Hallie "Lark" Corvidae
Hallie is one of Willy's daughters by the madman known as Scarecrow. I never really got a chance to play her as an actual 'grown-up' character, but this story was inspired by the very first time I logged her in as she returned to Nesmé for the first time in years.
Homecoming
Homecoming
Snow fell in fat white flakes as the small barge made its way into the harbor. The woman - scarcely more than a girl, truly told - gripped a heavy cord with one hand, the other arm hanging at her side with a heavy-looking satchel pulling at her fingers. There was a case strapped to her back, tooled black leather with eight silver corners, each engraved with a small bird in flight.
How strange it is, she thought as her lively hazel eyes watched the town grow near, to be home again. She could see the peaked rooftop of the temple in the north and she bitterly remembered the weeks she and her mother had spent there after her father's defection. The Acolytes, the priestesses, and of course the woman she knew as 'Aunt'. Beyond that was the Obelisk, glowing and proud. People talked about it all over the place, the dragons that had fallen to its power in the past and those that may once again fall to it. The woman had never ventured close to it, fearing its power.
She turned her gaze to the south and saw the Duke's residence, a monstrous building of concrete bricks and slate roofing. It took a supreme effort, but she dragged her gaze away from the southern end of town and gathered her belongings, preparing to disembark. There were no other passengers, just a few traveling merchants taking their wares into town and she smiled briefly, remembering the first time she'd watched her mother bartering fervently with Vashanu. He had not wanted to lower the price on the necklace, but she had insisted. Eventually they had walked out of the wagon with the pendant, which to this day hung around the woman's slim neck, and most of their money. Not to mention the packet of sweet meats he had donated to help fill out a young child's painfully skinny body.
Thin, tapered fingers fingered the pendant at her throat as she hefted the satchel in her other hand, stepping quickly down the gangplank. She set foot onto the soil of her birthplace for the first time in ten years and was slightly disappointed not to feel a poignant prick of emotion. Then again, she pulled a heavy hood up, covering her head, she had never been one to truly feel the songs she sang. The emotion she evoked was due to masterful music and a truly excellent voice...not any feelings she identified with in the lyrics. It was her only downfall as a performer. Technically, she was perfect. Her voice clear and pure and true; her fingers quick on the strings of her lute and skilled enough to shift from the bawdiest bar room ballad to the sweetest lullabies in an instant.
She drifted aimlessly away from the docks, moving toward the center of town as the snow began to thicken. There it is, she chuckled inwardly, pushing past a local woman and her children, though she would have sworn she remembered the mother as a girl who sat with she and her sister once upon a time. The Sundered Shield. I wonder if Narma still runs it... Dad bought us our first wine there. I remember when he- No! she told herself angrily, and turned her back on the inviting warmth of the Inn and its frosty windows. I won't remember them. I won't.
Her gaze roamed the square and she waved to the old dwarven smithy as he and an apprentice lugged wood from a pile back into the shop. Further down the road she saw the barracks and beyond that the jumble of thatched roofs and close-sitting homes that housed most of the locals. One specific house caught her eye and she had to admit to herself that she was shocked to see it still stood.
She could still see the dark, soot-stains on the outside of the chimney where she and her twin had once accidently set the roof afire. Her feet moved of their own volition toward the residential section of town, silent tears welling in her eyes as she circled the small wooden house that she had grown up in.
Memories flooded her mind as she stood at the front door, placing her palm upon it. Dad, Mama, Mal... The good times...the bad... all of them twirling behind her eyes. She bent her head, trying to steady herself.
"Hello." A voice came, bright and cheerful.
Quickly, she wiped her face and turned to face the man. "Oh! Hello."
"Something I can help you with?" he was a pleasant enough looking elf in blue and gray, and his smile was friendly.
"N-no," she tugged at the hem of her hood, hiding her tear-stained cheeks. "Is this your home?"
"Yes."
She nodded and apologized for trespassing.
"Not a problem," he smiled. "I am Fraxous."
The young woman's eyes turned to the small window. Inside a woman watched one child playing before the hearth, a babe to her breast. For a moment the image shimmer and she saw her mother, all in red, and her father, swathed in black, his swords hanging from his belt and a bottle of drow wine in his hand, watching two young girls playing tug-of-war with a doll in front of the fireplace. No, she told herself, blinking the vision away. Those memories are dead. Hallie Corvidae is dead.
With a murmured curse, she forced a smile and looked again at the man.
"Pleased to meet you. I am Lark."