Post by EmberQuill on Jan 22, 2013 10:27:07 GMT 10
Title: The Broken
Rating: PG
Summary: Rosethorn hates children. She dislikes most people, to be honest, but she hates children the most. However, the four children who have recently come to live with her are hardly children at all...
Warnings: light, second-hand angst, I suppose
Author's Notes: Written on a whim, albeit several months ago. It was originally posted elsewhere, but I discovered today that I still have zero posts here and decided to fix that. It's (mostly) unedited, so constructive criticism is very welcome.
Dedicate Rosethorn's dislike for children was no secret amongst the Dedicates and Novices of Winding Circle. While she was not hospitable towards anybody except Dedicate Lark, with whom she shared a cottage near the temple's outer wall, she reserved a very special part of her hatred for children. Boy or girl, noble or street rat, Rosethorn did not care. Her dislike did not discriminate.
It is no surprise, then, that thoughts of children would be what drove her to hide in her garden for a whole day, deep in thought, while trying to avoid the very children that occupied her mind. With the arrival of two more girls a few days prior, the cottage's four spare bedrooms had been filled. The children were troubled, according to Dedicate Superior Moonstream, who had dropped them off at the cottage, one after the other, without even having the courtesy to warn them first. Rosethorn had wanted to argue, as she and Lark had only ever taken in adult mages before, but Moonstream was in charge of all of Winding Circle. Her word was law, so when she said that the children had trouble socializing with their peers and would do better in a more isolated environment, Rosethorn had no choice but to acquiesce.
The look that Lark had given her had quelled all thoughts of protest.
The fact that all four children seemed to be ambient mages much like Lark and herself had certainly not gone unnoticed. While they supposedly had trouble "fitting in" with the other Novices in the regular temple dormitories, Rosethorn wouldn't have been too surprised to discover that Moonstream had orchestrated the whole thing so that the four children would all end up in the care of two of the very few people in all of Winding Circle that could begin to teach them.
That was what the cottage, nicknamed "Discipline," was for. Rosethorn was surprised that Moonstream hadn't told the children what it meant, but apparently she agreed with Niko's opinion that the four should be allowed to discover their talents for themselves. Niklaren Goldeye was the very mage who had first discovered the children and brought them to Winding Circle, so his opinion obviously counted more than her own. With Lark and Moonstream agreeing with him, Rosethorn was once again outnumbered, even though she and Lark would be the ones who had to deal with the inevitable fallout when the children finally discovered their latent powers. She already expected it to be sudden and explosive and possibly very costly. Letting ten-year-old mages run around with no training, or even knowledge that they have magic at all, sounded ridiculously dangerous to her.
A small voice in the back of her mind disagreed, though, and she did have to admit that watching the four of them fumble around in the dark was fairly amusing.
In the dark...
She had learned a lot about the children in the past few hours, while speaking with Niko. She had discovered some of their pasts, and that was ultimately why she was spending the afternoon alone in her garden, letting her various plants anchor her to the ground as her mind wandered through the clouds.
Sandrilene fa Toren, who much preferred the shortened "Sandry" to her full name, was more than just a flighty noble with an overinflated sense of justice. The first ten years of her life had been spent traveling with parents who refused to sit still. She had no friends her own age, and no permanent home to speak of. Her nomadic yet lavish lifestyle came to an end in Zakdin, Hatar, when a smallpox epidemic swept through the city and claimed the lives of both of her parents. Her nursemaid had been murdered within earshot of the little ten-year-old girl, who had spent the next two weeks hiding from an angry mob in a dark cellar with nothing but a chamberpot, a lamp that quickly ran out of oil, and some thread for company. Her trial had left her with a paralyzing fear of darkness and a quick, righteous anger which overtook her senses whenever someone was mistreated.
Trisana Chandler, who also preferred a shortened nickname and called herself "Tris," was not just a rich, prejudiced, merchant family's child. Her magic was wild, untamable. She could cause storms when upset, but showed none of the usual signs of a mage-to-be. Her family thought her possessed, or simply inhuman in some way. She was past from relative to relative until she had none left, and then sent to live at an orphanage when her family could no longer stand her. The orphanage wasn't her final home either, as the children were cruel enough to her to awaken her powers once more. After that, she lived in a string of different homes until Niko stumbed across her in Capchen entirely by chance and brought her to Winding Circle. Her trust had been betrayed so many times that she found herself incapable of trusting again. So she pushed away everyone who tried to get close, even those with the best of intentions.
Daja Kisubo appeared at first glance to be a simple Trader. She had once sailed on the Third Ship Kisubo, along with her closest family. Her parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins had all lived aboard that ship, until it ran into a storm and was torn to pieces, leaving a single girl alive, clinging to a piece of driftwood until Niko tracked her down. Unfortunately, as the sole survivor of a shipwreck, she was declared Trangshi, the worst kind of luck, and forbidden from ever interacting with her fellow Traders again, but neither would non-Traders ever fully accept her. She dealt with unfair prejudices that had already, on more than one occasion, escalated into a actual violence.
And then there was the boy, Briar Moss, a former thief and street rat once known as Roach. He, too, was far more than he appeared to be. Fatherless since birth, his mother's death when he was four took away the last family he had. He'd been on the streets for six years when Niko had found him, and was on his way to work at the Docks as punishment for being caught stealing for the third and final time. He'd had a difficult life, with hardships beginning so early in his life that it was all he knew. He had made friends and watched them die. He had suffered at the mercy of bad luck, and only narrowly avoided a drastically-shortened lifetime spent toiling at the Docks, thanks to Nicko's timely intervention. He came to Winding Circle with the same trust issues as Tris, not because he'd been abandoned, but simply because there had never been anybody to abandon him.
"They are not children anymore," Rosethorn mused aloud. "A few of them never had the chance to be."
She constantly had to remind herself that they were still just ten years old, because they did not act like any children she had ever seen. The did not have the wide-eyed innocence of children. Instead, they had the narrow, downturned eyes of adults who had already seen the darkest shadows of the world, and lost their innocence along the way.
They were broken.
She couldn't hate them, as she hated other children. She could hear them crying at night, screaming as they woke from nightmares borne not of childish imagination but their own worst memories. It wasn't pity that she felt, either. Instead, she felt a simple need to do what she could to help her children put that pain behind them.
"Hmph, my children," Rosethorn murmured with a chuckle. "I must be going soft."
Her musing concluded, the Rose stood up and donned her Thorns once more. It wouldn't do for anyone to see that she really had a soft side under the sharp exterior, after all. Lark would never let her hear the end of it.
"Boy!" she shouted up towards the cottage's roof, where she knew Briar would be resting. "We've got work to do!"
Rating: PG
Summary: Rosethorn hates children. She dislikes most people, to be honest, but she hates children the most. However, the four children who have recently come to live with her are hardly children at all...
Warnings: light, second-hand angst, I suppose
Author's Notes: Written on a whim, albeit several months ago. It was originally posted elsewhere, but I discovered today that I still have zero posts here and decided to fix that. It's (mostly) unedited, so constructive criticism is very welcome.
Dedicate Rosethorn's dislike for children was no secret amongst the Dedicates and Novices of Winding Circle. While she was not hospitable towards anybody except Dedicate Lark, with whom she shared a cottage near the temple's outer wall, she reserved a very special part of her hatred for children. Boy or girl, noble or street rat, Rosethorn did not care. Her dislike did not discriminate.
It is no surprise, then, that thoughts of children would be what drove her to hide in her garden for a whole day, deep in thought, while trying to avoid the very children that occupied her mind. With the arrival of two more girls a few days prior, the cottage's four spare bedrooms had been filled. The children were troubled, according to Dedicate Superior Moonstream, who had dropped them off at the cottage, one after the other, without even having the courtesy to warn them first. Rosethorn had wanted to argue, as she and Lark had only ever taken in adult mages before, but Moonstream was in charge of all of Winding Circle. Her word was law, so when she said that the children had trouble socializing with their peers and would do better in a more isolated environment, Rosethorn had no choice but to acquiesce.
The look that Lark had given her had quelled all thoughts of protest.
The fact that all four children seemed to be ambient mages much like Lark and herself had certainly not gone unnoticed. While they supposedly had trouble "fitting in" with the other Novices in the regular temple dormitories, Rosethorn wouldn't have been too surprised to discover that Moonstream had orchestrated the whole thing so that the four children would all end up in the care of two of the very few people in all of Winding Circle that could begin to teach them.
That was what the cottage, nicknamed "Discipline," was for. Rosethorn was surprised that Moonstream hadn't told the children what it meant, but apparently she agreed with Niko's opinion that the four should be allowed to discover their talents for themselves. Niklaren Goldeye was the very mage who had first discovered the children and brought them to Winding Circle, so his opinion obviously counted more than her own. With Lark and Moonstream agreeing with him, Rosethorn was once again outnumbered, even though she and Lark would be the ones who had to deal with the inevitable fallout when the children finally discovered their latent powers. She already expected it to be sudden and explosive and possibly very costly. Letting ten-year-old mages run around with no training, or even knowledge that they have magic at all, sounded ridiculously dangerous to her.
A small voice in the back of her mind disagreed, though, and she did have to admit that watching the four of them fumble around in the dark was fairly amusing.
In the dark...
She had learned a lot about the children in the past few hours, while speaking with Niko. She had discovered some of their pasts, and that was ultimately why she was spending the afternoon alone in her garden, letting her various plants anchor her to the ground as her mind wandered through the clouds.
Sandrilene fa Toren, who much preferred the shortened "Sandry" to her full name, was more than just a flighty noble with an overinflated sense of justice. The first ten years of her life had been spent traveling with parents who refused to sit still. She had no friends her own age, and no permanent home to speak of. Her nomadic yet lavish lifestyle came to an end in Zakdin, Hatar, when a smallpox epidemic swept through the city and claimed the lives of both of her parents. Her nursemaid had been murdered within earshot of the little ten-year-old girl, who had spent the next two weeks hiding from an angry mob in a dark cellar with nothing but a chamberpot, a lamp that quickly ran out of oil, and some thread for company. Her trial had left her with a paralyzing fear of darkness and a quick, righteous anger which overtook her senses whenever someone was mistreated.
Trisana Chandler, who also preferred a shortened nickname and called herself "Tris," was not just a rich, prejudiced, merchant family's child. Her magic was wild, untamable. She could cause storms when upset, but showed none of the usual signs of a mage-to-be. Her family thought her possessed, or simply inhuman in some way. She was past from relative to relative until she had none left, and then sent to live at an orphanage when her family could no longer stand her. The orphanage wasn't her final home either, as the children were cruel enough to her to awaken her powers once more. After that, she lived in a string of different homes until Niko stumbed across her in Capchen entirely by chance and brought her to Winding Circle. Her trust had been betrayed so many times that she found herself incapable of trusting again. So she pushed away everyone who tried to get close, even those with the best of intentions.
Daja Kisubo appeared at first glance to be a simple Trader. She had once sailed on the Third Ship Kisubo, along with her closest family. Her parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins had all lived aboard that ship, until it ran into a storm and was torn to pieces, leaving a single girl alive, clinging to a piece of driftwood until Niko tracked her down. Unfortunately, as the sole survivor of a shipwreck, she was declared Trangshi, the worst kind of luck, and forbidden from ever interacting with her fellow Traders again, but neither would non-Traders ever fully accept her. She dealt with unfair prejudices that had already, on more than one occasion, escalated into a actual violence.
And then there was the boy, Briar Moss, a former thief and street rat once known as Roach. He, too, was far more than he appeared to be. Fatherless since birth, his mother's death when he was four took away the last family he had. He'd been on the streets for six years when Niko had found him, and was on his way to work at the Docks as punishment for being caught stealing for the third and final time. He'd had a difficult life, with hardships beginning so early in his life that it was all he knew. He had made friends and watched them die. He had suffered at the mercy of bad luck, and only narrowly avoided a drastically-shortened lifetime spent toiling at the Docks, thanks to Nicko's timely intervention. He came to Winding Circle with the same trust issues as Tris, not because he'd been abandoned, but simply because there had never been anybody to abandon him.
"They are not children anymore," Rosethorn mused aloud. "A few of them never had the chance to be."
She constantly had to remind herself that they were still just ten years old, because they did not act like any children she had ever seen. The did not have the wide-eyed innocence of children. Instead, they had the narrow, downturned eyes of adults who had already seen the darkest shadows of the world, and lost their innocence along the way.
They were broken.
She couldn't hate them, as she hated other children. She could hear them crying at night, screaming as they woke from nightmares borne not of childish imagination but their own worst memories. It wasn't pity that she felt, either. Instead, she felt a simple need to do what she could to help her children put that pain behind them.
"Hmph, my children," Rosethorn murmured with a chuckle. "I must be going soft."
Her musing concluded, the Rose stood up and donned her Thorns once more. It wouldn't do for anyone to see that she really had a soft side under the sharp exterior, after all. Lark would never let her hear the end of it.
"Boy!" she shouted up towards the cottage's roof, where she knew Briar would be resting. "We've got work to do!"
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!