Difference between revisions of "Brightfires/Whisper"

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Adamant Whisper of the Winter Moon
Game: Better from Here, GMed by Kalisara
Caste: Twilight
Nature: Judge
Picture: [[1]]
Concept: Wolf-girl Guardian Angel
Anima: Complex Knotwork Design of the Joined Sun and Moon

Str 3
Dex 4
Stm 2

Chr 3
Man 2
App 2

Per 4
Int 4
Wts 3

Lore 3
Investigation 1
Medicine 5
Occult 2
Survival 5
Archery 5
Stealth 3
Melee 1
Awareness 4
Linguistics 1 (Native: Woodtongue, Rivertongue)
Athletics 1
Socialize 1
Ride 1

Backgrounds:
Familiar 4 (Black wolf. One of her brothers, Song of Shadows)
Artifact 3 (Short Powerbow: Ebony & Moonsilver - Sorrow's Heart, Hearthstone Bracers)
Reputation 1 (Silver Pact: Ebon Night's daughter)
Allies 2 (Voice of the Ebon Night)
Resources 2
Manse 2 (Earth & Wood: Stone of Comfort & Stone of Shelter)

Willpower 6
Essence 2

Compassion 3
Conviction 2
Valor 2
Temperance 2

Break: Compassion
Flaw: Compassionate Martyrdom

Merits & Flaws:
Past Lives (3)
Distinctive Appearance: Golden eyes - Distinctly "Wolfie" (1)

Charms:
Hardship Surviving Mendicant Spirit
Trackless Region Navigation Charm
Unshakeable Bloodhound Technique
Graceful Crane Stance
Integrity-Protecting Prana
Body-Mending Meditation
Flawless Diagnosis Technique
Aliment-Rectifying Method
Contagion-Curing Touch
Touch of Blissful Release

Fun with Whisper... in classic Splatbook style~

Whisper speaks for herself

"Ha! Who am I? What kind of question is that? ... I'm your guardian angel! Now be still. If you don’t stop squirming this dressing isn’t going to hold and you’ll end up bleeding all over the place again… There. See? ‘Not so bad… You’ll probably have a scar when this heals, but it’ll just make you look tougher.

“I’m not going to ask how you ended up way out here all by yourself, or what made you think that taking on a horned hunter with a short sword was a *good* idea… but you’re lucky my brother spotted you when he did. You’d have been that thing’s breakfast in another minute or two… You know why it attacked you, don’t you? [laughs] No… It wasn’t after your food. They don’t like bread… They may look like deer, but the Horned Ones only eat meat… You just got too close to her fawns.

“Oh, you’d be surprised what the forest’s mothers are willing to do for their children... I know one who even gave her daughter to a townswoman to raise, because she wanted the child to know what civilized life was like. She wanted her child to learn everything that the village could teach before she took her daughter back to the wild places and taught her the things that the forest knows. [smiles] What? You think growing up in River’s End makes me any less dangerous than a “real” barbarian? … Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything terrible to you just because you’re from the city. Didn’t I just spend an hour trying to heal you?

“Now, you stay here and rest… and no moving around! I mean it! … I’m going to go find us something to eat. That bread of yours is ruined, and it's not very good for mending wounds anyway… Shadow will stay with you. He won’t let anything hurt you… It’s okay. You’ll be alright. I promise… You have a guardian angel, remember?”


Song of Shadows introduces himself and his sister

“So I am to watch over you am I, city-bred ward of my two-pawed sister?… You can not understand me, can you? You think that I am… what? My sister’s hunting dog? ‘Typical human... You see but do not understand. You hear but do not listen… I will prevent the forest spirits and their mortal kin from taking you for her sake, but don’t think for a moment that I’m not watching you as well. If you intend her harm, I’ll finish what the horned doe started, I promise you.

“Our mother took me to that place called River’s End, and left me at Whisper’s side when we were both no more than pups. ‘Youngest son, you will be her guide and her companion,’ she said to me. ‘You will walk beside her, because no wolf of our pack should walk alone.’ And so I have, for many summers. When our mother came for us and we returned to the quiet places of the forest, I stayed with her… When the Changing One defied our mother’s borders and she was touched by the light of the Undying Sun, I stood with her against those who challenged us… and now that we wander far from our pack’s home to find other children of the Sun and Moon, I walk beside her still. We are Moon-born. Brother and sister. Pack-mates and friends.

“You, on the other hand, are only human…”


Voice of the Ebon Night discusses her daughter

“Was it wrong of me to leave her so long in the care of her father’s people, or to wish her to know the ways of two worlds? Is that why she was chosen by the Sun and not the Moon? To thwart a mother’s foolish pride? … I don’t know… But what’s done is done, and she’s still my daughter. She is still Moon-born… Who are they to call her less my child today than she was yesterday? ... I am not amused by their whimpering.

“Why did I send her away from my territory, then? Why do I allow her to face the fury of the Hunt and the dangers of a world that has forgotten the light of her kind? Because I couldn’t stop her… and wouldn’t, even if I could. No wolf was meant to walk alone, and she must find her own pack. They call to her… I’ve seen it in her eyes and in her dreams. The ancient voices of her Sun Chosen brothers and sisters are waiting, and they lead her away from this place. Who am I to stand in her way? … It’s time for the pup to leave the den.”

Her Manse:
The Grove of the Earth's Brothers

It was good to run.

Song of Shadows followed his sister along the rocky margin of the stream with easy, loping strides, sorting the scents in the air as he passed. Summer rain and green forest, red deer and hunting cat… Nothing that would stand in their way… No taint of blood or smell of brimstone, and no sign of the demon that they had driven away the night before.

“Look! There’s another one!” Whisper pointed out a shattered white obelisk resting at odd angles on the far bank. Leaping from stone to stone across the water to reach it, she paused and quickly began pulling handfuls of lichen and fern away to reveal the complex symbol underneath. Shadows cautiously sniffed the familiar design of the golden sun and the silver moon when he reached it, then nodded. “It is the same,” he said.

“Now I know we’re going in the right direction! I saw these… Five of them… Set out like way-markers along the path.” The girl grinned and stepped back. “Mother was right. They weren’t just dreams, were they? The place I saw was real… Come on!”

She set off running again, and the black wolf followed.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

“This is it, Shadows… This is the fifth marker.” Whisper carefully cleared green moss from a tall slab of stone, tracing the symbol it bore. “This is the place… We’re here.”

“We should not be, my sister.” The black wolf stood with his ears flat and his fur bristling, looking from one great tree to the next. It was dark and absolutely silent beneath their boughs, and the thought of passing under them made every hair stand on end. Instinct screamed for him to go… To take his sister away from here… To leave and not return. “They are powerful and they do not welcome us.”

“They’ve forgotten,” Whisper said, shaking her head. “They don’t remember who we are. It’s been so long… We have to remind them.”

Without fear, she stood and let the blessing of the sun wash over her in a gentle, rippling play of pale gold and moon white, and she began following the half-buried path that led between the ancient evergreens. As she passed each tree she laid a hand on its broad trunk and she spoke a name. “Teda… Yuan… Lian… Oja… You know who I am… Remember me.” As she walked she let her essence touch them and surround them, and they were reminded of what they were… and of the presence of the one whose hands had planted them and whose voice had named them so long ago. “Mura… Hitani… Sayada… Fien… I’ve come back to you.”

The night passed and the sun rose before Adamant Whisper and her brother had touch every tree, and at last they came to the heart of the forest manse… A circle of five weathered, white stones and five towering cedars, even more ancient than the rest. As the Twilight touched each of these and spoke its name, symbols in the oldest of tongues shifted over their rough bark, and high overhead their branches whispered. “Harusame… Kaminari… Shuushoku… Kazahana… And the very first one. The one that I planted here on the day that the Great War was won. Your name is Hatsuhi... ‘First Sunrise’.”

As she touched and named the last and oldest tree the air around the two Moon-born lightened, and in his bones Song of Shadows felt something change. “They have accepted us,” he said.

... and Whisper smiled. “They remembered.”