Difference between revisions of "Riorde"

Revision as of 20:05, 21 September 2011

Template:Exiles

Prologue

Asena lost the baby, of course. And then nearly bled out on the sun-bleached sand and rock they deposited her on, cursing the man who did it to her, her father for his helplessness, the rider who brought her there to die. It was the healer in their midst that saved her, a small notch against the grudges against men piling up one after another.

Asena had been a sunny child and teen, growing up the great household of High Reaches Hold. Her bright smile and eager-to-please ways elevated her from a simple baker's daughter to maidservant to the Lady, and it was that same smile and earnest girlishness that attracted the eye of Lord Beradin one day when he came upon her airing out her Lady's sheets on a clear mid-morning.

Who was she to say no? She was only a girl, and hardly knew how to, let alone what was happening to her.

After several more fumbled encounters, Asena had to stammer out her suspicions of pregnancy, and in a second she went from a momentary distraction from rumours of rebellion to another problem to be dealt with.

If there wasn't a revolution brewing, rebellion on his hands, he could have laughed off her claim to be pregnant. Him, siring a bastard at his age? His first thought was that the girl was clearly having him on, trying to conceal other fooling around. But that wasn't what mattered - what mattered was if it got out, was used against him. The last thing he needed was a bastard child claiming Bloodright, or a warden claiming it for him. The girl's panicky denials of any knowledge or exchange with his conspirators only sounded like confessions in his old, suspicious ears. Beradin simply added her to the lists of those sent to trial. Problem solved.

Asena went cold and dark in the days and months and Turns that followed her exile, and even when warming herself against the body of another in the nights for solace when the isolation was too much for her, Asena never made a sound.

Description

High, wide cheekbones, a strong, angular jaw and chin, and almond-shaped eyes give the young woman's face a vulpine cast accentuated by her thin, spare form. She fills out slightly at the hips but will never boast a full set of curves, too narrow for more than the bare minimum. Dark hair frames her square face, untidily trimmed and untidily worn. Her skin seems clear despite the elements, given colour from a life lived mostly outdoors except for her pale, unsmiling lips. Such beauty that she carries gives her no open ease, however, her bearing and undisguised green-eyed stare tending towards remote detachment, the encouragement of distance.

Her clothes lack a proper fit, clear hand-me-downs taken in for her slender figure. Her shirt, once a medium russet, is now an indistinct brown, and the rough fabric has been worn thin and supple. Her trousers are of a sturdier make at least, but hems worn through time and again have shortened the legs to a crop.

Background

Something of Asena's silences and cold mistrust survives in her great grand-daughter, Riorde. Asena never took a husband but did have a child some Turns after arriving on the island. It was these two women who largely brought up Riorde and her younger brother following the death of her mother, who was caught out unawares in one of the first unexpected Threadfalls of the comet Pass. Her father, though well-intentioned, felt it best to leave raising the children to the women of the family.

Asena's memory remained sharp until the day she died, when Riorde was ten. She told stories, sometimes, of the life she had lost; though Riorde was never completely sure how much to believe, particularly when comparing tales with the other children her age, she was inclined to trust the old woman. Surely there was more than this island, this sea, even if she hardly knew what.

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