Yulanaia Eternalost - A Family Tradition

[SlicerSV]

(Yulanaia is my main toon in SoD, as she'd been on Live, and as she's been on almost every online game i've played since Live)

I was named Yulanaia by my mother. She'd been named Yulanaia by hers, and hers by their mother. It is a long standing tradition.

My mother had taken on the surname "Nowari" or "of ending" because she'd felt unworthy of becoming the next Eternalost. Now I'm here.

While I was young, I was raised oddly. We lived in a place called Erudin, my father a retired dwarven warrior, my mother an outcast wood elven druid. By some chance miracle they managed to have a child, although no traces of the mixing of the races is appearant in me, I am half dwarf.

My grand-mama Eternalost also lived with us, and she often shared over dinner tales of how things once were, when she'd wandered Dalaya, and that once, there were ways to get to Dalaya's moon, and even to Planes of existence beyond Dalaya, where the Gods themselves dwelt. One evening, she shared the tale of how she came to be known as Eternalost.

She'd been wandering in the mountains now known as Goblinskull, which she claimed were once known as the Butcher Blocks, when she happened upon a camp of dwarves. One such dwarf was injured, and so she called upon the powers of nature to mend his wounds. This young dwarf laughed heartily and thanked her for her caring service.

"Ah, but my friend dwarf," she claimed to have said, "the pleasure is mine, for perhaps you can tell me where I am?"

The young dwarf laughed again, "But certainly, me fair princess elf. Ye'd be in the Butcher Blocks. Along the southern road yonder lies a turn, and there be the way back to your home, the Greater Faydark, wherein lies Kelethin." The dwarf made a sweeping motion, then turned around to point westerly. "Up dere be me home, Kaladim. The tunnels of the dwarvenkind. Y'can visit any time."

My grand-mama then claims to have given a most perplexed look, and said "Would you mind guiding me, friend dwarf?"

"If'n ye don't mind lending me some more'o that natures love for a short bit." Said the dwarf.

My grand-mama then spent some time helping the young dwarf until he led her back to kelethin. There her master, back then they had left their families to train in the arts of nature, just as we do now, asked where she'd been. She told him about wandering into the mountains and meeting the dwarves and he then said "Young druid, you have shown yourself worthy of your first advancement. You may choose your Name."

"Well, I obviously have a difficult time with directions, for a druid. I shall be known as Eternalost." said my grand-mama.

(this tale to be continued later)

 

[SlicerSV]

(a continuation from the previous)

"So you became Eternalost because ya get lost a lot?" I asked.

"I did, child, I did."

"So why ain't mama Eternalost? Can't be more lost than MARRYING outside the forest!" I said.

"Because I'd made the name Eternalost a proud name, and your mama didn't think she was worthy of it."

Just then mama jumped in. "It's not that I didn't feel worthy, you old woman, it's that I expected to be the end of the "tribe" you were making yourself."

"Whichever it is, your mother became a Nowari, which is a foreign word for the End."

"Hadn't she married papa before earning her Name?" I asked, innocently, not knowing what marrying without a Naming did.

Mama winced. "Yes, dear..."

"Hah!" Grand-mama scoffed. "EARNED! Your mother assumed her name in front of the dwarven priests! And they permitted it!"

"Now mother, you know the dwarves have different traditions than elves." Mama said.

"But YOU are an elf! You should never have allowed yourself to love him, kind and righteous though he be!"

"Mother! Calm yourself!"

"Mama, grand-mama? Why're you fighting?" I asked.

"Your mother caused our family to be dishonored before the forest mother." Said grand-mama.

"Your grandmother is a stiff-necked old fool, though family she still is, and thus I'll never leave her." Said mama.

"In other words," I said, "you're both acting no older than me and the other children, fighting over who get's to be on whose team when we're playing Adventurer."

"Haha, child, your wisdom is well beyond your years." Laughed grand-mama, and mother grinned, and everything was good again.

"Mother, do you think?" asked mama.

"Yes dear, I believe it is time." said grand-mama. "Young dear, it's time for your Naming."

"My Naming," I asked. "You mean I get to leave home, on a REAL adventure!?"

"Yes, my daughter, you have proven it is time for you to begin learning on your own. We'll pack your things tomorrow." Said mama.

(to be continued, of course)

 

[Darian Maliken]

The style here isn't one that i'm fond of, sorta reminds me of a crosspolination between script writing and a rough draft. However I like your characters thusfar. Keep working at it, this shows potential.

 

[SlicerSV]

OOC - I don't exactly desire to spend enormous quantities of time in perfecting these... I'll reserve that for stories I intend on publishing, not those I'm freely giving out on the web

besides, this is really just about explaining who teh Yula is. I'm not after story, but characterization.

 

[Darian Maliken]

My sentements exactly. What I write is what i consider goodenough for forumite concumption so i don't intend on doing edits.

 

[SlicerSV]

(continued from before)

The day dawned with an unusual brightness and clarity not often seen on the Erudian Isles. The mists had parted and the sun could be clearly seen, shot through with flushes of pink, to the east. It was an omen of a great Naming adventure ahead.

“Mama, i'nt that sunrise beautiful?” I said, with awe in my voice.

“Indeed it is, my darling. It's an omen of good tidings, child, perhaps you are to redeem our family some day.”

“A half-dwarf, redeeming a fallen wood-elven lineage? PAH!” said grand-mama.

“Mother, why are you so unforgiving of my choices?”

Grand-mama grumbled a bit, then replied: “You ran away, you didn't even attempt to protect either the dwarven tunnels or our elven forest, you may as well been a part of the invading army, you killed the Faydark just as surely.”

“Can't you let that go, even for just one day? This is a special day, the heir to our lineage is going out for her Naming adventure.” Mama sighed, grand-mama grumbled some more, but said nothing.

“I thought we were gunna pack some things for my adventure, mama?” I asked. In reply, she tossed me a bag with five crusts of bread and a large flask of water.

“Those are all you are permitted to carry for your Naming adventure, everything else you must attain on your own.” Mama said, wet spots glittering by her eyes. “Return safely, my little one.”

I then walked out into the world beyond.

(to be continued)

 

[SlicerSV]

(continued from above, and yeah, I know it's been a while, so sue me!)

As I walked away from the home I'd known for so long, I couldn't help but wonder why my family seemed so screwed up. My grandmother was an embittered ex-wanderer, my mother a renegade from everything natural. Myself, well, I was just one confused little girl. I wandered around Erudin, trying to find an idea of where I might go, when I came upon a peculiar little dwarf who liked to hang around a bar, he claimed to have known my dad, so I decided to share a table with him.

"So, m'lass, y'd wanta hear bout y'father, would ye?" The dwarf said after I pulled up a chair.

"Well, most definitely!" I exclaimed.

"Then d'story'd go somethin' like this:" He said and then went into a long and drawn out story. He described a man who was a great dwarven Paladin, a warrior of the goddess of healing, Althuna. A man who wanted nothing more in life than to ensure the safety of those he loved. An honorable, benevolent man. Most of it I'd already known and heard many times at the dinner table.

"But, sir dwarf, I already know about all this, how come my mother and he fled instead of fighting when Kaladim, Kelethin, and the city of the high elves all fell?" I asked, perhaps a tad pointedly.

He laughed whole-heartedly. "Well aren't ye jist like d'rest of ye family? No patience at all! Oh, and call me Bindle."

I stared at him crossly, "And?"

Then he laughed again, impossibly even louder this time! "Ye parents were primary counsellors to d'King of dwarves. When he began t'weaken'n t'become addled in d'mind, they felt something was wrong, n'tried t'find d'cause. They eventually discovered that Torlog, d'commander of d'armies, had betrayed us all!"

"But why would they leave, shouldn't they have stayed and tried to warn someone?"

"Alas, m'lassie, they could not. They only discovered Torlogs plot d'day before he performed d'tasks, Your mother was able to do somethin, though, and a mighty somethin it was! She'd cast a spell on him that caused him to move very, very slowly, the earth itself deformed itself t'keep him from escaping d'destruction he'd wrought! As soon as she'd cast her spell, your parents fled, it was too late for Kaladim, but they'd not be dying too! Perhaps it was a tad cowardly that instead of fleeing inland to try to protect Kelethin they fled seaward, to end up here, but I'd argue else, Kelethin was surely doomed by now, just as surely as was Kaladim."

My jaw dropped during this last, and I had to think to move it again. "So my parents, they fled in order to try to preserve some of their history?"

"Indeed, child, they did." Said Bindle, and then he promptly forgot me, and turned his attention to a newcomer to our table, who was seeking some sort of story from him for a queer History lesson.

I walked from there to the docks, and stared out to sea. I knew then that I would need to leave the Islands of my birth in my quest for a right to a name.

(to be continued)