Hi tumblr! This is apparently my 5000th post! This tells me that I really need to find something better to do with my time (I kid... mostly). I figured I’d dive back through some archives to celebrate this ginormous milestone. Below is the very first thing I wrote in long-form for Val, with an assist from my lovely spouse. This dates from about 2011, but I tightened up the prose and overall, I’m pretty pleased with the results.
Several of the characters who will come up have long been retired for me. Evraine was Cymrych’s housekeeper for YEARS, until she ran off to Tyr’s Hand. The twins Coren and Rowanne are still toddlers because then, the timeline worked differently. Hani is young and strong and has no children of her own yet - so a very differently set of circumstances than they’re all in now.
Anyway, I’ll keep working on this - it’s long, but hopefully gives some perspective on Val and why she is the way she is. :)
The highlands of Arathi were colder than the older woman remembered from her youth; she pulled her shawl more more tightly around her shoulders as she swept the dirt off of the porch. The last time Evraine been in the area she’d been … somewhere in her mid- twenties, she thought, and even then she’d only been passing through with her family to get somewhere more important. These lands were rougher now, with orcs and trolls lurking off in the distance, and the ruins of Stromgarde uncomfortably close.
Evra shook her head, also shaking herself out of her reverie… what good was it, to think about the awful history around and not her tasks at hand? Annoyed with herself, the housekeeper to Cymrych O’Brien savagely swept at the porch’s dusty floor, concentrating with laser focus on the tiny mudprints left behind by her charges. The twins, now fully mobile, had been running amok all day and tracking mud, dirt and Light-knew-what into the house.
She sighed to herself as she eradicated the traces of one little footprint after another, mourning for her lost routine. When Cymrych had been off to war, it was just her, Coren, and Rowanne. There was order, structure to all their lives... Now that Cymrych was around full-time, everything had changed. Doors were constantly opening and closing (and slamming), something she'd yet to get used to, and there was always a dwarf about, or a still malfunctioning, or someone elses’ mess to clean up. The knight’s girlfriend didn’t help things, either. She didn’t cook for herself, and Hani’s presence disrupted the already chaotic nature of Hill House even further.
The broom swept over one last footprint, knocking a wooden toy aside. Evra clucked disapprovingly and bent down to retrieve it. A shock of greying, apricot-colored hair fell into her face, and she was brushing it out of the way when some movement out of the corner of her eye stopped her. Clutching the handle a little more tightly, she stood up, pocketed the toy, turned around, and then squinted to focus on whatever far-off thing had caught her attention.
In the distance, a shape was moving, coming closer to the house. Its walk was slightly off, but as it got closer and rambled around the wide country lane, Evraine could see that the figure was human. At the very least, it was human-ish. Dressed in dark colors, cloaked, and hooded, there was something familiar about the traveller that she couldn’t quite put her finger on...
Hani, Evra thought, with a rush of relief. The young knight was due for a visit any day now, and Evra had seen her in traveling garb enough to pick her out at a distance. The height and general unkemptness of this travelling stranger were absolutely spot on. As it got closer, though, the housekeeper’s doubts began to creep back in. The height was right, but the dark, baggy clothing couldn’t conceal the fact that the person inside was too thin to be the young, strong knight. Second, it’s walk wasn’t the stride of a tall, lively person. Their footsteps were halting, and the figure leaned upon its walking stick far too heavily for it to be purely ornamental.
An unexpected guest this far out seemed too coincidental; after all, who would go all the way to Hill House unless they knew what they were looking for? Evra had a chilling though, just then, and froze. The little wooden toy clutched in her hands, she left the broom by the door and went back inside the house.
Cymrych was on the floor with the twins. Corin had pulled himself onto his father's lap and was trying to talk to him, using mostly nonsense words. Rowanne, who hadn't started speaking yet, noticed the her caretaker first and moved towards her, looking up at Evra with her large, light eyes. She wanted up.
"Cymrych," Evraine began, scooping the little girl into her arms. "Someone's outside, and coming towards the house. You, ah… you might want to go out there and see what they want." She ducked her out the door briefly to gauge how far off the visitor was - they still had some time, but if she needed to get the children and staff to safety... “It’s a woman, I think. And… sick. Perhaps worse. Can you take a look?”
As usual - or perhaps more accurately, as always - Cymrych was oblivious to his housekeeper/nanny's subtle quirks. It wasn't that he couldn't notice them, simply that he didn't feel it was worth the effort. Evraine’s service was a bargain, as far as he was concerned, and she’d done an admirable job with the twins while he'd been busy in the north. She was still performing well, even with his getting in the way now and then and the sudden shift in scenery to Arathi. Maybe she deserved a raise...
Still, her words penetrated quickly enough, and he sighed heavily and set aside the white-haired boy with bright blue eyes, then clambered to his feet. "Guess I should put some shoes on, then." He jammed his workboots on, not bothering with the buckles, and grabbed the old hunting rifle hanging over the door. Paladins weren't supposed to use anything so unchivalrous, but he'd been the son of a wealthy family long before he'd been forced into the Order, and that had taught him any number of things he wouldn't have learned any other way.
He went outside, giving Evraine a good-natured grin before closing the door. There, he struck a pose, rifle-butt grounded like a staff, his hand on the barrel. Some things, Cymrych knew, were very important when dealing with a stranger in a strange place. It helped that he was plenty burly from working the forge; troublemakers tended to think twice before bothering someone like that. In this case, though, he wanted his message to be clear: this is my house and I'm prepared to defend it, but I'm not going to shoot you unless I have to.
"Hello there," he called, once the figure was nearly to the house’s gate. "This is an awfully out-of-the-way place, so either you're looking for me or you're incredibly talented at getting lost. Which is it, and what can I do for you?"
The man's booming, baritone voice made the figure stop in its tracks. The head tilted up; the high sun caught a few wisps of black hair and a flash from an eye. Underneath, Vara considered what her next move would be. Was it worth it to keep walking and risk getting shot? Or would it be more efficient to attempt to bring her voice - naturally softspoken in life and starting to fail now in death - to a volume that would sufficiently carry?
It - she - leaned on her walking stick for a moment in thought, then came to a decision.
"Is this the house of Cardinal Cymrych O'Brien?" The woman’s voice was raspy, thin, accented in the crisp way of someone from far eastern Lordaeron. "My name is Variya. I'm coming from Light's Hope Chapel - the, er - the Argent Crusade directed me here. I was informed..."
She trailed off, her voice disappearing for a few moments, not like someone in thought but more as if her vocal cords needed the rest. "... I was informed that you were the highest-ranked cloth in the area. Also, I’m unarmed."
She set down her walking stick and held out her arms wide to show nothing but bony arms and gloved hands. Hopefully that was non-threatening enough. To someone like Cymrych, Vara wouldn’t be physically imposing in the slightest; she looked - and was - quite breakable. The Lordaeronian girl’s strengths lay in her force of will and ability to summon forth and weave arcana, but at that moment, Variya D’Astorio wasn't there to cast anything.
She was there to ask a huge favor and, if necessary, plead for her life.
