; I left my family behind with the express intention of being gone forever. If I became a tailor in Serenti, shacked up with a human and had two dozen awful offspring, or rose to become a crime lord in Gisela, or got robbed, raped and murdered (in no particular order) in a grimy, slimy back alley in Radasanth, no one who knew my name would ever know.

I mean, it really wasn’t like it mattered; either way they’d have exactly zero fucks to give. But it did give me a good laugh for a few years to think of them wondering whether that bastard half-blood would crash their next elegant party.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on the Lord and Lady in whose house I was reared. They didn’t have to let me see my first minute, let alone my first day or decade. They clothed me, had me educated (kinda), made sure I had shelter and let me keep crawling back to their house. My mother, her husband, and their children all did the best by me they were able, all of them, at all times.

I really wish they’d never let me be born.

[The Mongrel]

Radasanth is the largest port in Corone. It overflows with wealth and seeps with poverty. Magic and misery thrive equally in its gray jumble of roads and buildings. It isn’t unusual to see militiamen chase the orphans and the infirm from view so that an hour later a dignitary can claim temporary ownership of the streets. How glorious they are in their splendor and arrogance. What inelegant sound and obscene spectacle they create, these clumsy humans. How proud and vain they are, how crass and crude.

Gotta hand it to them, though… they are really motivated. If you want something done beautifully, give it to a Raiaeran. If you want it done technically, give it to an Alerian. If you want something done precisely, give it to a dwarf. If, by the Stars, you just need something done, give it to a human.

I’ve become jaded in the last half century, and my thoughts on this subject do us little good.

For a young Raiaeran runaway, Radasanth was overwhelming in its cacophony and its vastness. My legs trembled as I walked down the gangplank, at least as much from apprehension as from the new-found stability of the ground beneath my feet. I had a few coins in my pocket, no knowledge of my surroundings, and my Tradespeak was far more proficient written than spoken. During my few prior trips to Corone, there had always been someone whose robes to clutch and whose feet to follow.

Now I was on my own, and the enormity of that realization terrified me. I wanted to run to my uncle in Underwood, and might have but for two things: I didn’t know the way, and he would have certainly sent word to my mother. That would have defeated the entire purpose of disappearing.

If my mother learned where I was, my brother would have found out. If he’d found out, he would have come to drag me home like some patient, saintly martyr. He would have lectured me endlessly on how I should have been more grateful and proper, how much danger human lands posed and how that was compounded by his defenseless bastard half-sister’s unfortunate lineage. I would rather die nameless on these cold cobblestone streets than go back. I would sooner have thrown myself from the ship, and I hold no delusion that they wanted me safely in their midst instead of no longer their concern.

No, my way was better for everyone. Especially me.

I spent my first night on the roof of some old building, looking up at the stars and playing with the little metal spider the bastard who sired me left behind. It’s all I have of him and more than I want. If I ever meet him, I’ll take my dagger and rip him open from groin to ribcage, then pull out his heart so he can watch its last beat.

I decided to scout around for work the next morning, to stand or fall on my own merits.

You can’t give up what you want just because you’re scared, after all.

[The Mongrel]

My upbringing, or what passed for it, was far from the streets of Radasanth in every way imaginable. The streets of Eluriand, in particular, were comparatively tame to what exists in the back alleys of Corone’s crown jewel. It’s kind of hard to make a whole lot of trouble when bards and Bladesingers are just itching to prove their superiority above the rabble. You don’t want them to catch you, particularly if you’re me.

In Radasanth, if you’re not making trouble for decent folk, law enforcement doesn’t care. If you know where to look, you find hookers, thieves, waifs, runaways, and more every day, lifeless and cold and forgotten. No one cares who they are or what happened to them. No one wonders why they’re there or how they came to their sad fate.

Pair that with a young woman, little more than a girl, who didn’t know what she was doing, and… well, the first year was really rough. I learned how to eat things I wouldn’t have considered food, how to find shelter and how to make do. It turns out that Alerian hybrids aren’t looked on much better in the oh-so-tolerant human lands than they are in the heart of Raiaera (who would have guessed?). That made honest work out of the question.

I could have done honest work; I know embroidery and sewing. I’m not ridiculously smart, but neither am I stupid, and I am literate. I was raised with proper social graces; I could have been a governess for small children or a seamstress. No one would even consider me. What a gift from the bastard whose blood I share, right?

Desperate times, as they say, call for desperate measures. Old survival tools - the ability to blend into the shadows to stay out of my stepfather’s sight, a knack for opening things I wasn’t meant to get into, a quiet step, a fearlessness of heights, great balance and lightning fast reflexes - became familiar fallbacks. If I could pick a few pockets, I could eat for a day. If I could play a good game of cards, I might have a bed. If I joined a man for a night’s companionship, I could eat and have a bed. (I didn’t like doing that. Some people have some sick fantasies.)

Survival isn’t for the prideful. Burglary isn’t for the impatient. (Neither is cheating at cards, just so you know. There was this one time, where… well… the injuries eventually healed, but the scars remain. It happens. Don’t get caught.)

Eventually, a soul gets tired of bare survival. An honest person might put up with it because in their honesty they can’t do better. But look at me. This ashy-tan skin didn’t come from my alabaster mother, if you know what I’m saying. Dishonesty is in my blood. What I am is painted blatantly on the canvas of my flesh. No one knew who I was, only what I was. I couldn’t hurt my mother further by besmirching her name with my actions.

I started robbing houses. I’d wait until the quiet hours, in neighborhoods where people had enough to spare. I’d walk the bazaars, looking for the right mark - one spending freely, usually a jackass. Never a single parent. Never an elderly person (unless that elderly person was a REAL jackass and I wouldn’t destroy their lives completely with my actions). I’m not saying I’m a good person; no widows or orphans ever got anything that I stole. I’m just saying that I never hurt anyone outright as a thief.

Sometimes people get arrested for crimes I commit. I’m not proud of it, but it happens. They shouldn’t have been acting suspicious in the area at the time. Life isn’t fair, chumps. It never will be. It never can be. So yes, other people have and do suffer for the crimes I commit. No, it doesn’t cost me a good night’s sleep.

They suffer for my sins, as others suffer for theirs, as I have suffered for people who are not me, as those people have suffered on account of people whose lives have brushed theirs.

[The Mongrel]

I made a mistake one night. I thought I was targeting a shared house; five or six men came and went all the time and seemed to have their residence there. They didn’t seem to want for much; taking from them would be a minor inconvenience and would pay for tiny little room I called home. I waited until all was still, in the hours when darkness coated the city like a velvet blanket. The only sounds that reached my ears were sleepy murmurs and buzzing snores.

The timing was perfect. I made my move.

I had my first taste of organized crime that night. The… let’s call them “tenants,” were awake at the time that I struck, and none too pleased with my nerve. They took me out into the woods, uh… Let’s just say I was “dealt with,” and then they left me.

Remember how I said that a few days’ tramp through Concordia is a patently bad idea when you’re half dead? Well, sometimes it’s your only option if you’re not really ready to be all the way dead. I knew roughly where I was, and roughly where I needed to go. By that time, it had been five years since I’d left home. It had been almost twenty since I’d seen my uncles. But I thought I might know the way to their little house in the woods, I thought it was closer than Radasanth and I thought they might help me survive.

Hope and desperation alone kept me going. I crawled on broken hands and dislocated legs, each movement the deepest depths of agony. For three days I fought through thick brush, over sharp gravel, through cold streams and underneath gnarled roots, hiding from the predators of the forest.

At some point, my strength failed entirely, and I lay by a pond or a puddle, feverish and too exhausted to care where I was, what might find me, or even whether I lived or died. I’d done my best. I couldn’t ask more of myself. And I would die where no one would ever know what happened to me or what my name was. I couldn’t ask more for myself. Should someone find my bones in the future, they’d either laugh at the moron who wandered into Concordia alone, say a quick prayer for the poor deceased soul, or take a close look and say it was an elven lass. In death I would be free of the bonds of race.

I remember it being day; it seemed that the sun was out. But blackness fell upon me, and I welcomed it.

[The Mongrel]

I don’t know how much later it was when I awoke. Two days, at least. Maybe three. It’s funny how the world sinks in when you’re clawing your way back to consciousness. It returns in bits and pieces, slowly and distorted. I could have sworn I smelled an orc eating a lullabye, for instance. It turned out it was just my Uncle G singing to his daughter. (I might have been under the effect of some really potent painkillers at the time.)

I guess you should know that my mother had two siblings. I don’t know one of them at all - I was kind of a blight - but the other. Well. Uncle L grew up a little bit different. He favored men to women, when it came to romantic pursuits and carnal encounters. That happens. It’s not even unusual; most Raiaerans are unbearably pretty, gender irrelevant.

In his youth, he took it upon himself to explore the world. There’s nothing unusual about that, either. Althanian youths, full of vigor, leave the confines of home to fight bad guys. Or be bad guys. (According to people in the know, it’s not easy to be a serious criminal when your mom insists that you’re home in time for dinner.)

Anyway, he teamed up with some humans and a dwarf who was totally rude, totally crude, totally unbearable… and totally his soul mate. Yup. My Uncle G is a dwarf, and for a Raiaeran, that particular mixed-race romance does not happen. They moved to Concordia together just a couple of years before my conception, so you can imagine the family drama around that time. If you think all Raiaeran drama is theatrical, try putting their silverware in the wrong order. Yeah. It gets ugly.

But anyway, clawing your way back to consciousness can be just as hard as clawing through the wilderness. The rest of the world trickled in slowly while I fought against the darkness of sleep. I was on a plush, sort of scratchy bed, some kind of stew was bubbling on the hearth, and something was messing with my arm. I guess I moved, because a soft voice, infinitely more musical in its gentle command than the dwarven braying, told me to keep still.

“I need to change this bandage. Can you understand me this time, or are you going back under?”

“I understand.” My head felt like it was floating, but my tongue felt like it weighed a ton. I guess it came out more like “Yunner’s Dan,” because my uncle laughed. I hadn’t heard a real laugh in a long time.

“You collapsed not far from here. You’re lucky we found you, we usually walk east. Daisy wanted to go south that day, though.” A bowl of bitter liquid tipped against my lips, spilling its contents down my throat before I could protest. “We almost didn’t recognize you, you were in such bad shape.”

I opened my mouth, ready to tell the lie I’d prepared years before in case this happened, but I was gently shushed. “Be still, Illara. Regain your strength. We’ve yet to find your family or the villains who waylaid you, but you’re here and can talk later.”

Illara. That’s my name. In half a decade, I hadn’t given it to anyone. No one had needed it. I’d almost forgotten that it was mine. Was five short years really long enough to lose so much? “Just me,” I slurred. “Disowned.”

Uncles L and G exchanged a glance that said a lot. That my predicament wasn’t altogether a surprise. Cast out of the family, I could not stay long in their house. They were only on the fringe of the family themselves, but…

Listen, the politics would take years to explain properly. The short version boils down to this: my uncles learned to see beyond each other’s skin, so they could also see beyond mine. They had no hatred of me, but couldn’t take me in, because reasons. Nor could I stay, because I’m a troublesome sort and eventually it would be too much for them. In an emergency, like this, they could make an exception, but as soon as I was strong enough, I would have to leave.

At least they wouldn’t write my mother. They’d threaten to, perhaps, but they wouldn’t. They’d offer to let me stay, of course, and for a little while they would be happy to have me. But we all know that I can’t.

I just… I can’t.

[The Mongrel]

Let me talk a little bit about the tyke Uncle G was singing to and Uncle L named. Daisy. Nowadays she’s a bit of an eccentric and kind of a hermit. I bring her snacks when I’m traveling through Concordia (every three to five months, give or take) and she lets me crash at her place for a day or two. We get along; it works out.

My cousin and I are both freaks who should have never existed. You already know what’s up with me, but Daisy… Daisy is the biological child of a male Raiaeran elf and a male dwarf. Yeah.

Of course, I only exist because there was a chance I was legitimate, and then I was present and living and the Lord and Lady of the house couldn’t just murder me. My cousin came into the world because two men who loved each other with every fiber of their being wanted desperately to create a life together, to have something that was both of them, something neither man nor god could sunder. She’s here because they found a way to make it happen, and they adore her.

She's pretty cute and kinda quirky (you have no idea just how many places she has to hide snacks, and just what sort of snacks she might be hiding). She's lighter on her feet than you'd expect of a dwarf, and definitely fuzzier than you'd expect of an elf. Uncle G was thrilled when she started getting in some peach fuzz, and Uncle L has always loved just how naturally she took to life in the woods.

So let’s be absolutely clear here. She’s a freak. I’m an abomination.

[The Mongrel]

I made my return to Radasanth a season after I left it, healed but for the scars - as many mental as physical. On my last day there, I had messed with forces beyond my ken and paid the price. A sensible person would have hurried to the docks and boarded the first boat to Scara Brae. I’m not that kind of sensible. But I did learn from my mistakes.

I chose my marks more carefully. I still pickpocketed, I still broke into residences. But I never let there be more than three or four people who came and went, and I made damn sure I knew their habits before I crept into their homes. I knew who slept where and when. Of course, I had to have several houses under surveillance at the same time for this method to keep shelter over my head and starvation at bay. If you want an easy life, don’t be a career criminal. It’s much more work than an honest job, and the risks are far greater.

Little did I know, my return had caught attention. Organized attention. Criminal attention.

I’d been back less than a month when one of them approached me. It’s hard to tell human age; they get old so fast. He was a young male, one who had just started his journey to majority. The little rat took my bag and led me on a merry little traipse over Radasanth. We raced over sharply peaked roofs, slid down gutter pipes, and vaulted through windows. I don’t know how the kid got so fast; humans are usually a little slow.

After half an hour, we arrived in an apartment, both winded… and surrounded. There were at least eight people in that room, mean and strong and virulent. One of them patted the boy on the back, all of them watched me. Visions of the last trap I’d walked into flashed in front of my eyes, just as clearly as the trap I was in right then.

The ruffians fanned out. One blocked the window, another stood casually in front of the door. All eyes focused on me, no face showed any hint of kindness or mercy. All I saw from this group was danger…

And my oncoming death.

[The Mongrel]

I dropped instantly, balancing on the balls of my feet and bringing my daggers to bear. Every hair stood on end, I heard every twitch every person made. I didn’t stand a chance, I knew that. I was outnumbered, out-armed, and surrounded. But if I was going to die, this time it would be a bloodbath. I’d been destroyed and helpless enough and hadn’t put up a fight, but never again.

The lighting in the room went from bright where the sun streamed in through the window to nearly pitch-black in the obscured corners. The floor was rough, wooden, and bare. The ceiling was also wooden, with support beams running from wall to eaves, but there were no rafters. There was no way to get up and away from anyone, there was no way out of the room, and at five paces by seven, it was too small to evade any of these brutes for long.

“Oh, knock it off, Cata,” a voice sounded from within the lighted area. “You’ve scared the kitty.” A heavily tattooed half-elf leaned against a wall. Her hair was shaved into a gaudy green mohawk and she looked tougher than most bouncers I’d met. In her eyes was no idle contempt, merely a wry amusement. To her right was a half-orc who slouched nonchalantly, watching me watch the room. Everyone there was rough, tough, and had at least one thing standing between them and conventional attractiveness.

Aside from the juvenile human male, the tattooed half-Raiaeran and the half-orc who looked every bit as mean and vicious as a pack of rabid attack dogs, there was another human male with dark hair and a nasty pair of scars beneath his eyes (Weepy), a human female who’d had half of her teeth beaten out of her (Smiles), an albino human female (Ghost), and a young Alerian outcast who had immediately gone back to playing with some parts he had on the floor (Tinker).

And then there was the middle-aged human male, a man with a milky white eye who started laughing at the tatted elf’s words, motioning for me to calm down. Like hell, man. Like hell. “Oh, come off it, kitten. If we needed you dead, we wouldn’t have sent Lightning to invite you here. We’re Unfounded. We are the lost and the misbegotten, the friendless, the faithless, and the forgotten. And we have a place for you.”

I had never heard that phrase aimed at me before.

[The Mongrel]

I would give anything in the world to return to those halcyon early days of Unfounded. They took me in, helped me refine my technique in burglary, fighting, pickpocketing, and cards. They taught me how to communicate with other rogues, and they gave me the one thing I knew I’d never have: a family.

I could drop in on any Unfounded hideout and be welcome. We were all runaways, initially. We had no loyalties to any particular creed or code when we joined, so little things like race fell by the wayside. While I treated Tinker with the same - suspicion seems too kind a word, but I don’t want to use contempt - as any Raiaeran might treat an Alerian (and maybe even a bit worse, because I had issues), we got past that and became really good friends.

Rainbow, the girl with the tats, was so named for the bright spots of color on her skin. Our human commander-in-chief was named for the white blotch in his right eye: Cataract, or Cata for short. Mutt was the half orc, as despised among both of his peoples as I was among mine. Once “kitten” wore off, they dubbed me Mongrel. No real names, so we couldn’t compromise each other if we were imprisoned.

We would plan out our activities, commit them however they were best done (I was the go-to lock picker, while Mutt was the favored head-buster), and hit a tavern for a pint and a game of cards afterward. Everyone cheated; figuring out how was part of the fun. The game was also how we talked the job over. Do you have any idea how funny it is to have law enforcement questioning you about a crime and denying with with a straight face while laughing about it with your fingers?

This might sound strange for any elf, but I actually got along best with Mutt. We both knew what it was to exist on the fringes of our societies, feared and reviled for something we hadn’t asked for and couldn’t change. We didn’t have to talk about our pasts to know we shared scars, and somehow knowing we weren’t alone in the world helped ease the festering considerably. He was also gentle. Don’t get me wrong - Mutt’s biceps were almost bigger around than my waist, but if he patted me on the shoulder, it didn’t so much as upset my balance, much less shatter my frail elven bones.

Mutt had the face of an orc, the heart of a warrior… and the soul of a poet. His lines didn’t have the elegance and carefully crafted technique of Raiaera’s bards, but in its simplicity and sincerity, that thick, crude scrawl contained more beauty and eloquence than a thousand stale, professional verses. In the first poem he ever left me, he described a sneaky little mouse going down to the place where the cats kept the sun prisoner and picking the lock of its cage, bringing light into the world.

If I’m honest, it didn’t take long for our place at each other’s sides to become a place in each other’s arms. We told each other our real names eventually, but it didn’t matter. To Unfounded, we were Mutt and Mongrel. In the little apartment we shared, I was his Mousie and he was my Mountain.

He wrote me poetry every week for the next decade, until his death. Humans don’t live very long. Orcs, even less so. People in our line of work rarely see their full lifespans. He was nearly thirty when we met, and only forty when I buried him. In a decade, you’re only just getting to know a person, and it was not fair to lose such a beautiful man so soon.

He wrote his last poem to me on his deathbed. The exact lines are mine to keep, but he wanted me to be happy, ferocious, and free. The Mousie who flies so high she captures the sun. The Mousie on the Mountain.

What I would give to have those days back, and how glad I am to have lived them.

[The Mongrel]

Mutt’s death brings us sixteen years into my almost half-century journey away from Raiaera. My grand love story aside, much was happening in Unfounded. We expanded from a mere dozen members to more than a hundred, we filtered into Underwood, then Gisela, Serenti and Jadet. We kept in contact with our outlying branches, and after I was left alone, I frequently made those runs. On occasion I’d stay with my uncles, but it hurt to see them so close and loving with my partner so recently dead. When Daisy got her own place, I started staying with her, instead.

More often than I stayed with family, I just crashed in Underwood, at an Unfounded house. Only Rainbow and Lightning remained of the original crew after fifteen years of my joining. He’d taken over the Radasanth branch from Cata, and she runs Jadet. Tinker lived, and still lives, but he found an opportunity to return to Alerar and went back to work on machines. There was some resentment and anger about that, but it’s what the kid was born for. He could have no more denied that opportunity than he could have turned into a fish.

As far as the group’s developing hierarchy went, I could have led the Underwood branch, but I didn’t want it. I like being the courier, going from place to place, meeting every new Unfoundling and keeping the entire operation in communication. I taught a few others, and they reported to me, but I didn’t prefer to be making the decisions.

Being one part of a group - interconnected and interactive - has its ups and downs. Sometimes we pluck loose cannons (like I once was) from the streets and give them a new lease on life. Sometimes one of our members will out and out adopt an urchin, or they’ll have a kid and Unfounded grows by one. (Mutt wanted a kid, but they terrified him and I wasn’t ready for one, so we never adopted.) Sometimes someone will have to get out of the game, which is bittersweet. Sometimes our members get arrested or die, and we mourn their loss.

Being part of a family is an amazing experience. It’s warm and comfortable and happy. Yeah, there are fights, but family isn’t all about being on the outside and looking in. It’s being on the inside and laughing by the fire with a tank of ale or a game of cards. I’ve made friends, watched them become parents, watched those kids grow up and thrive, and that is an amazing experience, and one I’d never have been able to have if I was stuck in Raiaera.

Standing on my own two feet was the second-best decision I’ve ever made. The absolute best? Deciding not to stand alone.

[The Mongrel]

I am an elf. I know that everything is cyclical, that the best things will end eventually and that given enough time and effort, even the worst nightmares from the deepest pits of Haide will work themselves out. That is no comfort when you’re in the thickest part of the ash and smoke.

Darkness fell, first upon Raiaera, then upon Corone. The waves upon waves of shell-shocked refugees flooded into ports across the world so recently that it is still new even to human memory. My uncle helped guide some of them to the elven encampment in Concordia. At the request of Unfounded ally Paige Turner, I helped procure affordable supplies for them. I owe my mother’s people nothing, but you don’t have to owe a debt to recognize suffering and have compassion.

Could I have gloated over the misfortune of a race that loathed and shunned me? Yes. I tried, actually. I tried. But it tasted bitter, so I stopped gloating and started helping.

Only a few years later, violence swept through Radasanth. Between the chaos of the war and the “pacification” afterwards by the self-righteous, so-called “heroes,” both victim and villain were swept away like chaff on the wind. The world burned, then it shattered. So many lives were lost, and all across Corone, Unfounded went from an organization of nearly four hundred to barely eighty.

These were people I had helped pull from the cruel streets, infants I had hummed to sleep, people whose parents I had watched grow up and who were closer to me than any flesh or blood. Three hundred of them. Gone.

Lightning, no longer young, had been killed during the war. His protege, Splinter, took over - much to the irritation of Lightning’s son, Diamond Knave. Knave wanted to wreak bloody vengeance upon the Ixians, who he blamed for the death of his father, of our friends, of our family… and there were some who agreed with him.

Fortunately, Splinter saw the wisdom of sticking to Unfounded’s roots, of rebuilding what we had and improving what we were. To do that, though, he needed all of us who remained. Since Knave had known me from nearly his first breath, Splinter asked me to reason with him.

I found him skulking in the charred ruins of the first Unfounded house, sharpening his daggers. He was still young, even for a human: twenty-five years of age. He was just a toddler when Mutt died, now he was a man. In the flickering candlelight, his father’s strong features and mother’s pale brown hair showed strongly in his neat goatee and the chin beneath it. I couldn’t see much of his face under his hood, but I didn’t need to.

I could read his sorrow and his rage in the slouch of his spine and the stiffness if his shoulders.

[The Mongrel]

Was this man really the tiny child who had ransacked my apartment so often, so recently? The same one who had bullied my burly mate into feeding him snack after snack? How had so much life happened in so brief an eye blink? My stomach twisted in that moment. Even if Knave’s grief-fuelled rampage didn’t kill him, I would turn around someday soon, before I was aware of it, and he would be a grandfather. And then he would be dead.

This is what it is to be an elf among humans, to be an elf who cares for them. Just as I had watched Cata age and die, just as I had watched Lightning… Would I see the bloodline die out before I did?

“I know what you’re going to say, Mongrel,” he growled. “And I’ll have none of it. He can’t tell me what to do just because my father named him his successor. I’ll take everyone who agrees with me if I have to.”

“Have we not lost enough?” My tone was, perhaps, sharper than I had intended. “Four out of every five of us have died in the last two years, and now you want to take another third? For what? Would you challenge Jensen Ambrose? Seth Dahlios? The Orlouges themselves?”

His jaw set and he turned from me; hurt so badly, he was prepared to crush the fragments of the world to wreak vengeance. But he was so small, so blind, so fragile, so weak in his rage. No words could convince him of the futility of his vendetta, the ramifications of his rashness. All he knew was the agony that took up all the space in his chest cavity, and the need to inflict that pain on someone else. If he had it his way, he would be responsible for many more Unfounded deaths. I’d already lost too many, too much. I couldn’t let him throw the rest away so recklessly.

“If that’s the way it must be, then I will help you. Come on.” He looked at me, unconvinced. “Come on. There are still plenty of those pricks running around Radasanth. Let’s go bag one.”

He stood, turning to me. “Why the sudden change?”

“Because I knew your father from the time he was fourteen until his very last day. Because I know you, and I want to know your children, and their children, and theirs. I want to see them with your crooked teeth at five and your father’s graceful, gangly limbs at fifteen. That can’t happen if you get killed. So I’ll help you.”

I led him through the streets, sneaking softly, looking for the tell-tale badge of a rank and file Ixian. They were so brave in their victory, so arrogant in their control, that many of them dared walk the streets alone. My streets. It was easy to lure one out to the river.

We attacked him viciously, as perfect a pack as ever there was. We ripped through the chinks in his armor and shredded his pale flesh. I let Knave have the killing blow, a clean stab through the throat. The bastard bled out in the moonlight. I watched the expression on Knave’s face.

“Do you feel better?” I demanded. “Is this worth it?”

Silence was the only answer he had for several minutes. In the adrenaline rush of the fight, he was able to forget the emptiness in his gut, but it rushed back into him as swiftly as our victim’s lifeblood poured, red and bitter, over the cobblestones. He could not murder away his own heartache. “No,” he said at length. “I’ll call off my faction. Unfounded needs to be strong now. I can’t pull us apart when we have nothing left but each other.” He walked away, leaving me alone. Wise choice; the cost to our brotherhood would have been far too great in both blood spilt and bonds severed.

But vengeance had made me feel better, if only by a little. If only I could exact it.

[The Mongrel]

Five years have passed between that awful time and now. Rebuilding is slow and careful; if we move too fast or hard, we might attract overzealous attention that we don’t want. We’re back up to over a hundred members. Rainbow’s still around, running Jadet, and so is Diamond Knave. He just became a father to a beautiful little girl last year, and I’m looking forward to watching her grow up.

I am the primary runner, since I’m fast and light on my feet. I flit from Radasanth to Serenti to Gisela to Underwood, down to Jadet, over again to Serenti, and then home to Radasanth. I don’t spend enough time in Radasanth to claim it as a residence anymore (most of my downtime is actually in Underwood, since it’s pretty damn central and cheating Ixians out of their money at cards is fun). But as long as my Mutt’s there, Radasanth will be home.

He knows I’ll always come back to him.

Splinter had a message for our Serenti branch, so I left Radasanth right after pulling off a morning job. I could push on after sunset to get to Underwood; the dark doesn’t scare me and neither do the woods. But I would still have to get up in the morning to go, so I might as well just drop in on my cousin. She usually has entertaining tales about my uncles or is generally entertaining, and no one quite does dwarven-elven fusion cuisine quite like her. (It’s an acquired taste to be sure, but I like it.)

Now, I’m not quite sure what it means to have a pet, but Daisy does, and when it gets sick, she gets really concerned. Maybe it’s kind of like having a baby, but it’s a giant lynx that can actually rip your throat out and devour you down to your bones? Either way, he’s not feeling well right now, and… I guess “upset” isn’t so accurate a word as “devastated” is.

Apparently the only medicine to cure whatever kind of sick this kitty has is in Serenti. Daisy doesn’t know the area. I’m heading there anyway, so I don’t have a problem with her tagging along. She’s not quite as fast as I am, but the message isn’t life or death urgent (or I’d be walking instead of sleeping), and I haven’t seen her in almost six months. We’ll have a good visit and be ready to say goodbye in a few days when I head on to my next destination and she heads back to hermit life.

We ate, I listened to her fret over fuzzy death kitten, and then there was a knock on the door. Since Daisy was otherwise occupied, and the only other people who are prone to drop by are her dads (maybe with cookies!), I got up to open it.

It wasn’t one of her dads.

I was looking at face level when the door swung open, and I saw that black and turquoise hair and those distinctly sharp features immediately. That shiny Bladesinger armor he was so proud of when he earned it. Though I hadn’t seen him in nigh-on half a century, I knew this elf instantly.

It took him a little longer. For one thing, he was looking right where Daisy’s eyes would be, which put his gaze a little below my neck.

His first expression was surprise; Daisy lives alone and doesn’t have many visitors (though she’s very social in the right situations). Hazel eyes swept up to meet those of a presumed stranger, words of polite formality automatically started to form and die in his throat.

Next came bewilderment, as part of him recognized a face he hadn’t seen in almost half her life and part of him denied that it could be. There had been no word of this person since she vanished into the blue, and with everything against her… Well.

Finally, there was stunned recognition, as eyes and mind put together a few impossible facts into one undeniable truth, and his mouth opened again, starting to form the name I was born to.

I didn’t give him the chance to utter it.

[The Mongrel]

WHAM!

The door shut so hard that the hut shook and dust fell from the rafters. My cousin looked at me, more startled than anything else. “Who is it?”

“Just some panhandler.” I stalked across the room, going from the front door to the hearth. There’s a little window just there, so if I needed to get out, I absolutely could.

Daisy did not see the need to keep “some panhandler” out of her house. So she got up to open the door. Gah.

“Siegfried!” The inevitable joyful exclamation rattled eardrums and windows alike; he’s still her cousin and she hears from him from time to time. Just as inevitably…

“GWAH!” That would be the sound of a fully grown elf male having all the air crushed out of his lungs when he has just forgotten to breathe for the last half a minute. It is not a dignified sound, and you will never get my brother to admit he made it. “Hello, Daisy.”

He returned her embrace and was released, welcomed into the cozy little hut that was suddenly way too small. Heavy greaves scraped against the floor, but he only came halfway to me. “Illara. You…” He gesticulated, unable to form the words. Maybe unable to even find them.

“Yep. Still alive.”

“Why did you never send word? If you were here the entire time…?” He hesitated, looking at me but seeing the frightened thing that half her life ago had tagged at the edges of his shadow, too intimidated to dare stepping closer. “What were you thinking?! It’s dangerous out here, especially for you!”

“Because of my ‘unfortunate heritage?’” I wasn’t wrong, all that time ago, at my assumption that if he found me, the lectures would start immediately.

“That is not what I was going to say.” His left hand was reaching for me, but it lowered, either recognizing the futility of the gesture or the wall a lifetime of unjustified hate had thrown up between us. Maybe he had tried to be kind. But he hates my existence. “You could have sent word. When I couldn’t find you around Eluriand and you did not return for a decade, we presumed you dead.”

“That was the point.” That he reached at all intrigued me. Putting his hand down was a conscious gesture. Holding out his hand to me… that was not.

Daisy’s eyes travel between us, more than a little perplexed. “Wait. Wait. Illara, you weren’t disowned?”

“Hard to be disowned when you were never claimed in the first place.” My reply was glib, but it carried sting. My brother winced as though I'd stabbed him.

He spoke after a moment of silence, his words were careful, calm, measured. “Illara, much has changed since you left home. Perhaps it is time to put prejudices of old aside, and try to start anew.” There was that Raiaeran gentility, saying insincere things with lovely words.

My lip curled, spit gathered in my mouth, but before I could tell my brother exactly what I thought of his offer, Daisy piped up.

“We’re going to Serenti in the morning! You should join us, we can all catch up!”

There are cues my cousin is not accustomed to reading, and I cannot blame her for that. She is a bi-racial child of a loving household - a household that welcomed even me without reservation. She cannot understand the bigotry that comes from under one’s own roof. She cannot understand the need to be invisible, because she was the sunshine in her fathers’ home. She does not know the shame of being rape-get, because she was wanted so very badly. I cannot fault her that.

“I would be glad to.” Siegfried smiled at Daisy, then looked at me. There was a wariness in his eyes; he’s a little better at reading people than my cousin is. “If you don’t want to go any further than that with me, we can part ways there. Either way, it gives me both relief and joy to see you alive and well.”

In the last forty-eight years, I have been everything from a pickpocket to a high-ranking member in a Corone-wide criminal organization. Doubtless that shiny booger saw in my dark clothing and very specific weaponry that I live a lifestyle he couldn’t begin to approve of. Doubtless he saw it in how my body moves and how I carry myself. Lies, so many lies. He had no need to tell them, so why would they pour so freely from his lips?

“Then we leave for Serenti in the morning.” I fought to keep my tone even, though I would rather travel with almost anyone else in all the world. Why did he have to come visit our cousin on this day, of all days? Why did I?

And what was this starting?

Spoils Request: The little mechanical spider I forgot to list in my profile. Does it do things? It looks like it COULD, but in over a century, it hasn’t been observed to do anything. So probably not.
A/N: The feedback I received on this thread while it was in production was very positive, but people told me that it hit them hard. I'd like to say that neither I as Illara's writer nor Illara herself consider this story a sob story, or a sad story, or a reason for pity. She had some really good times in along with all the bad ones, and she wouldn't trade away her joys if it meant she never had to bear her pains. This is simply the story of how she came to be where she is. Where she goes from here depends on what happens to her and how she shapes it, and that's the purpose of this series of vignettes. I would also like to remind the readers that as a first person perspective, the story is biased, and the way Illara sees things may not necessarily be the truth. Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoyed. Here's the theme song for this thread. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlMBcTGJ4YM)

[Philomel]

Unfounding: Thread Link (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?28435-Unfounding/)
Judgment Type: Full Rubric
Participants: The Mongrel (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?17739-The-Mongrel)



Plot: 20/30

Story- 8/10

Overall the story was clear and well-written and when seemingly where you wanted it to go. It is often hard to write a good story that spans over lots of decades of time, yet you did manage this somewhat well. The opening especially was strong, and the ending, also, captivating that could clearly lead into a series of quests. High marks here for a good story, where the reader just wanted to read more!

Setting- 6/10

The flashes through time did cause some lack of reliance on setting, as there were so many different ones. None were particularly elaborated upon and each could have done with a slight more significance in description and use of the character within them - exception here is the house of Uncle G and Uncle L. Going back to this over the course of the story a few times was particularly powerful, and added a subtle nuance.

Pacing- 6/10

For the amount of time involved, Pacing was more or less well laid out, however it would have been good to see it more constant, in equal parts. There perhaps should have been a further post with The Mutt, in explaining more his and Illara’s closeness, though it is somewhat something of an elegy. Various other sections could have done expanding, though others were perfect as they were. This easily could have been a 30 post + thread.



Character: 19/30

Communication- 5/10

All in all there is not much dialogue directly with other characters when it comes to The Mongrel (Illara) because of the timescale of the story. The whole piece, concerning character at the very least, could have done with more direct dialogue to see how Illara speaks - though, what little the reader does see is fitting to her character description. Such specifics as, “I demanded” in post 13 do begin to make your character come to life. In future threads, try to use more dialogue.

Action-6/10

Similar to communication, action does not shine through as much as it has the potential to. This thread has very strong story lines and it is well written, however the idea of getting to know your character is somewhat overwhelmed by the entire piece. There were no subtle hints of habits picked up or similar, that could have been introduced to really take your character off the ground, yet you did have good interaction with the other characters written, so here a semi well done!

Persona- 8/10

In comparison to communication and action, persona here was clearly defined and excellently written. Through the first-person narrative the reader could definitely know what Illara felt through her trials and her years, and could relate on a level as the time period changed. In the latter half of the piece there was personal questions directed at the self, that were particularly strong here, especially in the beginning of post 13.



Prose: 20/30

Mechanics- 7/10

There were no obvious mistakes, spelling or otherwise and the rule of all dialogue being on his own line was perfectly adhered to, so well done here. Here is a good example of why editing is useful and it was a very good idea to get someone to read over your thread to help you fashion it correctly/better. There would have been more use of alternative punctuation, such as semi-colons etc which could have helped to make it flow a little better, but all-in-all good.

Clarity- 7/10

Clarity was well done, as there was no direct confusion in any place from post to post. There was no confusion as to sense of space, through time in its wave length here was sometimes hard to follow, especially in the middle of the piece (posts 8 to 12 approx.) All was very well explained, however this was done in a sense that affected technique as can be seen below.

Technique- 6/10

Technique was, in general, very good, with grand descriptions and use of clever word choice - such as the first sentence: “precipice between the lingering death that was my birth and the rebirth that could easily have been my death.” These small descriptions did make the writing particularly powerful and added to the overall addictiveness of the thread, as highlighted under ‘story’.
That being said, however, this thread did severely fall ill under the technicality of “show, don’t tell.” Points are lost in technique based on this. Throughout the piece you write a time-epic thread that is a background narrative to your character, and though powerful it is lacking on the showing front. The first-person narrative is hard to use, often, for you do want to write what your character is thinking and explain everything clearly, from beginning to end, however it does affect the overall power of the piece. In your next thread it would be good to work on this part.



Wildcard: 7/10

Points are awarded here for the strength of the piece in introducing a character, with a backstory and complicated past, right to the future. This thread clearly is a starter for a set of epic quests, that is both exciting to think about and also interesting to consider.



Final Score: 67/100

The Mongrel (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?17739-The-Mongrel) receives:

1340 EXP!
176 GP!

Congratulations!

Spoils Requested: "Spoils Request: The little mechanical spider I forgot to list in my profile. Does it do things? It looks like it COULD, but in over a century, it hasn’t been observed to do anything. So probably not."

Given in exchange for 25 GP, as taken from the rewarded GP amount.

[Hysteria]

EXP and GP added.