Meeting Ioth (Ayanna)
From Toosigma
| Title | Meeting Ioth |
|---|---|
| Author | Philip Mann - Ayanna |
| Campaign | Shattered Prisons |
| Session | Pre-game background |
| Posted | |
| Game Date |
On a hill overlooking Silvervale, a beautiful elf watched from beyond the tilled fields of the farmers that shared the boarder of her forest. Known as Ayanna, a name the forest folk gave her, she stood as if a sentinel at the boundary between the wood and the world of Man. Her past and all that was before she arrived is a mystery, even to her. She awoke in the wilderness two years ago, and took to the life of a druid as if born to it. Soft-spoken and gentle, Ayanna has a magnetism that draws the company of creatures both fierce and meek.
A cold north wind blew across the plains where farmers dressed in winter clothing worked their fields. In spite of the bitter chill, Ayanna stood impassively as the nippy air gently teased the hem of her simple and well-worn dress against her bare legs. The dark wool of her hand-spun shawl rested gently down her back beneath platinum blonde locks as fine as spider silk that danced on the breeze. Her hair gently brushed against her cheek and then flew away behind her, drawing back from a bejeweled ear cuff that sparkled in the morning light. From her bare feet to her unadorned crown, the single accoutrement was the only thing on her that had even the most vague link to civilization.
Ayanna turned her ice-blue eyes to the horizon, scanning for anything that might indicate trouble. She paused for a moment to count the wisps of smoke rising from the settlements she could see; too few or too many could mean that the Aundairian soldiers were advancing again. They had so far confined themselves to the low lands to the East of the plateau, but none could know what was in the mind of those who would kill and die only to move imaginary lines across pieces of paper.
“Just halfway into the Month of Shadow,” Ayanna thought aloud as she sniffed the air. “The hunt will be long this year.”
The beautiful elf could see that the farmers were ending their harvest and the snow would soon cover the land. The first snow after the harvest would mark the start of the hunt for many who live in the region. Those who understood their place would come to take what they need to feed their families and no more, but those were not the ones she worried about. The others, poachers from as far away as the towering monstrosity of Sharn, would come to take pieces of everything they could. Her face wrinkled in disgust as she thought of the horrible things that would be done by these men firing their bows into young and old alike, taking skins and horns, and leaving flesh to rot.
Aemylithria told her once that Man does not live in harmony with Nature, but tries constantly to bend it to his will. “If left untended,” she said, “Man will kill everything and burn everything before he realizes he has doomed himself.”
Ayanna understood that even Man required tending as he is still a child of Nature, if a wayward one...
The little elf was sitting at the edge of the clearing when she saw the lone hunter clumsily stalking along the tracks of a small yearling doe that had passed recently. She did not recognize him from among the locals, but the bow seemed uncomfortable in his hands so he did not seem to be a poacher either. His years would make him a young man, but boys in the area learned how to hunt from a very young age, so he was indeed a curiosity. Also, there was something else about him, something odd that she could feel but not identify. No matter his origins or experience, she was not about to let him kill a deer just beyond its first year. He would hunt in harmony with Nature or she would spoil his efforts.
Ayanna circled around the clearing in the direction the doe had gone, never taking her eyes off of the stranger. She watched him stumble a couple of times, regaining his footing quickly and cursing his own clumsiness. Each time he snapped a twig or snagged his bow on a branch, he became more frustrated with himself, and became more focuses on his quarry.
Eventually, he came upon a fawn that was instinctively laying still in the snow. Ayanna thought that he must realize that this was not the doe he had been pursuing, but it did not seem to matter to him. He quietly nocked an arrow and raised his weapon to take aim. He drew the arrow back and held his breath, shaking just slightly under the strain of the weapon. She quickly compressed a clump of snow into a solid ball and threw it at him.
The snowball struck his bow and his suddenly released arrow disappeared into the snow covered undergrowth. The fawn, startled by the noise, bounded off into the woods before he could nock another arrow. Instead, drawing the bow back to fire, he turned toward where the snowball had come from only to find tracks where someone had been standing.
“Do not take the young of Spring,” came a musical voice somewhere nearby. “That is the first rule.”
Minutes passed as a gentle snow began to fall into the clearing. She watched from a distance behind him as he strained to listen for any sign of who had disrupted his hunt. It would be dark soon, and he knew that he had to either return to the cloister right now or remain in the wilderness overnight.
“Show yourself!” he demanded.
Ayanna giggled in spite of herself, causing him to turn toward her with his bow raised. The elf quickly spun around behind a tree for cover, expecting an arrow to fly past as she did, but nothing came.
“Mayhap,” she queried, “you are smart enough to look before you release your shaft, yes?”
He saw blue eyes peeking around the opposite side of the tree she took cover behind. Brilliant sapphires that glimmered with an inner light unlike anything he had ever imagined. A long moment passed between them before he realized that he had been holding his breath, and that he still held a bow ready to fire at this beauty who gazed askance at him. The man lowered his bow slowly, still considering that he may need to shoot to defend himself.
“Better,” she said as she disappeared behind the tree again.
“Who are you?” he insisted, straining in the failing light to detect her.
“Use only dead-fall for your fire,” she instructed. “Stay in the clearing and you will be safe until I return in the morning.”
Silence fell with the snow, and the sounds of the forest all quieted as he slowly began to look for wood to keep himself warm for an evening he had not planned to spend in the forest...
The quiet night passed slowly for the wayward hunter. He had built a fire and remained in the clearing is the strange woman had instructed him, but he found it very difficult to sleep knowing that he might be watched by any manner of creature. Instead, he stayed near the fire for warmth while continuously scanning the edge of the clearing for any sign of her. His mind was busy with questions about who she was and why she had disrupted his hunt, and his stomach growled an agreement at some of his unsavory thoughts about mishaps she should have during the night.
The sun had long set and the many hours saw fatigue win over discomfort, allowing an exhausted sleep to come over him...
In his dreams he became a mighty dragon over this wilderness. His eyes saw through the trees and snow, deep into places where she could not hide. He swooped in, snatching her bodily from the land and took her high into the air. His breath punish her for his hunger, and his mighty talons sought her beating heart in place of his meal. He tossed her about and crushed her into the snow, again and again her lifeless body compressed the wintry covering to the earth below in a choppy, shuffling rhythm...
The feeling of eyes upon him startled him awake, and the eerie predawn light showed him the silhouette of the elfin girl walking toward him through the crisp snow. He leapt to his feet when he realized she was almost within reach, but the gentle moonglow on her crystal blue eyes stayed his hand.
“What do you want with me?” he demanded.
Ayanna inclined her head slightly, making her seem as a curious puppy. “Why,” she began, “I want you to hunt.”
“But you stopped me...” he began with a growling stomach.
“Yes,” she interrupted. “I stopped you from killing.”
His face immediately became a picture of puzzlement. “But...”
“No, they are not the same,” she said sternly. “Man kills because he does not understand. Man slaughters because he does not want to learn how to live in harmony with Nature.”
Her eyes remained on him as he stood in stunned silence. Through his hunger and the anger he felt toward her for prolonging it, he could almost feel her sincerity. She was a Druid, and is much a part of the forest as the trees. If he left on his own, she would surely cause the creatures to flee and harass him until he left her wood. If he struck her down, he believed it possible he would not escape the clearing. The memory of his dream, of mighty talons separating her lithe body at her slender waist, pass through his conscious mind so vividly that it disgusted him. Certainly, if she wished him gone he would have been chased through the night.
His eyes fixed her, trying to match her calm earnestness. “What must I do?”
“Follow me.”
She trudged through the snow and into the wood with the stranger behind her. She did not move quickly, but she kept a steady pace and she wound through the trees and undergrowth. Minutes stretched into miles as the clearing he spent the night in seemed almost a distant memory. The woman seemed to have a destination in mind, but she neglected to share it. She did not talk; she did not look back. It was as if she had determined he would stay with her or have to catch up on its own.
After more than an hour with the morning sun well into the sky, Ayanna stopped at the edge of a small valley. She pointed toward a herd of deer and, gazing back at him said, “Tell me what you see.”
He thought for a moment as he tried to understand the answer she expected. To him, it was just a bunch of animals that seem to vary only in size and the number of horns on their head. Each one as likely a candidate for his a meal as the next, but he had already learned that his companion probably saw things differently.
“I don't know,” he said as a safe answer.
Turning her eyes back into the valley, she explained the herd and how it fit into the Cycle of Life. She described the old stag and now long into his years. She pointed to a doe with her new fawn, and a pair of young bucks that would eventually compete to lead the herd.
“Do you see it?” she asked.
Hungry and tired, he insisted that he did even as he reached for an arrow to match with his bow.
Her eyes trace the path his hand took to his quiver and she said, “No, but you will. Follow me.”
They walked through the woods for several more minutes in silence. He wanted to learn something about her, so his memory grasped at ways to begin a conversation. He recalled a small man in Silvervale singing a song that he called “Calista, my Calista”, a song that described her in a way anyone would recognize. The man, a halfling, joked afterward that the song was also titled, “Ode to My Next Wife.”
“Calista,” he said, repeating a name he had heard in town. “Your name is Calista, right?”
She wrinkled her nose as she heard the name a second time. “You should not believe everything a halfling tells you.”
“What is it then?” he asked.
“Why?”
“Because I am Ioth, and I would like to know what to call you,” he stated plainly.
She took several more steps in silence and responded without looking at him. “Ayanna.”
He wanted to say that it was a pleasure to meet her, but he did not want to lie either. But now he had her name and he hoped to take it back to the cloister to see if anyone else knew her. Maybe someone there could explain the things she was trying to show him in her odd Druidic way.
Ayanna halted among the trees and motioned for Ioth to wait. She walked slowly around some thick brush and knelt behind its concealment. Ioth stood in silence waiting for the elf. He debated for a brief moment about running into the woods, but decided to stay because he was unsure if he could find his way out alone. After a few long moments, Ayanna stood from behind the brush and motioned for him to approach slowly. When he neared where she stood, she knelt again behind the brush and his eyes, following her movement, came upon an injured deer lying in the snow.
“Tell me what you see now,” her voice squeaked as tears welled in her eyes, her right hand soothing the animal that lay next to her.
The deer, he guessed still fairly young, had caught both of its front legs in a trap obviously for a much larger creature. The snow was covered in blood several feet in any direction, and the terrified creatures eyes spoke of a will to escape though it's broken body could no longer fight. He saw a creature that had been trapped all night and was dying painfully.
“Mercy,” he said.
“Mercy.”
