We never officially tied up our 13th Age characters’ stories, so here’s me attempting to do exactly that.
Length: 1.7K
Caitlin Grieve drops her bag onto the grass at side of the dirt road edged by trees and fraught with muddy potholes. She tips the bag over onto its side with one foot and sits down on it.
“Are you okay with all of this?” she asks as she pulls back her hood.
Bridget Grieve, who is Caitlin’s older sister though she looks young enough to be her daughter, carries her own bag effortlessly over one shoulder despite it being almost twice the girl’s size.
“Yeah,” Bridget says as she sets the bag down next to Caitlin’s. “Are you?”
“I don’t know,” Caitlin admits without looking at her sister. “It feels weird saying good bye, especially since we’re never coming back. I’ve lived in Krawsbie all my life and now I can’t ever go back or else they’ll try to kill me.”
She winces and wonders if it’s too late to take back what she said. It hasn’t been easy since she returned to Krawsbie, but at least it wasn’t her own parents who drove her out.
“We just can’t enter the town,” Bridget says, seemingly oblivious to Caitlin’s discomfort. “We can still see our brothers when they leave. And they will. Colin hunts and Declan’s already left.”
Caitlin reaches up to absently rub the scars on her forehead left by the horns that sprouted from her skull. Sometimes they still sting and ache like the scars on her back, but they’re nothing compared to the nightmares.
“I don’t know how you can be so okay about this,” she says.
“I’ve had longer to get used to it,” her sister replies, but without any heat or malice that Caitlin expected.
Caitlin looks up at her sister and tries to imagine what the girl would look like if they were allowed to grow up together. Bridget tilts her head to one side and looks back with large golden eyes that were once brown like her siblings’. Caitlin is the first to look away. She fixes her gaze on the point where the road dips over the horizon and vanishes from view. Bridget’s gaze lingers for a moment longer before she starts to walk back and forth across the muddy road.
“We can’t stay with Declan forever,” Caitlin says quietly as Bridget continues pacing. “I know he’d let us, but it wouldn’t be right. Where do you think we should go?”
“But we have to survive somehow. How are we going to find work? How are we going to afford a home? Will we even find somewhere that would accept us? It would have to be a big city I guess, but I don’t know what I’d do in a big city.”
“I can hunt. And I can sell my teeth.”
Caitlin looks over at her sister and pulls a face.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Did you just say that you can sell your teeth?”
Bridget stops pacing and grins at her sister, showing off the rows of pointed teeth crowded in her mouth.
“Changeling teeth,” the girl declares. “Sell for a pretty penny and they grow back.”
Caitlin stares at the girl with a mixture of disbelief and disgust. When she returned home it was obvious that she’s no longer the unthinking beast that she used to be, but unfortunately a sense of decorum wasn’t included with her higher reasoning skills.
“You’re…” Caitlin begins, but then quickly looks away again.
Bridget cocks her head to one side and goes to sit next to her sister.
“It’ll be okay,” she says as she plops down onto the grass. “We’re tougher than we look and there’re cities that’ve seen stranger than us two.”
“I’m just so sorry, Bridget.” Caitlin says. “I thought I was doing the right thing but I wasn’t. I was just trying to help you, and I only made things worse. I hurt so many people. All of those druids are dead because of me. But you didn’t abandon me then and you’re not abandoning me now. I don’t understand.”
Caitlin rubs tears from her eyes with the back of her hand and tries not to cry more than she already is. Bridget scrambles on her hands and knees to sit in front of Caitlin. She peers up at her little sister with wide eyes that shine in the dark.
“Fixing little sister’s mistakes is what big sisters do, little rabbit,” she says. “And you’re my little sister. I forgot but then I remembered and now I won’t forget ever again okay? I’m gonna take care of you like I’m supposed to.”
Caitlin tries to hold back tears but finds that she can’t no matter how hard she tries. She reaches out and pulls her sister into her arms, burying her face into Bridget’s shoulder and sobbing her heart out. Bridget squawks and squirms a bit when she finds that her arms have been pinned to her sides, but she relaxes into the embrace and leans her head against her sister’s. Slowly the crying eases into gentle breaths against the girl’s jacket.
“God,” Caitlin says with a giggle. “I thought Colin gave you a bath.”
“He tried,” Bridget says with far too much pride.
Caitlin laughs and releases her sister so that she can get a better look at her. She’s not the same girl that she was when they were growing up together and she never will be, but Caitlin reasons that Bridget would probably say the same thing about her. Bridget looks up suddenly and starts to peer down the road, but if there’s something she’s smelling or seeing Caitlin has no idea what it is.
“Took him long enough,” the girl says as she grabs her bag and starts to walk down the road.
“Hey, wait for me!” Caitlin calls after her as she hauls her own bag along behind her.
A covered wagon pulled by two grey mules draws into view, and the solitary driver perched up at the front tips his wide-brimmed hat to the two girls.
“Declan!” Caitlin calls.
“Did you get tired of waiting for me or something?” Declan asks with a cheery grin. “Thought I was meeting you closer to town. Just give me a second to turn the wagon around and then I’ll load your things.”
The sisters clear the road so that Declan can coax the mules into turning the wagon around. Once he’s done he hops down and takes his sisters’ bags in each hand.
“You didn’t need to come all this way just for us,” Caitlin says.
“If I’m not going to come all this way for my sisters then who else would I do it for?” Declan replies as he hauls the bags into the back of the wagon. “Besides, Colin’s letter said you two have been through enough as it is. It’s the least I can do.” He pauses when he notices Caitlin’s red eyes and flushed cheeks. “You okay?”
“Not yet,” Caitlin admits, “but I think I will be.”
Declan nods and offers Caitlin a hand to help her onto the front bench. Then his gaze drifts over to Bridget and he frowns when he sees her sniffing at one of the mules. Both animals watch her with wide eyes and trembling bodies.
“If you eat one of them I’ll hook you and make you take its place,” Declan says as he walks over to ruffle his sister’s hair.
Bridget scowls up at him and snaps her teeth a little but Declan doesn’t seem to mind despite the fact that he hasn’t seen her since their parents drove her away. But he watches her curiously as she jumps into the back of the wagon and crawls through to the front. He’ll admit that he doesn’t remember much about Bridget, but even though she looks a lot the sister he remembers there’s an unsettling feeling that he can’t shake. Maybe it’s just the fact that she didn’t age at all or the knowledge that what happened to her will never be completely reversed, but he forces himself to shake off the feeling. As far as Declan is concerned life wasn’t made for people to dwell on the past.
“Well, ladies,” he says with all of the cheer and bravado he can muster as he climbs into the driver’s seat and picks up the reigns. “Let’s get this show on the road before it gets dark.”
“Yeah,” Bridget agrees. “Bad things come out a night.”
“Which you would know because you were one of them.”
Bridget grins and Declan does his best to not flinch from seeing her teeth for the first time.
“You know,” he says as he spurs the mules on to get the wagon rattling down the road. “When we were growing up our parents thought that I’d be the problem child. Everyone always underestimates the girls.”
“That seems to be the way of things,” Caitlin muses.
“So do you have a plan or are you just wandering the road? Not that there’s anything wrong with wandering. I did it myself for a while.”
“The latter it seems. Or at least Bridget seems to think so.”
“It’s not so bad,” Bridget says with a shrug.
“Well according to Colin you’re an expert on it by now,” Declan says. “But for now it’s a long road to the next city. Got any stories to tell?”
Bridget thinks about this and then sits up so that she can dangle her arms over the front of the wagon.
“Okay,” she says. “So there was…an elf who vanishes sometimes, and a giant robot demon thing. And this guy who speaks fancy, but I didn’t always understand what he was saying even after I got my head back on straight. Oh, and there was also this dragon who was really hungry all the time. And a really stupid fox man. But it all started when the giant robot demon thing wanted his daggers sharpened but didn’t want to pay for it. . . . .”
A story about our 13th Age world and the Prince of Shadows. I kept saying that I would write it and here it is.
Length: 0.9K
There is something in the Wild Wood that doesn’t belong. It moves as quiet as a whisper and leaves no trace behind. Even the fair folk,as ravenous as they are, find nothing that draws their attention. A monster crouches high in the trees and wonders at the emptiness. There is a space in existence where a person should be. Something that is visible only by virtue of being invisible. It’s an easy thing to miss if you’re not paying attention, and most things in the Wild Wood don’t. The monster is curious but unafraid, and it decides to follow.
The man is being followed which should be impossible. Yet he can’t ignore the fact that something is close behind. He is unused to being noticed, and he isn’t sure what to make of the thing following him. It’s sure-footed as it moves from branch to branch, pausing only when the man does. There is something predatory in the way it moves, quiet and a little too daring, but the man doesn’t think it’s a threat. It watches and follows without fear or malice. There are many hunters that live in places like this, but few that are so intent. Despite himself, the man is curious.
As night falls the monster knows that the quiet won’t last. A familiar being stirs beneath the earth, waking and hungering as it has done countless times before. The monster can feel it calling and pulling like hooks sunk into its heart. The humanity it clings to is stripped away and replaced by another’s hunger. Hunger and servitude, the monster feels its master’s thirst for blood and death as its own. You are mine. A fair folk deep within the Wild Wood screeches in some mockery of singing, and others answer in kind. The monster raises its head and screams to the sky.
Death triumphs in the Wild Wood. The man is sure now that his follower is a killer. He watches it tear a bear to pieces, but not out of hunger. It is driven by the blood lust of something else that the man can feel probing at the edges of his mind. There are monsters out there in the darkness. They tear apart life and revel in death as they answer to the will of something that should never fully wake. The man finds refuge in the shadows, and he is afraid for the first time in his long memory. Tonight, it seems, even the dead can die.
Only silence can follow the hunt. When blood is spilled and life sundered the being returns to slumbering beneath the earth. The ones it controls are free, but it’s only a matter of time before the cycle begins anew. The monster, small and delicate looking but far from harmless, looks up at the fading stars and wipes blood from its mouth with the back of its hand. Once it was bothered by the actions it can’t control. For the sake of its sanity those days have long since passed. The monster remembers now what it was doing before its mind was claimed. The curious thing is still nearby, and so it follows again.
Time doesn’t stand still for monsters or hunts, and the man knows that he must continue. He learned a long time ago that timing is everything, and he can’t afford to be late. Still, he can’t deny that he’s even more interested before. The predator from before follows him again like the night never happened. The change is unnerving, but more than that there is something new there that he didn’t notice before. Or maybe he just never thought to look. The man continues on, and he knows that he will be followed. More than that, he thinks he’s beginning to understand.
A monster and a man stand at opposite sides of a clearing deep within the Wild Wood. They watch each other with open curiosity and a cautious respect for the things that could go wrong. Their hands are empty, but they are far from unarmed.
The Prince of Shadows looks at the monster and sees a little girl who still believes herself lost. If you were to gather the courage to hold her you would find a child aching for home.
Bridget Grieve looks at the man and sees a ghost who has been dead for a very long time. If you were to somehow peel back his shredded clothes you would find a hole where his heart should be.
The girl grins with sharp teeth bared, and the ghost laughs quietly to himself.
“I think,” the Prince of Shadows says, his voice like wind whistling through empty canyons, “that you will make better use of this than I ever will.”
He reaches into the pocket covering his empty heart and pulls out a small wooden horse. It was carved according to a fortune teller’s advice who said that it would win a powerful favour. He places it on the ground at his feet as the girl watches with wide golden eyes.
The ghost says something in a language no longer spoken by the living. Then he turns and walks out of the clearing.
The girl watches him go and this time does not follow. She crosses the clearing and listens for silence where there should be none.
A small hand closes around a wooden horse, and a girl starts to remember.
