06. Text

[baldrshand]

[A photo appears shortly before the post beneath.]




It seems that there is a lot of... strangeness happening to people. So far, I haven't noticed any drastic changes in my person or my thinking, but I think I'm one of the more fortunate ones. This seems like a good time to issue my customary greeting to all of the new "Chosen" of Aldrip.

Hello! My name is Ethlyn. (If you're not new, hello again!) If you find yourself ill or injured, I manage the Willow Clinic. It's not too far from the Inn, between the residential and commercial districts. You'll know it immediately from two things: the willow tree out front, and it being a farmhouse in the middle of a lot of four-and-five story apartment complexes made out of concrete and whatnot.

Since it's come up: I don't charge money for medical services (although if you would like to make a donation it's welcome!). I'm not interested in making injured people fish through their purses while they're trying not to bleed out.

As well as the Clinic, I lead the Arztenritter--we're a mounted brigade of healers. Anyone is welcome to join; if you don't know how to ride a horse or set a bone, we will happily teach you. Should you need emergency assistance, please send a message on the network, or message myself, Marianne, Toph, or Minato.

I've been here for over a year, and I've lived through the many disturbances and changes of this world, so if you have any questions, I would be happy to help...

I suppose that means I've grown another year older, hasn't it? Twenty-one.


[She's not going to add FUNNY GIVEN THAT I'M DEAD but she's sure thinking it.]

Comments

[firekiss]

That's exactly right. If you don't teach someone how to safely take a fall, you can't teach them how to tumble. If you start with knives before balls, people will hurt themselves before they learn how to juggle.

And it's not for everyone. I have a lot of siblings and some of them looked at what I was doing and said nah, and they learned how to do boring stuff like accounting and warehouse management. I can't imagine having a desk job. Can you?

[baldrshand]

I certainly wouldn't want to be the one patching up the results of teaching someone in the wrong order when you put it like that.

To tell the truth? Working in one small quiet place all the time doesn't appeal to me very much either. Healing has many challenges, and we wouldn't be anywhere if there weren't people whose job it was to keep everything organized... but it isn't for me, not at all. I have to be out there, doing something with my hands.

[firekiss]

[Moving on from risking it all for clicks.]

Right! I tried to give it a shot? It just doesn't suit me. It was like teaching a fish to fly, or asking a bird to swim.

I grew up in a pretty barren place. Hombert-σ. Have you heard of it? Rock everywhere, and most of the animals you could find wanted to eat us, so if you haven't heard of it don't look it up. You wouldn't want to live there.

But a place like that gave me a real appreciation for all the things you'd take for granted in a better place, like music, and dancing, and fun, so first chance I got I learned what I could and here I am now.

[baldrshand]

I'm afraid I haven't... but it sounds a bit like a place from my home that I do know of. [That place is Thracia, the long enemy of her country of Leonster--a place of mountains and barren rock. Where the people are hard and ruthless, turning their hands to mercenary work... work which they carry out with terrifying brutality.

At least, that has been how she thought for a long time. And she still does. It's hard not to when you were slain by their king. But she knows her daughter grew up among them. And having known Claude and his struggles between one half of his heritage, she isn't so sure about how effortlessly her people wrote off other nations as 'barbarians' anymore.] The people there had to drive themselves to some desperate lengths to survive because their land was so poor. I'm sure they would appreciate a good dancer as well.

[firekiss]

It sounds pretty similar when you put it like that. Kinda oppressive owners who turn a blind eye to a LOT so long as you don't break any laws that they can't ignore? People doing less than savory things just to keep their bellies fed?

If so, yep! And no offense, but I'm not sure if I can go back to a land of rock and algae anytime soon, let alone dance. Only so many lizards a girl can eat before she wants something else, you know?

[baldrshand]

[That rhetorical question gives Ethlyn reason to pause and think before she answers.]

The latter, certainly. The men of Thracia are known for hiring themselves out as mercenaries--and they're feared throughout the continent for their skill and ferocity in battle. But from what I know... they are very devoted to their king. I've never heard that he was corrupt or self-serving.

[It's a strange thing to admit about the man who killed her. She doesn't owe Travant a hearing--certainly doesn't owe him any preservation of his reputation. But she doesn't want to slander him for one of the few things he isn't guilty of.]

You really ate lizards?

[firekiss]

Well, once or twice. Resources were scarce back home, and if you wanted to eat meat you needed to catch sky minks. And sky minks? They're FAST, and there's no way you'd catch one with your bare hands.

But they had shrieking lizards guard their nests. So what we did was catch the lizard, the lizard calls down the sky mink, and we caught the sky mink. That wasn't easy either, since the lizards spew out a potent venom and if you didn't take proper precautions you'd lost your life.

..........and when you catch enough lizards you get curious about what they taste like. So one day we caught one, I had someone cook it, I ate it, and it was TERRIBLE. Someone caught another one, cooked it a different way, and it still was TERRIBLE. Never again.

Don't worry! One thing led to another and I moved to somewhere WAY better than that.

[baldrshand]

[Sky minks. Ethlyn wonders how literal that is, because she really is just picturing ferret-like creatures with little wings streaking through the air.]

I'll have to keep that in mind next time I see a lizard. Although I've never seen any lizards--or snakes--here shriek or spit venom, so at least it would be less dangerous if you decided to try again. Although I wouldn't advise it.

[One thing lead to another? Ethlyn is very curious.]

I'm glad to hear that. What was the new place like?

[firekiss]

Believe me, I've got no desire to try again. At least, not unless I can get some people to like and subscribe - I might try it again for the clicks? But that's a different story.

New place: big, clean, great food AND great people. The Luofu's huge! The Xianzhou's bigger than Aldrip is, that's for sure.