The Drowned Wing

[Erny]

Having spent a great many years educating herself and learning her art, the creature often mistaken as a pixie, and is small by even pixie standards, stands on the eastern edge of Aliuna, the very town she grew up in.  She looks out over the sea and breaths in the sea air, her wings almost shaking with anticipation.  The boats, going out for their morning catch, don't notice her, but she watches each and every one of them, still knowing their schedules by heart, in anticipation of finding enough food to survive with.

She watches the south with piqued eagerness, occasionally flying higher as if to try and peek over the horizon.  After years of searching, she's finally found a place to call her own home, and she intends to open it up to those that are like herself, homeless.  She reflects back, as the sun dances on the light ripples of the water, to her own past, and the number of times she was forced to resort to less than ethical means to feed herself, and when able, to feed the others in her group.  She seemed to have a knack for it, given her small size, and the fact that she could fly higher than most could reach.  They tended to give up the chase when she flew over someone's roof and down in to the next street, only to have the other children help hide her, in hopes that they would be repaid with a bite of whatever she'd stolen.  The real shocker came the day she was hiding from the guards and wandered to the platforms above the market center.  A whole new world was opened as she glanced at the vial and potions.  She did little more than watch carefully, and listen to the words spoken.  She began picking pockets, careful to never pick from those that were poor, and never from the pockets she'd seen on the platforms.  She began to purchase components, minor ones, and to experiment with them.  At least until the day she met him, but this isn't his story, this is hers.

She brings her mind back out of the past and checks the horizon to the south one more time, looking for the signs of something steaming toward her.

[Erny]

As she waits, Erny's mind begins to drift back in time once again.  Though normally not given to reminiscing, the events of today are directly based on her history, and she's well aware of the importance of history.

The mysterious man, whose name she didn't learn for a very long time, took the time properly teach her the basics of magic.  He never admitted it to her, but he was often surprised at her grasp of the concepts, and she readily learned the cantrips that all mages learn as a basis of more powerful magics.  He was also taken with her ability to cast while still maintaining some skill with her dagger.  He enlisted another to help him, one more skilled in the arts of the rogue, and the two discreetly taught her more advanced skills and magics.  They also educated her on the war and the roles of the temples.

Erny in turn educated many of the children that still flocked to her.  As she learned to read, she taught them, seeing that they could survive better if they could actively participate in the world around them, rather then leaving them caught in their place below a society that has forgotten them.

Finally, something catches her eye on the horizon, but it's distance is still to great to be sure what it is.  Her wings flutter faster in anticipation, until unbidden they lift her from the ground.  Her new height shows what she has been waiting on.  A barge is being pushed up the river toward Aliuna by another boat.  It's taken quite a bit of time to gather the funds to pay for the boat, but the barge came at no cost.  It was a gift from her Deity.

When her teachers stopped coming as regularly to teach and train her, she began to seek them out.  Finally, she found them in Naerlan, working in a temple.  After discussing with them their roles in the temple, she went back to the streets of Aliuna to consider their teachings in more depth.  She understood now about the war, the roles of each of the temples in the war, and the hunt for the relic known as the Rod.  She also had an understanding of society, a society that would leave her and the other children, most of whom are casualties of the war, to fend for themselves on the streets.  The orphanage in Aliuna was a joke, and could barely feed the people that work there, let alone the children that sought refuge there.  She flew back to Naerlan and joined with the temple of her teachers, wholly embracing the teachings.

She befriended many people, but her size often was a source of ridicule from her templemates.  How could someone who was small by the standards of pixies be of much use in battle?  Sure, her spells often gave aid, and he skills with a blade were good enough that she could defend herself, but that was about it.  She asked her teachers about it, and drank in what they had to teach.  She then went off in search of a piece of mind and possibly a few words of encouragement from her God.

[Erny]

After joining the temple, Erny's body began to exhibit new characteristics.  She failed to notice them because she never took any kind of self inventory.  Her wings and skin began to darken, and not from the dirt that living on the streets had originally caused.  Her nails also tended to grow much faster and longer than ever before.  It was again, one of her teachers in the temple, that pointed these things out to her and also pointed out that such changes were obviously a gift from their Lord.  This was one of the things that caused Erny to strike out on her own for a while.

She spent a great many years on her own, losing track of time.  She kept up with her training, but didn't strive to learn anything knew either in the ways of the rogue or in the arcane systems.  Instead, she studied the materials her teachers and other temple members had given her.  She had even spent what money she could come up with to purchase copies of tomes saved by the followers of Cylad.  She never questioned if she was purchasing those copies from the followers directly, or from people who came by them in other ways.  Her concern was the information in the materials, not in the source of the materials.  A few of them she was able to discard due to their obvious fakery.  She sought out the people, later, that sold her such inferior works and made them pay, usually with their life.

Erny watches the barge being pushed closer.  She can stand on the ground and see the tug chugging up the river and getting itself ready for the final push that will beach the barge.  It will obviously require some work, but it will make a good place for her to rest, study, practice and also to teach.  After her journey her need to teach what she's learned is almost to much for her to live with.  She knows that it is her Lord's will that she pass on the teachings of the temple, and those that cannot be taught will either be made useful in other ways, or will be killed.  She looks back over her shoulder, hearing someone come nearer and smiles to herself seeing one of the orphans coming to see his new home.

Again, her mind wanders back.  She returned, thinking she had only been gone a brief time, only to find out that years had passed.  Over the years though, her body had not grown soft, since she'd kept up with her workouts.  Her mind though, was sharper than ever.  She found that she was able to recall everything she had studied in her absence.  She was also surprised to discover that she was almost not recognized by those in her temple.  It wasn't that she was gone for so long they'd forgotten, but that her body had continued it's transformation.

She gathered the children of the streets, though to most she was a stranger, and began to teach them the ways of the thief, and fill their minds with the teachings of Ytrewtsu.  Some turned quickly, some more slowly and some refused to accept.  The ones that never accepted seemed to vanish, but their absence was never missed since life on the streets was harsh.  She brought the knowledge of the void back with her from her journey and even allowed one of the children to give himself to the void, thereby giving it a living outlet.  That's when she realized that the students needed a better place to live.  So she flew and listened to the voice of her God.