The Emerald Hind
05-06-07, 08:11 AM
[Open. As a note to those who read this thread previously, it has been re-written to address style issues.]
"Bad luck comes in threes," that's how the old saying went, and as terribly cliché as that was, Kaia had to wonder about the accuracy of the adage as she trudged through a road turned river, soaked to the bone, and limping along on a sprang ankle. It had been one thing after another all morning, and now this string of what she liked to call "unfortunate mishaps" was wearing thin on her nerves, nearly making a believer out of her. For once in her life she actually considered the idea of luck, both good and bad; especially the bad. Oh, she was not above proverbs or superstition—she had experienced too much of the mythical and the supernatural in her life not to believe—but when it came to things such as fate and luck, well, she was rather skeptical.
Despite what the priests had told her as a child, she believed that people were in control of their destinies. There was no great book in which every action of every person in every corner of creation was written. That was what weak-willed people who lacked the drive to change their lives believed: the thought that they were not to blame for the course their lives took was a comfort, and it allowed one to become frail and lazy. The truth was that each and every person was responsible for their own lives and the directions those lives took. Every one had a choice, and it was those choices that drove life, not a predestined road map.
The same went with the idea of luck. To think that one's daily experiences were decided to be good or bad by the chance roll of the dice further influenced by such forces as black cats and rabbit feet was ludicrous and childish. It was the choices people made that transformed a "good day" into a "bad day", not whether or not a horseshoe was pointed up or down, and something as simple as an individual's mindset could change the very course of that day, for a person who expected misfortune to happen upon him would undoubtedly find all the trouble he could want. It was all a matter of mindset.
Even when she came to inherit the Earth Stone and all its trappings, Kaia never bothered with pondering her bad fortune. Oh, she lamented having ever come upon it, and she dreaded the strength of its will, which always outbid her own, but it was not fate that brought her to soul-bond with the thing. If she had not taken it from her mother's lifeless body the geas would never have formed, but she took it and the Stone enslaved her, and that was all there was to it. If she were strong enough or determined enough, she was certain that she could refuse its power and lead her life normally, but she had not the power to defeat it, which was a fault of her own, not hard luck.
Yet, today made her question those beliefs, for ever since she awoke that morning she had encountered nothing but misfortune. Perhaps it was her perspective that was to blame, and much of it could be the choices she had made, but in the midst of a storm that had spurred in from no where, hobbling through muck and mud on an injured ankle with her supplies sodden and destroyed, well, it was easy to see why so many people fell into those superstitious traps.
Things had begun well enough. She had gone to the roadside early in the morning to cry her wares as she had nearly every day since she arrived in Corone when an elderly scholar by the name of Arthrelis Censia approached her with inquiries concerning her herbs. The oldster was delighted to discover that Kaia was a Wisewoman knowledgeable in the ways of herbcraft and quickly employed her expertise for the task of collecting and cataloguing local flora within the region. He told the girl that he was a plant enthusiast determined to put together the most comprehensive guide to the plantlife that existed in Corone, but he had grown too frail to carry on the fieldwork by himself, so he was hiring herbalists to do the job for him. He would pay her handsomely, which was all he had to say for Kaia to agree.
Once fully equipped with the proper cataloguing tools, she set out for the meadows along the main highway that stretched between the ferry port and Underwood, as happy as a lark to be earning a decent amount of gold rather than the copper chits and odd bits of craftgoods and produce her few customers traded with to obtain her herbal concoctions. However, no sooner was she walking through the tall grass, and she was nearly bitten by a snake. In her haste to retreat from the surprised reptile she tripped over a rock and fell awkardly to the ground, twisting her ankle while simultaneously landing in a large, reaking pile of droppings left by a good-sized animal.
Kaia went to a nearby brook to clean off and tend to her ankle, but no sooner had she taken off her soiled clothing to trade for a fresh set and a rather irritaited badger charged her. She scrambled away as fast as she could with little more than her small clothes and a pair of uncinched trousers to preserve her modesty, leaving all else where it lay. The girl was not able to recover her things until she went against her better nature and limped after the thing with a very large stick, yelling and screaming like a lunatic, which the Earth Stone quickly rewarded with a sudden stabbing pain shot through the base of her head. The badger left, but not before having ransacked her things, taking her food provisions and strewning the rest around and in the creek. She lost not just her food rations, but her tinder, her tent, and a number of viles filled with oils and tinctures. The rest was soaked and quite a bit was ruined, and she had to lay what was salvagable out in the hot sun to dry it out.
After recovering from a reaction headache caused by the Stone, she gathered up her damp things and set back to work, trying to make use of what little sunlight was left. Unfortunately, that window of opportunity smacked shut on her when a storm kicked up from the west, roaring and rumbling, the thick clouds rolling in as dark as night, blotting out the sun and any warmth it offered. Preceded by all the usual dramatic mechanics of lightning and thunder, the rain came down in heavy sheets, cascading from the heavens and nearly drowning the healer where she stood.
Now, she had no choice but to return to town, which was quite some distance off, a trek made all the longer by the slick, muddy road that sloshed under her feet and the dark tendrils of rain that obscured her vision. There was nothing else she could do, though. The meadow provided nothing in the way of natural cover, and with her tent on its way to Stars knew where she had to get to the only haven she knew, and that was back at the city. So she limped along the side of the road, moving against a swift, rain-driven current, thoroughly drenched and dusted, all the while damning her bad luck.
"Bad luck comes in threes," that's how the old saying went, and as terribly cliché as that was, Kaia had to wonder about the accuracy of the adage as she trudged through a road turned river, soaked to the bone, and limping along on a sprang ankle. It had been one thing after another all morning, and now this string of what she liked to call "unfortunate mishaps" was wearing thin on her nerves, nearly making a believer out of her. For once in her life she actually considered the idea of luck, both good and bad; especially the bad. Oh, she was not above proverbs or superstition—she had experienced too much of the mythical and the supernatural in her life not to believe—but when it came to things such as fate and luck, well, she was rather skeptical.
Despite what the priests had told her as a child, she believed that people were in control of their destinies. There was no great book in which every action of every person in every corner of creation was written. That was what weak-willed people who lacked the drive to change their lives believed: the thought that they were not to blame for the course their lives took was a comfort, and it allowed one to become frail and lazy. The truth was that each and every person was responsible for their own lives and the directions those lives took. Every one had a choice, and it was those choices that drove life, not a predestined road map.
The same went with the idea of luck. To think that one's daily experiences were decided to be good or bad by the chance roll of the dice further influenced by such forces as black cats and rabbit feet was ludicrous and childish. It was the choices people made that transformed a "good day" into a "bad day", not whether or not a horseshoe was pointed up or down, and something as simple as an individual's mindset could change the very course of that day, for a person who expected misfortune to happen upon him would undoubtedly find all the trouble he could want. It was all a matter of mindset.
Even when she came to inherit the Earth Stone and all its trappings, Kaia never bothered with pondering her bad fortune. Oh, she lamented having ever come upon it, and she dreaded the strength of its will, which always outbid her own, but it was not fate that brought her to soul-bond with the thing. If she had not taken it from her mother's lifeless body the geas would never have formed, but she took it and the Stone enslaved her, and that was all there was to it. If she were strong enough or determined enough, she was certain that she could refuse its power and lead her life normally, but she had not the power to defeat it, which was a fault of her own, not hard luck.
Yet, today made her question those beliefs, for ever since she awoke that morning she had encountered nothing but misfortune. Perhaps it was her perspective that was to blame, and much of it could be the choices she had made, but in the midst of a storm that had spurred in from no where, hobbling through muck and mud on an injured ankle with her supplies sodden and destroyed, well, it was easy to see why so many people fell into those superstitious traps.
Things had begun well enough. She had gone to the roadside early in the morning to cry her wares as she had nearly every day since she arrived in Corone when an elderly scholar by the name of Arthrelis Censia approached her with inquiries concerning her herbs. The oldster was delighted to discover that Kaia was a Wisewoman knowledgeable in the ways of herbcraft and quickly employed her expertise for the task of collecting and cataloguing local flora within the region. He told the girl that he was a plant enthusiast determined to put together the most comprehensive guide to the plantlife that existed in Corone, but he had grown too frail to carry on the fieldwork by himself, so he was hiring herbalists to do the job for him. He would pay her handsomely, which was all he had to say for Kaia to agree.
Once fully equipped with the proper cataloguing tools, she set out for the meadows along the main highway that stretched between the ferry port and Underwood, as happy as a lark to be earning a decent amount of gold rather than the copper chits and odd bits of craftgoods and produce her few customers traded with to obtain her herbal concoctions. However, no sooner was she walking through the tall grass, and she was nearly bitten by a snake. In her haste to retreat from the surprised reptile she tripped over a rock and fell awkardly to the ground, twisting her ankle while simultaneously landing in a large, reaking pile of droppings left by a good-sized animal.
Kaia went to a nearby brook to clean off and tend to her ankle, but no sooner had she taken off her soiled clothing to trade for a fresh set and a rather irritaited badger charged her. She scrambled away as fast as she could with little more than her small clothes and a pair of uncinched trousers to preserve her modesty, leaving all else where it lay. The girl was not able to recover her things until she went against her better nature and limped after the thing with a very large stick, yelling and screaming like a lunatic, which the Earth Stone quickly rewarded with a sudden stabbing pain shot through the base of her head. The badger left, but not before having ransacked her things, taking her food provisions and strewning the rest around and in the creek. She lost not just her food rations, but her tinder, her tent, and a number of viles filled with oils and tinctures. The rest was soaked and quite a bit was ruined, and she had to lay what was salvagable out in the hot sun to dry it out.
After recovering from a reaction headache caused by the Stone, she gathered up her damp things and set back to work, trying to make use of what little sunlight was left. Unfortunately, that window of opportunity smacked shut on her when a storm kicked up from the west, roaring and rumbling, the thick clouds rolling in as dark as night, blotting out the sun and any warmth it offered. Preceded by all the usual dramatic mechanics of lightning and thunder, the rain came down in heavy sheets, cascading from the heavens and nearly drowning the healer where she stood.
Now, she had no choice but to return to town, which was quite some distance off, a trek made all the longer by the slick, muddy road that sloshed under her feet and the dark tendrils of rain that obscured her vision. There was nothing else she could do, though. The meadow provided nothing in the way of natural cover, and with her tent on its way to Stars knew where she had to get to the only haven she knew, and that was back at the city. So she limped along the side of the road, moving against a swift, rain-driven current, thoroughly drenched and dusted, all the while damning her bad luck.