Finally, after far too long, I present you all with the chaotic glory that is @tsunderin‘s fae bard character, Syne, from @disabledpaladin‘s Dungeon World campaign. She’s a sassy, emotionally distant creature who threatens people with the power of her sentient otomatone and encourages our barbarian to run into danger for her own amusement.
Rita had never seen a snake molt. The idea of one slithering out of a husk of itself made her a little queasy if she was being honest. Not that there was never any need to see it in the first place; not with her sister around. Once in the sunkissed fields of their father’s lands Wren explained, excitement burbling unstoppable as young children do, that the process was brought about by the snake needing more room to grow. That it needed to to feel more comfortable and continue doing whatever snakes did. Her sister’s wonder over this achievement of nature felt misplaced. Why didn’t the snake’s skin grow with it? Why was the the snake built with this glaring error in design? Surely a skin that had grown used to the world, calloused with experience, would be much more useful. Feeling naked and fresh only presented living creatures with one option: to submit themselves over and over again to strife in order to build up that thick outer layer once more.
If you’d asked her when she first arrived, Rita would have asserted that nothing in the land of the fae was done by halves. Everything was too loud or too quiet; too bright; too harsh. Too much. Yet just now the breeze that swept through the thin white fabric of her shirt wasn’t. In these quiet moments she took for herself she’d grown used to the way the winds fluctuated in temperature, how they moved in curly ques, the slight scents they carried with them. Just enough so that it felt like they were saying “pay attention to me. I’m here!”
Her hands pulsed with warmth. She’d been gripping the sword too hard again–or what she used as a practice weapon, she wasn’t sure the porous material could count as an actual sword. Hot and cold the winds moved between her fingers, coaxing them to open, release their tension. She was full tension, though, and even with the heavy release of breath that flowed light a thin, nearly overflowing stream Rita felt only the tiniest bit of relief.
A relief that wavered the moment she realized she wasn’t alone. It was slight, but it was all she needed, that shuffling of sole against dirt, before she whipped around and marked her target.
“…How long have you been standing there?”
The weapon barely made the sad, hollow thud it usually did as it bapped her guest on the side of his neck. “You should know better than to sneak up on someone with a weapon.”
“It’s not sneaking if y’know I’m there.”
Rita quirked her mouth into a frown. “Still….”
Lowering her weapon, she returned to focusing on the very important nothing she was before. As a contemplative silence fell, the breeze whistled its way out. She’d think it was pouting if that wasn’t completely ridiculous. “For a while.” His answer came quicker than she thought, and with less riddles too. “Thought you were going to cut right through the sky for a moment. Makes a man wonder just what it is you’re–” Cillian cut himself off, thinking better of the question of his lips, which Rita would have answered truthfully whether he wanted that truth or not. “Are you getting used to this? Being here, I mean.”
She wasn’t exactly sure why he cared. Maybe he was just curious. “Getting used to it?” Could a mortal ever truly get used to living in a place like this? Mulling over the past month (or what she assumed to be a month), she could at least say that it no longer came across as strange when she saw fire being created right in front of her or when loud arguments erupted into raucous laughter. “I… don’t know.” She said truthfully, a hint of confusion tailing behind. “I still feel like it would have been better if we figured out a way for Wren to be here instead.” She had been expecting him to jump in, but only heard him humming along, almost urging her to continue. She hated that she did. “She’s been dreamin’ of this.”
“Haven’t you?”
“Yeah, but…” her brow furrowed. “It’s not the same.”
There weren’t words to explain how it wasn’t the same, just that feeling that it wasn’t. It couldn’t be; they were two completely separate people, after all. Wren wouldn’t have let herself rest until she’d started at least five different studies on the world around her; each plant and animal subject to her meticulous notes. Wren would have been able to figure out the mysteries, to make them more accessible and less terrifying to those on the other side of the veil. But what was Rita doing? She didn’t even know where to start–she’d just been doing the same old thing she’d been doing back at home. It felt… like she didn’t deserve to be here; what could she possibly do that Wren couldn’t do better?
Cillian took a seat in the open air beneath him, toes barely touching the ground. “Right. And?” She could hear the raising of his eyebrow, but didn’t know what to do with it. “How do you plan to turn it into your dream?”
Rita thought for a moment. Then thought some more, eventually turning back to the fae with her mouth slightly agape. “I… don’t? Don’t have any use in experience something that isn’t how it is.”
His laugh didn’t strike her as judgemental, so why did it feel like needles were shooting through her? All at once she felt entirely too naked without her leathers, now resting in the back of one of the troupe’s many carts. “How ‘bout this: what do you want to do? What do you like doing?”
She stared at him. When the answers wouldn’t come, she began staring out of the corner of her eyes at the ground, as if the answers would suddenly sprout from the ground itself. Confusion seeping into his voice, Cillian offered, “You like fighting, right? What about that?”
“No,” Rita mused. “It’s not that I like fighting. I don’t feel either way about it. I’m just good at it, and it’s something that needs to be done.” Cillian made a noise as if he didn’t believe her, but again she wasn’t sure if she had the words to say what she really meant. “I like–” She started, but immediately stopped, the ghost of unintentionally cruel childhood words silencing her. “I want to make sure that there’s a familiar face to visit when Wren’s able to come back.”
She was in the middle of letting out another thin trickle of air when she felt the jab of something unfamiliar right in the center of her gut. With a hurgh and a sputter she looked down to see Cillian’s shoed toes firmly planted in place, her skin taking new form under his “attack”. He continued his assault, drawing both agitated rebuke and unwilling peals of laughter from his target, until at last she batted his foot aside, spinning the opposite direction and momentarily beyond his reach.
Her chest heaved, thirsty for breath. “What… what was that for!?”
“Liars get punished.” He smirked–or was it more of a sneer?–seeming more aggravated than his countenance would let on.
Arms still firmly wrapped around her stomach in defense she took a defiant step back towards him. “You’re the biggest liar I know!! Don’t be sour ‘cause it’s not the answer you wanted.”
Cillian groaned, dramatically falling back in the empty air behind him. “She doesn’t get it. You don’t get it! It’s like you’re not even a person. You know that, right?” He sat up quickly, black hair bouncing around his face. “What kind of person doesn’t know what they like?”
“You’re the one who wanted me to be a rock,” Rita mumbled, narrowing her eyes. “Besides, what do you care? You’ve made it abundantly clear that y’don’t even like me. Yet you keep creepin’ on me when I go off on my own, and trying to get information from me for some reason.”
The low-pitched twittering of a creature echoed from the distance while the two stared each other down in silence. Rita was primed to continued when Cillian’s exhaustion peaked through. “You two are alike in the worst ways,” his fingers pinched at the center of his forehead, “You know that, don’t you?” She didn’t like what he was saying, but didn’t know enough of what he was talking about to deny it. “No, you’re the one that belongs here. You’re as miserable as the rest of us.”
“What?!” Rita strode over to him, standing on her tiptoes to smoosh his cheeks together. “And jus’ what do ye mean by that?
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, his mouth muscles strained against her palms, trying to put on a smile. It served no warning, however, and in what felt like an unfairly quick turnaround, Rita found herself thrown across his shoulder, contained in the loop of his arm. “What I mean is why brood by yourself when you can brood with the rest of us?” A huff escaped her, and a sense of regret took its place as Cillain commented, “That’s the spirit.”
If this was an olive branch, it was one of the most unconventional olive branches she’d ever been witness to– and she’s the one who gave her sister a bowl of snails, twigs, and dirt after one of their worse fights. Yet even in the unwelcomed position she found herself in, Rita couldn’t help but take some pleasure in what Cillian said. You’re the one who belongs here. Maybe she was. Maybe she deserved this, too. For now, she’d bask in the warmth of the thought, not allowing the shame of want to creep in until the memory of it drifted away in the winds.
Now that I’ve finally done all the portraits for the PC’s in @disabledpaladin‘s Dungeon World campaign, I thought it would be good to see them all together.
We’ve got:
Mithralan - an elven Druid, played by me
Cinderheart - a salamander Immolator, played by @betweenrivers-betweenworlds
Vao - a human Barbarian, played by @timidkoala
Syne - a fae Bard, played by @tsunderin
1. A little something from @disabledpaladin‘s Monsterhearts campaign. @betweenrivers-betweenworlds‘s character, Tyra Amaal, is a huge Macklemore fan and this is what happened when she found a shopping cart rolling around outside a thrift shop.
2. Another thing from the latest Monsterhearts session. These grow ass adults were all drinking Hi-C juiceboxes (Ecto Cooler, because our game is a universe where Ecto Cooler never went out of production.)
3. @timidkoala‘s character Winter from one of our Firebrands games. Because Mori Fashion Appreciation™.
Rating: T
Genre: Historical, Friendship
Words: 3,326
Summary: Rufus Grunberg makes some unlikely friends during his army service in WWI.
Warning(s): war violence, men being trash
A/N: This is part of the backstory of @timidkoala’s ghost character from the Monsterhearts game we’re in.
- - -
Dear Rufus,
I hope that you are doing well and that you are being respected in your new position. I imagine you have a lot of questions about how you suddenly went from digging latrines to being granted a commission and sent to work at an intelligence outpost. The truth is that I pulled every string I could to get you away from the trenches. Thankfully, my efforts seem to have paid off and I hear that you’re tucked away in an office in some little French town.
Please don’t take this as an opportunity to slack off. There’s plenty of work to be done on your end as much as there is on mine. Being a commissioned officer also means that you have a responsibility to the men under your command. You must ensure that you do not disappoint them and that they do not disappoint you.
Take care and don’t forget to regularly let everyone at home know you’re alive.
Your loving brother,
Hershel
Rufus read the letter over twice before carefully folding it back up and tucking it in the breast-pocket of his uniform. It figured that his elder brother would admit to doing something very kind and then lecture him in the same breath. He wondered what Hershel would say if he heard that he was taking the time to collect knickknacks like franc coins and bottle caps to send home to their little sisters. He’d probably get an earful.
It wasn’t his fault if his superiors gave him down time. Hershel ought to know that it’s important to a soldier’s health and morale to have time to decompress. Of course, whether a soldier actually got any was another question. Rufus imagined that his brother didn’t get much time to relax, being in the trenches in Belgium and all. From what little the man would say about his own situation, it seemed pretty clear than he was being put through the ringer on the regular, either by enemy fire or by the politics of being a major.
Patting his pocket as if it would somehow convey the comfort to Hershel, wherever he might be, Rufus sighed and got up from his bunk. He was off duty tonight and he was determined to make the most of it. For him, “making the most of it” usually entailed having a walk about town before paying a visit to the local public house for a drink and chat (if he was feeling brave).
Rufus liked this little town, even though its streets were muddy and its people were weary with the ravages of war. It was a new and different place, but something about it still reminded him of home. Maybe it had to do with growing up in a neighbourhood of European immigrants, his own family being from Germany, though he had not been born in the old country like Hershel. He saw something of the older generations in the ways of this town and its people. It was comforting, like Oma Grunberg’s Apfelkuchen on a rainy autumn afternoon when he was small.
Those comforting thoughts were chased away the moment his boots squelched into five inches of cold mud and he soon had it spattered up the wrappings on his shins. He gave another resigned sigh as he carefully made his way across town and did his best to ignore the chill creeping into his feet.
There were no gas lamps along the roads that led him toward the town square, so there was little to light his way beyond what bled out from the doors and windows of homes and businesses, but he’d walked this path enough times that he didn’t need much to know where he was going.
As he rounded the corner at the next intersection, however, he was bathed in the soft light of an old lantern with red glass hanging above a door to his right. There was music coming from inside as well as laughter and voices in conversation. Rufus paused for a moment to see if he could recognize the song playing, but he didn’t have much of a chance before the door burst open and two American sergeants were pushed out by a woman in roughly her mid-twenties wearing a somewhat revealing dress.
“Aller! And do not come back!” she spat at them, her cheeks flushed with rage. “You cannot come ‘ere if you make trouble for ze girls!”
The soldiers, who seemed to be rather drunk, grabbed at her, partially to steady themselves after nearly being pushed off the front stoop and partially to make it clear they weren’t planning to go anywhere.
“We’ll do what we like! ‘S what we pay you for, ain’t it?” one of them slurred, pulling the woman roughly towards him. With a disgusted curl of her painted lips, she slapped him across the face. Angrily, he made to strike her back while his buddy grabbed her arm. “Why you- !”
“Hey!” Rufus interjected and suddenly all eyes were on him. “Show the lady some respect and back off!”
“This ain’t a lady,” the one holding the woman snorted.
“Doesn’t mean she doesn’t deserve to be treated like one. Apologize.”
“Or what, Sir Galahad?” the other mocked, rubbing his slapped cheek.
“Beat it, kid. Let the big boys have their fun.”
Undeterred, Rufus stepped into the bright light spilling from the doorway so they could all see him properly.
“That’s an order,” he said as firmly as he could muster and the soldiers’ eyes bulged at the sight of the bars on his sleeves that proved that this fresh-faced 18 year old they had been patronizing outranked them both. They immediately made sloppy attempts to stand up straight and salute before mumbling half-assed apologies to the woman, who looked more bewildered than anything. “Dismissed,” Rufus added once he realized they were staring at him, waiting for his approval. In his defense, he’d never had to pull rank on anyone before.
It took them a second, but it eventually registered in the soldiers’ drunken minds that they could leave and they did so with all due haste, practically tripping over each other as they wobbled away, Rufus scowling after them.
When he finally looked back up the front stoop of the brothel, he could now see two other girls who had been standing behind the first, peering out with wide eyes and looking a bit shaken.
“You alright?” he asked. The first woman raised an eyebrow at him and turned to say something to the others in French, at which they nodded directly at Rufus, smiling.
“We are alright. You can ‘ave what zose men paid for before zey decided to be pigs. A little favour for making zem go away, let us say,” she offered. Rufus blushed and looked down at his feet, all the confidence he’d felt in successfully asserting his authority instantly falling away.
“I-I was just doing my, uh, duty. I don’t...I wouldn’t want to take advantage. Thank you, though.”
“You are a very strange American.”
“Je l'aime,” another of the women commented. Rufus wasn’t sure he knew what it meant, but judging by how she was looking at him the way one might look at an abandoned puppy, it must have been positive.
“What is your name, soldier?”
“Oh! Uh, Second Lieutenant Rufus Grunberg, ma’am.” He doffed his Doughboy hat to the women politely. “What are your names?” The one who seemed to be speaking on behalf of all of them looked a bit surprised, as if no one had ever cared to ask such a question before.
“I am Colette. Zis is Odile and Rosalie,” she answered.
“Nice to meet you.” Rufus ascended the steps and offered his hand. Colette’s eyes narrowed, studying him, though he knew not what she was looking for. After a tense moment, she shook his hand, smiling, and stood aside so that the others could come out and shake his hand too, which they did eagerly. Colette rolled her eyes and went to sit on the steps, taking a cigarette and a small box of matches from within her cleavage and lighting it. She made a gesture to suggest that he could sit beside her if he liked and he quietly obliged. This was more interesting than anything he’d had planned for the evening, so it might as well happen.
“Do you smoke?” Colette asked.
“No, my parents always said I’m too young.”
“Too young? ‘Ow old are you?” She sounded almost scandalized.
“Eighteen.”
“Ugh, c’est ridicule. ‘Ere.” She offered her cigarette to him and in the spirit of “this might as well happen”, he accepted it and took a drag on it the way he’d seen his fellow soldiers do it. Immediately, he was sent into a coughing fit. Odile and Rosalie, who were now also perched on the steps, giggled, although Odile was kind enough to also rub his back soothingly until his lungs stopped trying to leap out of his chest. “Ze first time is always rough.”
“So, uh, do you own this place, Colette?” Rufus wheezed.
“Oui, but per’aps not in ze way you are thinking. I own ze building, but I am no boss. We all do as we want; I just make sure everyone is safe and ‘ealthy. Like a big sister, non?” Colette explained, taking another cigarette from her cleavage and lighting it.
“You and my brother would have a lot to talk about, I think.”
“You ‘ave a brozer?”
“Yeah, Hershel. And two little sisters back home, Margaret and Catherine. Here, actually.” Rufus opened one of his breast pockets and pulled out a folded photograph of his family taken just a few weeks before Hershel had shipped out, showing it to the girls.
“Oh, ‘ow wonderful. You must miss zem very much.”
“Yeah. I write to them when I can.”
“Where are you from, Lieutenant Grunberg?” Rosalie piped up as Rufus stowed the photograph back in his pocket, proving that she did know at least some English and was very skilled at hiding it until it suited her.
“I’m from a little town called Trystenhollow. It’s near Chicago. I don’t think you’d like it. It’s mostly factories.” Rufus took another puff of his cigarette and coughed a little less this time. “What about you? Are you all from here?”
“Oui. Zis ‘ouse is where ze women of zis town go when ze ‘ave no family or connections and must find work to eat. We make our way well enough and we are free to live as we like now zat ze man who owned it before is gone. We ‘ave made a new family,” Rosalie explained and Rufus could see clearly now that all of these women were very spirited individuals and any man who tried to cross them would be making a big mistake. It reminded him of the suffragettes his mother liked to talk to back home and he felt at ease with them.
He talked with them well into the night. He even managed to get a few words out of Odile, who was evidently very shy. They were more fun to chat with than any of the other men at the intelligence office. They had wild stories aplenty and he was happy to just sit on their front stoop and listen while he tried to smoke a cigarette. In fact, he enjoyed it so much that he came back the next time he was off duty. And the next. And the next.
Pretty soon, he’d gotten to know not just Colette, Odile, and Rosalie, but also Anna and Eidel, who had evidently heard about “The Lieutenant” and were curious enough to come out and meet him. Eidel didn’t speak a word of English, but that turned out to be just fine, since she knew German and Yiddish and so did Rufus. They all became his dear friends and he wished he could write home about them and how wonderful they were, but he had a strong feeling his family would not approve of them for their line of work.
His fellow soldiers’ reactions to what appeared to them to be “Grunberg’s rotating door of girlfriends” were quite different. After seeing him walking around town with these women or taking them out to the little local dance hall, his comrades in arms seemed to be thoroughly under the impression that he was some kind of smooth talker, a ladykiller with a secret to success that must be pried out of him.
For what felt like a solid month, he was prodded by the other translators and cryptographers he worked with to tell them how he managed to have a different girl on his arm every night. He found their questions rather baffling and his answers always baffled them in return.
“They aren’t girlfriends, just friends, sir. Maybe you would have more luck if you treated women like people, who are just as complex and interesting as you or I, instead of like playthings,” he told Captain Summers one afternoon. The captain scoffed at this as he gathered papers on his desk.
“You can’t go treating women like equals, son. They’ll start getting ideas and the next thing you know, we’d be slaving away in kitchens and they’d be destroying the world trying to figure out how to run it.”
“I’d be willing to bet you ten whole American dollars that if women ran the world, we wouldn’t be fighting this stupid fucking war right now,” was what Rufus wanted to say, but he didn’t dare speak like that to a superior officer, so instead he shrugged and gave a simple “I think we’d be okay, sir,” which Summers took as a joke and laughed heartily.
“Alright but really, how do you do it?”
“Well, I can tell you with certainty that the popular tactic of getting absolutely blotto and making threats doesn’t work.”
It went on like this for some time and though it was tiresome, Rufus had better things to be concerned about between his work at the office and being taught how to roll his own cigarettes by witty French girls. He just hoped none of this got back to Hershel, who would murder him if he found out how his little brother was spending his free time.
Rufus did feel a little bad, knowing that he had such a cushy posting while Hershel was out there in the trenches of the Western Front, getting shot at day and night. But as relatively nice as things seemed to be here, he always knew at the back of his mind that it would never be 100% safe. There was a war on and it could come knocking directly on his door at any moment, though he never really comprehended the full weight of that possibility until it was too late.
It was a lovely evening in early spring when it happened. He was on his way to the brothel too see if any of his friends weren’t working and wanted to go out. He sidled up to their door and gave the knock that let them know it was him. Rosalie and Anna excitedly answered, the door practically bursting open in their gusto.
“Sank God you are ‘ere! I ‘ave finished ze book and ‘ave much to say!” Anna cried, heels bouncing as she waved the battered French translation of Pride & Prejudice he found some months ago, which brought a grin to his face. Finally he had someone to talk to about the story (who wouldn’t judge him for having read his little sister’s copy when he was fifteen while no one was looking).
“Tell me what you-” Rufus began but he was cut off but the sound of a huge explosion followed by a peppering of gunfire. Within seconds, the whole town erupted into chaos. Civilians ran in all directions, screaming and yelling and crying while several American soldiers ran down the street towards the commotion, rifles in hand.
After the initial shock, Rufus’s training kicked in and he drew his pistol, holding it at the ready. He’d never had to actually use it before, but they had taught him well enough that it all came back to him pretty quickly. If an enemy soldier popped out at him, he was...reasonably confident he could handle it.
“Get Colette! Tell her to get everyone out! Now!” he instructed Rosalie and Anna urgently as he realized that the explosions were getting closer. They hurried back into the house and emerge again a moment later with Colette, who ushered all of the girls out the door. “Is there somewhere you all can hide? A cellar or-”
“Zere is a wine cellar by ze church.”
“Alright, let’s go!” Rufus had to shout over the din of artillery fire and Colette didn’t waste another second in pushing the others to get moving. As they rounded the corner, a blast blew away half the house, showering them in rubble. The world turned hazy and Rufus would later remember very little of what happened next, only snippets.
He remembered yelling for everyone to get down. He remembered seeing a soldier vanish, a crater where he once stood. He remembered running with Odile over his shoulder, her leg bleeding everywhere. He remembered feeling something hit his shoulder with great force and the ground suddenly rising to meet him. He remembered Colette picking up his gun and firing it at something he couldn’t see. He remembered asking Eidel if everyone was safe. He remembered her kissing his forehead and tearfully telling him everything would be alright.
He woke up in a field hospital three days later with a bandaged shoulder and a throbbing head. He was told that he’d suffered a concussion and a bullet wound, but all he cared about was what had happened to his friends and no one at the hospital seemed to know or was able to find out.
It wasn’t until he received a note from Colette that he was able to rest. She informed him that all of the girls had survived and that she had told his superiors to give him a medal, but evidently they didn’t think saving a few prostitutes was noteworthy. That was fine, he wrote back, because he didn’t want recognition; he only cared that everyone was alright. Besides, from what little he could remember, they had saved him as much as he had saved them.
Though Rufus was transferred to a new intelligence office following his recovery, he and the girls continued to correspond. Even after the war had ended and he and his brother were sent home, he didn’t stop writing, though he had to wait much longer for replies and had to keep the accumulating letters out of the hands of his curious siblings. He told his friends about getting a job at a meatpacking plant and about the union strikes and about all the gossip he knew they’d love to hear and in turn they would tell him about their successes and failures in trying to rebuild their lives after the war.
And then in 1922, Rufus was killed in a workplace accident. It took a full year for the news of his death to reach his friends across the pond, but they had never forgotten him or what he had done. His family eventually received a package containing two bottles of expensive French wine with an elegantly scrawled note that read “1 for family, 1 to pour out for Rufus”.
The Grunbergs were never able to fully heal from their loss and they eventually all moved away from Trystenhollow, leaving Rufus and his grave to be forgotten in the roll of years, but somewhere in France, there is a well-tended stone beside a wine cellar door and his name is scratched into it with the words “Il se souciait. - He cared.”
