Milla Mirnemind
Milla Mirnemind, a young untested druidess was my second character ever on the Neverwinter Nights roleplay server, and the first one I really played. She had quite a run of it, but again, I was not really comfortable writing or posting my sketches yet, so I did not write much about her that survived.
Milla's Tale
And Dead it Shall Remain...
Milla's Tale
The small, picturesque village set atop a heavily forested hill had never seen someone like the Merchant's daughter. From the day she was born, there was something fey about the girl; something they couldn't comprehend lurked behind those bright hazel-green eyes. Before she could even speak, the odd sounds she made brought squirrels and rabbits to the edge of her cradle.
As she grew, Milla was often seen crossing the village square with a sparrow perched on her shoulder, a small animal - often injured - in her arms, and a procession of quails or barn cats trailing along behind her. Her parents loved her, even if they didn't quite understand their only child, but she made few friends among the village children. When first she felt their disdain, Milla had tried to hide her strange affinity with the land and its creatures. Eventually, the teasing, the scornful looks and the cold way most would turn a shoulder at her approach, broke her desire to fit in and Milla found solace in the woodland creatures and their quiet, pristine world.
She was almost half a year away from her sixteenth birthday when her customary morning hike lead her down a ravine she'd never explored. In the base of the small canyon, Milla found the corpse of a nursing wolfmother, dead a day at least. A pair of hunting birds circled on the breeze above, diving at a small pile of rubble and screeching their frusteration. Soft, almost inaudible whimpers reached her ears and Milla fell to her knees, searching for a hole in the pile. Moments later her efforts were rewarded with a nip from tiny canine milkteeth and the feisty growl of a wolfpup.
It was her first meeting with a living wolf and from the first time she touched him, there was an odd tingle at the edge of her mind. Unconcerned, Milla tucked the young pup - not much more than a single moon old - into her jacket.
Her parents had put up with her many quirks for fifteen years. But a wild wolf? Living in their house? Chasing their chickens? No. They argued around and around, Milla begging to keep little Kazan - she had already named the small male, and her parents adamant that should could not. The confrontation heated, the puppy bouncing ferociously upon the bed, baring his teeth in defense of the young woman he'd already imprinted upon. Angrily, her father strode across the small room and reached for the barking baby, tossing him out the door.
The tingle that had been dancing around her perceptions all day expanded, swallowing her in a whirl of colors. Her mother shrank back, a scream echoing through the house. Her father cursed, throwing himself against the wall as a large wolf snarled at them. A large wolf, who only seconds before, had been their irate daughter.
Shadows threatened at the edge of her mind, and the last thing Milla remembered before sucumbing to the spontaneous shift, was the look of contempt, fear, and hatred in the eyes of her own family.
She woke, it might have been hours or days later, with no memory of how far she'd come or where she intended to go. A small furry object was snoring softly near her head and Milla was touched to see that the poor, malnourished little beast had followed her.
In the months that followed, Milla and Kazan walked the land aimlessly. They avoided the larger cities, and many of the small ones, in favor of wooded trails, open meadows, and sparkling streams. She enjoyed the wild, relished the silence, and chatted with dozens of creatures; but Milla missed human interaction.
Occasionally, she shifted without warning, and would wake in a strange place, sometimes roughed up, always with no recollection of what had transpired. Each time, Kazan would be beside her, often dragging her dropped possessions in his teeth. She came to keep a journal of exacting detail, to remind her of the people she met and places she saw - for each time she shifted her memories became blurry.
After nearly two years on the road, and months without a shift, Milla thought herself in control. Then, as she and Kazan dozed before a small campfire, they were set upon by a pair of common thieves. The men weren't content to simply rob her, instead, a knife at her throat, they intended to have their way with her. Furious and frightened, Milla called upon the wild forces inside her and...
She assumes she killed them. In fact, she hopes she did. But again, she woke in a place she didn't know. This time, it was the hold of a boat as it floated in the harbour of a small town. She was bleeding and senseless and as she stumbled across the gangplank, her eyes fell upon a sign...
"Welcome to Nesmé"
And Dead it Shall Remain...
The sunset was glorious; a beautiful waterpainted masterpiece of russet and violet and hazy green all melding down into the deep, endless black of night. All around her the crickets chirped and the sounds of the settlement settling in for the night enveloped her. The pup in her arms wriggled, nuzzling her chest as if it might find nourishment there and she looked down at him indulgently.
How he reminds me Kazan, she thought, stroking the rough fur between two pointed little ears. Her companion had been just this age when she found him, alone and half-starved near her parents' home in Greenriver. She had been just fifteen then, and he had remained at her side faithfully until his death more than twelve years later. Sometimes, when the nightmares had returned and the alcohol did not drown the pain, she dreamt of him. And other times, she had dreamt of the other male in her life. Silanaam.
He had called himself Virelaan, and she had loved him from the first. He had protected her, and...cared for her in the only way he seemed to know how. His first love was vengeance and she could not compete with that. Still, after they had parted ways, she sought him. When she returned to Nesmé, older and wiser, she felt his call - he was in need... but then... nothing.
There were long gaps in her memory, and though Aisa had diligently tried to fill in those times, the elemental often decided that she had slipped into oblivion for a reason and to interfere with that would only do her injustice.
She had wandered then, for several years, occasionally returning to the one place she had ever called home. She exchanged greetings with old friends, Shail and Jackson and Rem and Elric, but never stayed long. Her home, she had discovered, was the world itself. The trees beckoned her, the rivers, the hills.
Never did she remain in one place longer than a month or two.
Until she fell, half-drunk and quite belligerent, from a rocky cliff onto the sandy shore of a broad lake. Aisa had not been with her, but even if she had, she would have done little to stop the fall - her theory was that she needed a good swift kick in the ass to pull herself out of the inebriated stupor.
Aisa had been right.
She had been found by a ranger called Eli. He was human, and a few years younger than she. He came across her broken, but living, body and carefully transported her to his lodge. Over the following six weeks, Eli fell desperately, hopelessly in love with the angry, bitter woman. It took longer before she came around, but witHin a year the pair were married and for the first time in her thirty-five years, Milla Mirnemind knew true happiness.
She smiled, rubbing the baby wolf's fuzzy face against her cheek as a pair of strong arms looped lazily around her midsection.
"Soon I won't be able to reach at all, love," he joked, pushing her hair aside with his nose and kissing the back of her neck. His hands, large masculine hands well-worn by years in the wild, rubbed her protruding belly and a smile crossed her lips.
"What shall we name him?" she asked softly, still petting the small beast.
"Why not, Kazan? In honor of your friend?"
Milla shook her head. "No. The past is dead, Eli. And dead it shall remain."
Her fingers strayed to the pendant she still bore around her neck and her features clouded a moment. Then, in one swift jerk she ripped the chain from her neck and flung it far into the dark abyss below the cliff's edge.
"And dead...it shall remain..."