Post by Tallaith on Nov 28, 2008 14:42:39 GMT -5
My name is Ceallian "Maewynne" Oir Edanadar and this is the short and simple tale of my travels until today.
If "simplicity" is defined by a love of simple things, then simplicity is what I seek in every moment. I adore a sweet song by a warm fire and perhaps a sip or two of ale, a taste I've only recently developed and only rarely indulge in.
In fact, I grew up in a brewery of sorts. My father was Braem Wing, a soldier of Rohan. Rohirrim do not use surnames as other folk do; when my sire moved to Bree-Land to escape the battles he knew too well, he adopted a name for his family to fit into the local customs. "Braem" means "blackbird" so the name of my blood is a jest of sorts.
My father sought a quiet place to raise myself and my five older brothers, Braem, Maeren, Kessler, Eared, and Braemen. I was raised a lass among rowdy men but my stepmother made sure I was reared a polite and proper lady. My entire family kept close watch over me to keep me safe in our tavern from the eyes and hands of strange travelers.
My father found a peaceful enough haven for us just outside Archet. I was only an infant when my mother died on the journey from Rohan and he found a new wife, a Breelander lass, as soon as we arrived. He converted a modest farm into a rustic inn and turned his attention to making ale and raising six rambunctious children.
I grew up in a tiny world made of strangers bearing strange songs of roads I never imagined I would see. My brothers were always beating and bashing each other in merry brawls, and an endless routine of cooking, gardening, sewing, and making beer alongside my stepmother kept me a busy lass.
There was a small blemish in what otherwise could have been called a perfect rustic childhood. My father left his esteemed position and fled to Bree-Land because of a bit of scandal; in a drunken brawl, he killed a man. Rather than face the downfall of his family's reputation he fled justice and sought peace and anonymity. By the time I was seven, I knew my father's secret and knew that protecting him with secrecy and evasion was the only way to preserve our family. My family changed even our names, using pet names instead of our given names. They called me "Maewynne" or "Mae" after my dead mother, which I answered to until recently in my travels.
There were a few odd aspects to my life before the long, dark stretch of days that changed the path I walked for all time. Unlike my brothers and father, I developed a love of learning and the ways of ancient times and I drove anyone who could read near to madness to share books with me. Borrowed texts from guests in the inn gave me a glimpse of what lay as far away as Bree-Town; a sight I never saw until I was without a home.
I also learned a bit of clumsy sword-work from my brothers and father. I was the only girl in that herd of swashbucklers so it was inevitable. In my father's years of service in Rohan he saw many disturbing things that made him encourage me to learn to protect myself, at least a bit. I never excelled with a blade and actually still find it distasteful to draw arms, something I avoid at all costs in favor of the power of song.
The lute was my first obsession. Many lasses fall in puppy love with a handsome face and broad shoulders, but I fell like a stone dropped in a well for the plain and honeyed tunes I learned to pluck on a battered old lute that was left behind by a faceless traveler. My skills opened locked gates on new roads as I tried to find a life for myself; a small gift would blossom into a rose so ripe the petals bruise and drop away with fullness. Song woke in me a blessing from the Ancients and a communion with the Valour that many know as Warspeech.
A special relationship with a rather odd sister of sorts was the final aspect of my upbringing that lent me resiliency and indomitable hope in the face of pain and darkness. Coltsfoot was a runty Hobbit lass abandoned with my father when she was still staggering about on bowed and unsteady legs and gnawing her fist around gurgles. She spent almost all of her time at my side. I am three years older than my fosterling sister and was always a kind face in a terrifying new world.
Otherwise, my childhood was good to me and nearly devoid of adventure. When I was twelve, a Man who was old enough to be my father, and in fact had a daughter one year younger than me, decided that someday I would replace his dead wife as his new companion. By the time I was sixteen I was betrothed to the Man, a middling farmer with four children and heart that had no room for kindness or tenderness even to his cattle. My father was only convinced to wed me to this Man through literal years of favors and coin. I wed him in a short ceremony in our common room when I was barely sixteen. A season passed and I was allowed to remain at home; chances were scarce that I would be able to see my family for a long time after moving households. I gathered my things and said sad goodbyes to those I loved.
Only the darkest of dreams saved me from a life as a servant and unremarkable farm wife. Coltsfoot was the only member of the Wing clan that survived the horrible fortnight that expelled us into an unyielding world. News reached my father one spring night in the form of a short and succinct letter. He wept, the first and only time I saw him show weakness, at the news that all of his boys were cooling in the parched soil of Angmar; they ran from home and a sheltered, unadventurous life as soon as they were accepted into the Free People's forces. One small battle wiped the Wing boys from all but memory.
The burning of Archet stole from my small sister and I any remainders of home and family; the residual skirmishes skittered through the Chetwood to the Wings' inn and left it gutted and burned, Coltsfoot and I clutching each other in a hidden cellar while our parents fell defending the secret haven for their children. We found no bodies to make a cairn for. My father and stepmother were burned to ashes in the barn and I imagine as they fell they were thinking of us.
Out of this tragedy a chance was born; even though I mourned the loss of everyone I loved with a numb and cold heart, I saw the opportunity to flee a cage made for me by a loveless Man with a cold hearth. I decided to run away and hope I was assumed dead rather than let this Man claim me as his wife. Only after my twentieth birthday did I learn of his death and found my true freedom, returning even to my real name. This comes a bit later in may tale, however, and I must state things as they happened to be anything like a storyteller of merit.
The dismal days that followed are misty in my recollection. Coltsfoot and I patched together what little useful things we could find on the meager farm and took to the road to Bree-Town. At the crossroads near the West Gate, I made a grave mistake. I coldly, and not without pain, turned my only friend and family away from me. Coltsfoot had never seen her homeland in her memory and had almost no social niceties, being a feral little creature who relished fightin' more than anything. My heart cracked as I turned the Hobbit West on the road to the Shire. Coltsfoot was brighter and braver than I ever was by far, but sheltered from the consequences of her actions by my kindness. She needed to know her own people and learn to live among them in peace, or at least in a truce. I was also in terror of being found and taken back to the prison I feared my marriage would surely be; a lass of my description traveling with a Hobbit youngster who had no control of her sharp temper and fewer manners would be discovered too easily.
I found a small living for myself playing songs by any welcoming fire; I was a wanderer for a season along the roads of Bree-Land, lost mostly and without purpose. I did not know what I sought and therefore could not find it. I saw my faraway husband in every Man I glimpsed from a distance. I lived in fear every moment that I lived as anything other than myself.
At the age of eighteen, after many scrapes with danger and death that made me feel infinitely older, I made my first true friend. A Dwarven Guardian named Lemilinus became my truest companion and protector as we found ourselves jolted into the lives of warriors protecting the Free People from the Darkness that came. Traveling to lands I had only read about and never imagined a simple lass like myself seeing, Lemilinus and I learned to value friends more than any treasure in this life. I also found my calling when I became aware of my gifts from the Valour. Whether I loathed it or not with every fiber of my body, my place was in battle showing others a spark of light when all paths were dark and endless.
When Lemilinus parted with me to return to his home in the distant Mountains, I again found myself lost and purposeless. In the happy and weary days I traveled with my friend, I resumed some curt contact via the post with Coltsfoot. Finding myself lonesome again, I sought out my wayward sister and was shocked at what I discovered.
Coltsfoot was to be wed, and had made some friends that she was more likely to describe as allies that "weren't fit to kick." And with my friendly demeanor, the first thought I had was to band these rowdy companions together into a Kinship. With the assistance of my new Elven friend Can-Calan and Coltsfoot's betrothed, I founded Lond Treneri. This was my second band of companions meant to provide aid and rest for the tired and forlorn; this Kinship grew and matured into a precious group of travelers that filled the void in my heart left by my stolen family.
My travels resumed with even more intensity than I had known as a lonesome lass on a long road. Along the way I found myself in lands as far from my home as Moria, Lothlorien, and eventually even Mirkwood. I met a Man who answered the true call of my heart, a Captain named Edan, and we were married within weeks of our first talk with one another.
Our story in itself can fill many pages and I will not retell it here, as some of it is still unfinished and I would not be fair in the telling. I will say that through him I gained a son, a home, and the leisure time to finally learn to read and write a little. Before Edan's unexpected disappearance I also thought to open an inn of my own, perhaps teaching children to play music as well, but since I am currently alone once more I have taken up my travels again.
Today I wish I could still convince folks that I'm simple; not too bright, not too lovely, not too skilled with a sword. But my unending persistence in battle belies my appearance as a misplaced lass from the countryside. My fierce compassion for all I meet appears to some to be naive but there is always the trembling strains of music, power from the Ancients, present around my person to protect me from harm when my common sense does not.
Traveling the lightless paths in Middle Earth is my calling, though not my love.
If "simplicity" is defined by a love of simple things, then simplicity is what I seek in every moment. I adore a sweet song by a warm fire and perhaps a sip or two of ale, a taste I've only recently developed and only rarely indulge in.
In fact, I grew up in a brewery of sorts. My father was Braem Wing, a soldier of Rohan. Rohirrim do not use surnames as other folk do; when my sire moved to Bree-Land to escape the battles he knew too well, he adopted a name for his family to fit into the local customs. "Braem" means "blackbird" so the name of my blood is a jest of sorts.
My father sought a quiet place to raise myself and my five older brothers, Braem, Maeren, Kessler, Eared, and Braemen. I was raised a lass among rowdy men but my stepmother made sure I was reared a polite and proper lady. My entire family kept close watch over me to keep me safe in our tavern from the eyes and hands of strange travelers.
My father found a peaceful enough haven for us just outside Archet. I was only an infant when my mother died on the journey from Rohan and he found a new wife, a Breelander lass, as soon as we arrived. He converted a modest farm into a rustic inn and turned his attention to making ale and raising six rambunctious children.
I grew up in a tiny world made of strangers bearing strange songs of roads I never imagined I would see. My brothers were always beating and bashing each other in merry brawls, and an endless routine of cooking, gardening, sewing, and making beer alongside my stepmother kept me a busy lass.
There was a small blemish in what otherwise could have been called a perfect rustic childhood. My father left his esteemed position and fled to Bree-Land because of a bit of scandal; in a drunken brawl, he killed a man. Rather than face the downfall of his family's reputation he fled justice and sought peace and anonymity. By the time I was seven, I knew my father's secret and knew that protecting him with secrecy and evasion was the only way to preserve our family. My family changed even our names, using pet names instead of our given names. They called me "Maewynne" or "Mae" after my dead mother, which I answered to until recently in my travels.
There were a few odd aspects to my life before the long, dark stretch of days that changed the path I walked for all time. Unlike my brothers and father, I developed a love of learning and the ways of ancient times and I drove anyone who could read near to madness to share books with me. Borrowed texts from guests in the inn gave me a glimpse of what lay as far away as Bree-Town; a sight I never saw until I was without a home.
I also learned a bit of clumsy sword-work from my brothers and father. I was the only girl in that herd of swashbucklers so it was inevitable. In my father's years of service in Rohan he saw many disturbing things that made him encourage me to learn to protect myself, at least a bit. I never excelled with a blade and actually still find it distasteful to draw arms, something I avoid at all costs in favor of the power of song.
The lute was my first obsession. Many lasses fall in puppy love with a handsome face and broad shoulders, but I fell like a stone dropped in a well for the plain and honeyed tunes I learned to pluck on a battered old lute that was left behind by a faceless traveler. My skills opened locked gates on new roads as I tried to find a life for myself; a small gift would blossom into a rose so ripe the petals bruise and drop away with fullness. Song woke in me a blessing from the Ancients and a communion with the Valour that many know as Warspeech.
A special relationship with a rather odd sister of sorts was the final aspect of my upbringing that lent me resiliency and indomitable hope in the face of pain and darkness. Coltsfoot was a runty Hobbit lass abandoned with my father when she was still staggering about on bowed and unsteady legs and gnawing her fist around gurgles. She spent almost all of her time at my side. I am three years older than my fosterling sister and was always a kind face in a terrifying new world.
Otherwise, my childhood was good to me and nearly devoid of adventure. When I was twelve, a Man who was old enough to be my father, and in fact had a daughter one year younger than me, decided that someday I would replace his dead wife as his new companion. By the time I was sixteen I was betrothed to the Man, a middling farmer with four children and heart that had no room for kindness or tenderness even to his cattle. My father was only convinced to wed me to this Man through literal years of favors and coin. I wed him in a short ceremony in our common room when I was barely sixteen. A season passed and I was allowed to remain at home; chances were scarce that I would be able to see my family for a long time after moving households. I gathered my things and said sad goodbyes to those I loved.
Only the darkest of dreams saved me from a life as a servant and unremarkable farm wife. Coltsfoot was the only member of the Wing clan that survived the horrible fortnight that expelled us into an unyielding world. News reached my father one spring night in the form of a short and succinct letter. He wept, the first and only time I saw him show weakness, at the news that all of his boys were cooling in the parched soil of Angmar; they ran from home and a sheltered, unadventurous life as soon as they were accepted into the Free People's forces. One small battle wiped the Wing boys from all but memory.
The burning of Archet stole from my small sister and I any remainders of home and family; the residual skirmishes skittered through the Chetwood to the Wings' inn and left it gutted and burned, Coltsfoot and I clutching each other in a hidden cellar while our parents fell defending the secret haven for their children. We found no bodies to make a cairn for. My father and stepmother were burned to ashes in the barn and I imagine as they fell they were thinking of us.
Out of this tragedy a chance was born; even though I mourned the loss of everyone I loved with a numb and cold heart, I saw the opportunity to flee a cage made for me by a loveless Man with a cold hearth. I decided to run away and hope I was assumed dead rather than let this Man claim me as his wife. Only after my twentieth birthday did I learn of his death and found my true freedom, returning even to my real name. This comes a bit later in may tale, however, and I must state things as they happened to be anything like a storyteller of merit.
The dismal days that followed are misty in my recollection. Coltsfoot and I patched together what little useful things we could find on the meager farm and took to the road to Bree-Town. At the crossroads near the West Gate, I made a grave mistake. I coldly, and not without pain, turned my only friend and family away from me. Coltsfoot had never seen her homeland in her memory and had almost no social niceties, being a feral little creature who relished fightin' more than anything. My heart cracked as I turned the Hobbit West on the road to the Shire. Coltsfoot was brighter and braver than I ever was by far, but sheltered from the consequences of her actions by my kindness. She needed to know her own people and learn to live among them in peace, or at least in a truce. I was also in terror of being found and taken back to the prison I feared my marriage would surely be; a lass of my description traveling with a Hobbit youngster who had no control of her sharp temper and fewer manners would be discovered too easily.
I found a small living for myself playing songs by any welcoming fire; I was a wanderer for a season along the roads of Bree-Land, lost mostly and without purpose. I did not know what I sought and therefore could not find it. I saw my faraway husband in every Man I glimpsed from a distance. I lived in fear every moment that I lived as anything other than myself.
At the age of eighteen, after many scrapes with danger and death that made me feel infinitely older, I made my first true friend. A Dwarven Guardian named Lemilinus became my truest companion and protector as we found ourselves jolted into the lives of warriors protecting the Free People from the Darkness that came. Traveling to lands I had only read about and never imagined a simple lass like myself seeing, Lemilinus and I learned to value friends more than any treasure in this life. I also found my calling when I became aware of my gifts from the Valour. Whether I loathed it or not with every fiber of my body, my place was in battle showing others a spark of light when all paths were dark and endless.
When Lemilinus parted with me to return to his home in the distant Mountains, I again found myself lost and purposeless. In the happy and weary days I traveled with my friend, I resumed some curt contact via the post with Coltsfoot. Finding myself lonesome again, I sought out my wayward sister and was shocked at what I discovered.
Coltsfoot was to be wed, and had made some friends that she was more likely to describe as allies that "weren't fit to kick." And with my friendly demeanor, the first thought I had was to band these rowdy companions together into a Kinship. With the assistance of my new Elven friend Can-Calan and Coltsfoot's betrothed, I founded Lond Treneri. This was my second band of companions meant to provide aid and rest for the tired and forlorn; this Kinship grew and matured into a precious group of travelers that filled the void in my heart left by my stolen family.
My travels resumed with even more intensity than I had known as a lonesome lass on a long road. Along the way I found myself in lands as far from my home as Moria, Lothlorien, and eventually even Mirkwood. I met a Man who answered the true call of my heart, a Captain named Edan, and we were married within weeks of our first talk with one another.
Our story in itself can fill many pages and I will not retell it here, as some of it is still unfinished and I would not be fair in the telling. I will say that through him I gained a son, a home, and the leisure time to finally learn to read and write a little. Before Edan's unexpected disappearance I also thought to open an inn of my own, perhaps teaching children to play music as well, but since I am currently alone once more I have taken up my travels again.
Today I wish I could still convince folks that I'm simple; not too bright, not too lovely, not too skilled with a sword. But my unending persistence in battle belies my appearance as a misplaced lass from the countryside. My fierce compassion for all I meet appears to some to be naive but there is always the trembling strains of music, power from the Ancients, present around my person to protect me from harm when my common sense does not.
Traveling the lightless paths in Middle Earth is my calling, though not my love.