My First MK Story!

My First MK Story!

Wolfbro86 16 Aug 2007 04:55

All right, I'll probably divide this up into several posts, for length's sake. Any comments, criticisms, or concerns are all welcome!

Running Wild

It felt like he’d been running forever.

His feet ached. His boots had been worn out long ago, soles worn completely through in places and dangerously thin everywhere else. They’d been well-made, but that only went so far. It certainly didn’t go through several streams, miles of difficult terrain far from anything resembling a road or trail, at least one swamp (he’d lost count) and several mountains. His tunic and trousers were also torn, with numerous small holes from branches and thickets, spots of blood marring the once fine fabric where the scratches went deeper than just holes in his clothes.

The runner stumbled, crying out in pain as he trod on a sharp stone. Picking himself up quickly, he stifled any further noises and ran on through the forest, limping now. The man’s age was impossible to determine for certain, his almond-shaped eyes a pale gold and a fey cast to his features, eyebrows rising at a slant. Dirt smudged his finely-boned face, his long fingers scratched and bloodied, fingernails broken and worn down to nubs. As his long, raven-black hair blew back away from his face, it revealed the fine points of his ears.

As he ran, he trod on another stone, except this one turned beneath his foot, pitching him down to the ground. He hit the ground, his head impacting on another stone. As darkness overtook him, he just hoped that his pursuers wouldn’t catch up while he was unconscious…

Re: My First MK Story!

Wolfbro86 16 Aug 2007 04:56

Jael’anon Kawauso had been a musician and poet once. Through the blackness, it felt like eons had passed. Life had been good to him. He’d never quite fit in with the few other children he’d grown up with, but that was only to be expected. They were all full-blooded elves, and he was a half-breed. Jael’s mother had a brief dalliance with a human man, and while nobody thought less of her for it, their liaison had produced him. However, despite the bond that had formed in his parents due to him, like most romances between human and elf it was doomed from the start. Though his father had been in his early twenties when they had met, Jael was still in his childhood when his father was forty, and his mother looked exactly the same.

Thus, his father had left. Though physically Jael was perhaps ten years old, he was into his third decade of life, and both he and his mother missed the man terribly. It made sense in a way…it clearly hurt the man to stick around. He got to watch as he grew older, year after year passing harder and harder, while his son was a toddler for almost a decade, and his wife didn’t change at all. He would grow older and older, become a burden on his family, become senile and incontinent, and then die…while they looked old enough to be his children and grandchildren.

So, the half-elf child had grown up with his mother for the rest of his childhood, living with the rest of their tribe. He certainly hadn’t been ostracized from the few other children. There was some distance, to be certain, but in most ways he was just one of the kids. Jael lived with the rest of the elves, growing, working, and learning. In the course of his education, he learned the common and elven languages and a good deal of history from the elven perspective. In addition, he learned poetry, music, and some fighting skills.

However, it became more and more apparent as time went on that Jael wouldn’t be able to life forever with the elves. Even with his elven blood and an apparent longer lifespan, he hadn’t inherited the immortality of the elves. He already looked older than the children he had grown up with, and it worried his mother that he looked as old as she after another decade or two. Jael’s music and poetry became increasingly mournful, and finally he made his decision to leave the elves.

Things had started off well enough. Jael was well-equipped when he first left, tunic, trousers, and boots all of fine elven make, his preferred weapon, the saber, at his side, and his lute on his back. He began wandering, moving from place to place as a bard, singing for his supper at different taverns and inns. When money ran out, he begged, and when that yielded nothing, he often went hungry. Thieves were discouraged as often as not by the saber, and when not put off by that, his ability to wield said saber helped him in good stead. He wasn’t good enough by any means to be a professional soldier, but against untrained thugs, he was able to protect himself well enough.

The traveling itself was good enough, seeing new places every day, and Jael followed his own feet for several years. He stayed in infrequent correspondence with his mother, where he found the biggest difference between the elven lands and the human world: humans moved. Elven life stayed the same as he had known it every time he received a letter from his mother, while every time he wrote his own situation was different, and conditions around him were different.

Of course, since things were always changing, that meant that sometimes life would be better, and sometimes worse. Traveling north with a caravan headed for Metamor Keep, an attack by Lutins overran the procession, overwhelming and killing the guards and merchants. Jael fought harder than ever before, but they were too far distant from Metamor to hope for any aid from the transformed defenders of the Keep. The half-elf had been captured by the Lutins, who had judged the man of interest enough to bring to someone who could pay a good deal of money for interesting playthings.

The next few weeks were something that Jael would rather forget than anything else. Needless to say, he was not treated well in the hands of the Lutins, prodded along as long as he could walk, and dragged when he could walk no more. He didn’t know where he was being taken, but he was well into the Giantlands before the first opportunity to escape came. He’d heard the outcry as soon as he’d broken out of the camp, and he’d just started running. Jael had been on the run for days before disaster had struck, the slip, the twisted ankle, and his head impacting on a rock.

Re: My First MK Story!

Wolfbro86 16 Aug 2007 04:57

When he awoke, the first thing that Jael noticed was that he wasn’t dead. The next was that he was in a brightly-lit room, in a bed…a soft bed, at that. It was functional, but the mattress had no lumps, and the sheets were smooth. The room was stone, and the window, though small and definitely an arrow-slit rather than a true window, it managed to light the room well. Finally, he noticed the person in the room with him.

Jael had to say “person,” because “man” would have been stretching the term, and the person in the room with him certainly was not human. He was definitely male, his clothes and his bearing testifying to the fact, even if Jael couldn’t be certain from the body type. Would a female fox have breasts, even if she looked mostly human? Because clearly, the person seated next to the arrowslit-window was some sort of hybrid between the two.

Well, that at least made it clear where he was. He’d made it to Metamor Keep…or at least close enough that the Keepers had found him out on patrol. He tried to sit up, then groaned as his head spun, dropping him back down onto the bed with the soft thump of his body hitting the mattress once more.

Apparently that slight noise was enough to attract the attention of the fox, whose eyes came up to look over the bedridden half-elf. “Oh, you’re awake now, then? Do you know where you are?”

Jael nodded before remembering his aching head, the wounded body part quickly admonishing him for his foolishness, making him wince. “Yeah…I think so, at least. Where did you find me?”

“One of the scouting patrols found a group of Lutins, looked like a raiding party. A strike from ambush wiped out most of them, sent the rest running. On the way back, they found you, out cold with that nasty lump on your head there. They figured it’d be better to pick you up and bring you back to the Keep rather than leave you out in the cold.” The fox stood with a soft grunt, whiskers around his muzzle grey. That and the way he moved as he walked toward the bed led Jael to believe that he was aged, at least as humans (or foxes?) went. “Though there was some curiosity as to what an elf was doing out of the forests, and especially this far north.” The fox’s eyes twinkled, letting the not-quite-question hang in the air.

“It is a long story to be had there,” Jael replied with a sigh. His gaze went up to the ceiling, looking for inspiration there. “I’m not certain I have the energy to tell the entirety of the tale now, but firstly…I’m not a pure-blood elf, only a half-blood. I have been wandering for several years, now, and had the grave misfortune to be captured by Lutins, too far distant from the keep for your outposts to be able to do anything about it. I escaped, and then had the further misfortune to twist my ankle and hit my head.” He relaxed back into the mattress, exhausted by even the simple act of speaking.

“That is indeed quite the tale,” the old fox nodded, moving over to the bed, “and I look forward to hearing the entirety of it when you are well once more…” he trailed off, one brow rising archly at Jael.

“Jael’anon Kawauso. A pleasure to meet you, good sir.” Jael smiled slightly, extending one hand, somewhat weakly.

“Gods, don’t call me ‘sir.’ Make me feel older than I already am. Alan Freeman.” The fox smiles slightly, taking Jael’s hand in a strong grip. “Good to meet you, and now I’ll be letting you take your rest.”

As the old fox turned to go, Jael blinked, a thought occurring to him. If this was Metamor Keep… he almost sat up in bed before he caught himself. “Wait, how long have I been out?”

“Ahhhh…” Alan turned back, a look of genuine pain flickering over his vulpine face. “I was wondering when that question would come up. You’ve been out nearly two weeks, Jael. I’m sorry…”

Jael stared for a moment, in shock, as the fox exited and closed the door behind himself. Two weeks…then it had already begun. He was cursed, one of the Keepers, now, and there was nothing to be done. Instinctively, his hand went to the back of his neck, where he could feel thick fur already beginning to grow.

Re: My First MK Story!

MishaFox 16 Aug 2007 05:43

Good start to story. And that 2 week period can fly by really fast.

One minor thing - instead of having the fox smile you could also mention him wagging his bushy tail back and forth. Add a little bit of a furry feeling to him.

I like his initial confusion over seeing his first morph!

Re: My First MK Story!

FoxMarine 16 Aug 2007 05:58

A very good story and an interesting background. I look forward to more.

Re: My First MK Story!

MatthiasRat 16 Aug 2007 09:22

Good introduction! Looks like Jael is about to get a crash course introduction to Metamor now too!

Dominus vobiscum

Re: My First MK Story!

Virmir 17 Aug 2007 02:47

Ah, a classic intro-by-lutin-ambush story, but with a character with a very different background. Nice work! I'm interested to see if him being half elf would have any strange effects on his curse. I believe Raven's character Tessa is also a half-elf, but the curse didn't effect her. But then again, the curse works in strange ways. ;)

I will agree with Misha in that we like more furry-ness. :) Also, I would mention Alan's fur color at least once. Of course everyone will assume he is a red fox, but there are plenty of other, and being a gray fox fan, I like to see them distinguished. :)

Once this is ready to go, feel free to email the full text to kendo.virmir -at- gmail -dot- com and I'll get this up on the archives for you!

---

Metamor Keep Story Archives | Crimson Flag Comic | Virmir's Stories

Re: My First MK Story!

RavenB 17 Aug 2007 13:02

Ah, a classic intro-by-lutin-ambush story, but with a character with a very different background. Nice work! I'm interested to see if him being half elf would have any strange effects on his curse. I believe Raven's character Tessa is also a half-elf, but the curse didn't effect her.

<nods> That's correct. The inherent magic of her Elven blood kept the Curse from penetrating her aura and changing her. The Curse's magic layers over top of her aura, but it doesn't touch her body. There would have to be something distinctly odd about Jael for him to become vulnerable to the Curse. Perhaps the injuries he sustained were great enough that they weakened his aura, leaving him vulnerable for the Curse to slip in and make contact with his body.

The story is off to a promising start; you write fairly well, and it's an interesting back-story. That said, there are a few significant inconsistencies here with Elves and half-Elves as they have been established in MK:

1.) Half-Elves don't age quite as slowly as you have here. Tessa is twenty-two in 707 and appears to be 15. A full-blooded Elf of the same apparent age would be about 80 or so.

2.) Half-Elves are common in Quenardya (the kingdom of the Elves). They form what you might call the professional class of Quenardyan society: craftsmen, doctors, teachers, soldiers. The Elves trust them with more responsibility than humans, considering them to be more emotionally mature and capable of handling complex matters with greater care and discretion. Jael might have been the only half-Elf in his family, but he would certainly not have been the only half-Elf in his village.

3.) Elven society isn't tribal, per se. Elves do form small communities that are scattered throughout the forest, but these towns and villages maintain close ties with each other, and they aren't divided up along familial lines. Wanderlust is common among Elves during the time between 100 and 200 years of age, and these young adults often end up settling down far from where they were born. (There are also a few large cities, most notably Taralas, the capital. These tend to be big, sprawling communities that integrate themselves with the surrounding forest rather than displacing it.)

4.) Very important cultural point: All half-Elves are bondservants. No matter how skilled or capable he may be, a half-Elf is always under the supervision and protection of a full-blooded Elf — usually a relative or a mentor. A half-Elf with no master is not considered feasible in Elven society. If Jael left Quenardya, he needed to get permission from his guardian in order to do so — or else he ran away. Both of these things are practically unheard of, though not impossible.

5.) Romance between Elves and humans doesn't usually end in tragedy in Quenardya. The Elves have a philosophy that finds beauty in the bittersweet; they embrace love even when they know that it will end in the early death of one partner, because the fact that something is temporary does not keep it from being beautiful while it lasts.¹ Most of the time, the humans who fall in love with Elves find it comforting that their partners embrace them unconditionally, even as they are aging right before their eyes. No doubt there are some, like Jael's father, who can't handle it, but they would be seen as sad exceptions to the rule, objects of pity among other Quenardyans.

6.) Lastly, Elves have been out of contact with the Midlands for 150 years, so the arrival of a half-Elf in Metamor is going to cause a big stir if he's recognized as such. Tessa's reaction to his arrival is likely to be rather dramatic, though the specifics of it will depend on how he left. If he went with his guardian's permission, Tessa will see him as a welcome reminder of home, though she will urge him very strongly that he ought to keep his half-Elven nature secret, at least for now. There is a darkness at work in the human world, and they don't want the bad guys to find out that Elves are starting to take an interest again in human society; the Elven High King had a specific plan in sending Tessa back with Raven, and the element of surprise is crucial. If, on the other hand, Jael ran away without his guardian's blessing, he will receive a much colder reception from Tessa, who will view him as a traitor to their people. She will still warn him to keep quiet about his heritage, but she is likely to use less reason and more threats. Diplomacy has never been her strong suit. :)

Let me know if you have any specific questions as you're going forward; I'll be happy to help provide background on the Elves and assist you in working your character into the setting with a minimum of difficulty. I'll definitely want to collaborate with you at some point to describe when Tessa and Jael first meet; the existence of two half-Elves at Metamor is so unusual that it would be a crime if we didn't address it, especially given the difference in how they were affected by the Curse (or not affected, in Tessa's case).

Footnotes

1. This is an idea that I borrowed from the Japanese; they call it wabi sabi.

Re: My First MK Story!

Wolfbro86 17 Aug 2007 22:14

Crap, my most sincere apologies. I apparently haven't read enough of the archives, and was so unaware that so much about the Elves had already been established. I'll work to get this in line with what I've written so we can work this out.

However, I did recall reading somewhere in the info that half-humans, like werecreatures and such, were vulnerable to the curse, and so I assumed that half-elves would have the same vulnerability.

I would write more, but I'm in a press for time right now…more to come!

Re: My First MK Story!

MishaFox 17 Aug 2007 23:59

No need for apologies my friend. Mistakes happen. If you need help feel free to ask.

Re: My First MK Story!

RavenB 19 Aug 2007 20:19

However, I did recall reading somewhere in the info that half-humans, like werecreatures and such, were vulnerable to the curse, and so I assumed that half-elves would have the same vulnerability.

<nods> Generally, yes, half-humans are vulnerable. Elves are an oddball exception because of the inherent magic of the Elven nature, which involves a very strong sense of self-identity. I should have mentioned it in Tessa's article, but I overlooked it, for which I apologize. In any case, as I said, we can explain away Jael's transformation by saying that the attack had weakened his aura and allowed the Curse to penetrate it.

Last edited on 19 Aug 2007 20:27 by RavenB Show more