Here is where I will post stories about Mí Raine, a new char almost out of the design phase. She is a 21-year old explorer/cartographer. She has two sisters, Doe and Rae.
There are many more things I would say, I shall write her stories while I am away.
Tales of Mí
#1 - A Blip Appears on the Map
#2 - No, I am not lost!
#3 - Who the Kitten are you?
Last edited by robinsiebler; 01-09-2013 at 04:45 AM.
The world is full of pain and sorrow.
Life is fleeting and true moments of joy are few and far between.
Happiness is laced with shards of pain.
Need names for parents - D'oh! I forgot to do this!
Mi's father is a cartographer, the third generation in a row to follow what is now the family trade. He loves this with a passion, the exploring and discovering of beautiful places, the danger of the wilderness, the challenge of transferring what he sees into a map for all to use and admire. He is observant and skillful; his name eventually becomes well known throughout Kryta.
Mi's mother is a seamstress. She enjoys creating lovely dresses for women to wear, the usefulness she feels when she repairs someone's favorite outfit or the apron the blacksmith was given by his father, the challenge of the precision required for the gloves for a noble lady. Her customer list is quite extensive, including even prominent members of nobility from Divinity's Reach.
Mi is the oldest child and a tomboy to boot. Even as a toddler, she wants to wander to the nearby meadows or down to the ocean. When she is five, her sister Doe is born and when she is eight, her sister Rae is born. Rae's birth is quite traumatic on Mi's mother and the doctor tells her she cannot hope to bear another child and live. Mi's father, who had hoped for a son, is saddened both by the affect the birth had on his wife and by the thought that his family's trade will die with him.
But Mi changes his despair into hope when she begins to ask to go with him on his trips into the wilderness, complaining about how her mother keeps trying to teach her how to sew and how all she can do is prick her fingers and try not to look bored. He agrees to let her come with him and secretly begins to teach her the skills of a woodsman.
She take to this readily and by the time she is 11, her father decides she is ready for the ultimate test of her skills. He charges her to enter the nearby woods with only the clothes on her back and a his favorite dagger. She is to track and kill a wolf using on the the skills he has taught her and any weapons or traps she can devise.
Mi is very excited at the prospect! Finally she will be able to prove that not only is she the equal of any of the boys of Garenhoff, but better than them! She heads off into the woods and is gone for three days. When she returns, she has the skin and head of a wolf, a wound on her left cheek that will eventually turn into a small scar and bragging rights that will make her the bane of all of the boys in town.
Mi's mother had always been fearful of the woods and all of the harm that could befall her oldest daughter, but when she sees the joyful Mi displaying her trophies and proudly telling her story, she realizes that Mi has found her proper path in life.
So while Doe and Rae learn all that their mother can teach them of sewing and converting the desires of her patrons into works of wearable artistry, Mi spends her days with her father learning how to explore, observe, measure and convert all that she sees into a vibrant painting on parchment that any might use to guide them from the remotest region of Kryta to the poorest neighborhood of Divinity's Reach, should that be their wish.
Time marches on and eventually, around the time when Mi is 18, Mi's mother can no longer grip a needle for long due to the cramps that are caused in her hands and Mi's father, his vision failing can no longer travel through the dangerous countryside or accurately copy a map. The three sisters take over the daily business and care for their parents, whom they love very much. Mi has the heaviest burden because she has no one to spell her and she is the only one who can carry on the trade that her father and the fathers before him prized so much.
Mi works tirelessly at her trade, still learning everything she can from her father: how to read people, how to haggle and all of the tricks and secrets from a master of her art. Her father dotes on her and her name is always on his lips while Mi is always looking to make her father even more proud of her than he already is.
By the time that Mi is twenty-one, she has explored all of Kryta and decides that the best way to secure her fame is to leave Garenhoff and head to Divinity's Reach, where she will have the opportunity to display her talent for all to see and perhaps gain the patronage of the nobles.
Last edited by robinsiebler; 10-30-2012 at 03:31 PM.
When Mi arrives in Divinity's Reach, the first thing she does is open her backpack and remove a battered roll of parchment. It is a yellowed map of the city, the only one she was able to find. She examines it and her brow furrows. She has not examined the map before and what she sees before her does not correspond to what appears on the map. She scrutinizes the map more carefully, the name of the cartographer who created the map is smudged and the title 'Divinity's Reach' is in a different handwriting altogether.
Deciding that there is little that she can do about it now, she wanders about, trying to find someone who might desire her services. After several days of fruitless searching, she finally over hears a noble complaining about a topic she not only understands, but one that she can address!*
She learns that the original map of the city has been destroyed in some kind of attack by a band of Charr. She quickly offers her services and displays several maps as proof of her skill. At first, the gathered nobles are dubious, but she answers all of their questions with ease and when she mentions the name of her father, one of them recognizes it and she is given a provisional commission to create a new map of the city, the provision being that first she produce a map of any segment of the city save for the central gardens or the collapsed zone. She readily agrees and sets off to explore the city.
She spends a full week examining every major thoroughfare of the city and then reports back providing a detailed sketch of the Eastern Commons, it being the least constructed area of the city that fell within the limits she was given. The nobles are quite pleased with the quality of her work, so she explains that the creation of a map of the detail an quality her family name requires will take many months, perhaps even a full year. They agree that this is acceptable and she thinks to herself as she walks away that her father will burst with pride when he hears of the price that she negotiated.
And so she begins to follow the path laid out before her by her new task. Each morning, she arises, eats a hearty breakfast and continues her work on what will one day, be a map of the city.
Last edited by robinsiebler; 10-30-2012 at 03:45 PM.
One day, Mi is sitting by the fountain outside the Golden Sun, where she has just started working on the segment of the map for that segment of the city. A stranger approaches and asks what she is doing, she replies that she is a working on a map of the city and asks the stranger to move a bit as he is blocking her sunlight and casting a shadow on her parchment. He introduces himself as Arathander and the two begin conversing. At some point, Mi decides she needs a break and Arathander offers to escort her to a peaceful spot nearby where they can relax, converse and drink tea. She agrees and follows him as he heads off.
They arrive at the spot and she has a cup of tea, a drink that she is not very familiar with and has not really liked. This tea is quite pleasing to her palate and she is surprised that it is an Asuran variety called Oolong. She also learns that Arathander is a bit of an odd character who prefers to travel the world in a very random way and yet somehow hopes to see all of it at one point. She is bemused by his lack of logic, a trait she feels is quite common to the male of the species. She tells him of her family, her calling and her current commission to map the city. She decides that she likes this odd fellow and agrees to meet with him again for breakfast the next day and has him mark the general location of his house on her map.
The next morning, she starts sketching a portion of the Ossan Quarter in the early morning and takes a break to make her engagement. She is starving, as usual. Thoughts of food are never far from her mind. She finds the general location of Arathander's house and starts calling out his name at the top of her lungs as she wanders through the area. After several minutes, a number of angry glares and the dodging of what appeared to be a rotten tomato, she comes across Arathander, who is standing in the middle of the street urging her to be quite.
She follows him into his house, where there is a table full of all kinds of good food: pancakes, eggs, bacon, sausages, ham, bread, several kinds of fruits and juices. She creates a heaping pile on her plate and douses everything with syrup, using half of the entire container. She proceeds to eat everything rapidly, only slowing when her plate only contains a puddle of syrup which she sops up with a piece of bread. She then pours a large glass of juice and downs it in a single go.
Arathander looks at her, both amused and amazed and she sheepishly explains that she is always hungry and that her father would wail that she could drive a farmer to the poorhouse. The two converse for a bit and then part ways, with Arathander promising her a good dinner if she will return another day.
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