Boti's Big Sister

Log Info

• Title: Boti's Big Sister

• Emitter: Jinks

• Characters: Boti, Ravenstongue

• Place: A06- Lower Alexandrian Gardens District

• Summary: Boti has escaped from the hospital again and is trying to find a way to make a fire despite it being late at night and he's not long from frostbite. Ravenstongue arrives from a late-night meeting with Grandfather (it's hard to bridge the gap between fey time and normal time, after all) and she discovers Boti. She tries to get him to let her start the fire for him to warm up his hands, but he refuses, citing how his late father raised him. Eventually, she gets him to agree to warming his hands with magic. The very tired half-elf boy confides to Ravenstongue that he wants to run away from Alexandria, and Ravenstongue promises not to tell anyone. They tell each other their real names and Boti decides to go back to the hospital... for now.

-=--=--=--=--=--<* A06: Lower Alexandrian Gardens District *>=--=--=--=--=--=-

The city is divided, unofficially, into Upper Alexandria and Lower Alexandria. The Upper resides further up on the slope of the mountain, and rests to the east of the great river. The Lower resides to the west of it, and if the Lower could be said to have a heart, this verdant park might be its center.

Amid all the bustle of the Lower City, its Gardens District provides a peaceful respite. The warmth of Althea holds sway here, and though Daeus receives the occasional nod, this is clearly Her domain. She shares it with Dana, in the verdant green of this area. Vines and trees, remain green no matter the season and numerous flowers bloom along the park's walkways. Faerie-light lanterns hang from branches and along hedgerows.

A number of shops may be found here, most notably the city hospital, for which the park was originally built. Though now open to the public, the gardens by and large, remain underneath the hospital's care. However, in the Althean tradition, much of the work is provided by volunteers.

-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=- Dramatis Personae =--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-    
Boti (Jinks' NPC)                     Half-elf             Male      A young half-elf man recovering from the pox.                                        
Ravenstongue         5'0"     99 Lb      Half-Elf          Female    Short half-elf girl with violet eyes and black hair.                       
-=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=-

It's cold. Really, really cold. The kind of cold that makes the air feel thicker and pinches at exposed skin. It makes the world seem quieter and time pass more slowly. Light has trouble moving through empty spaces and lingers, sparkling on the air. It's an absolutely beautiful night but it's just so damned bitterly cold.

The gardens are all-but abandoned at this early morning hour. The shops are closed and only hustling hospital employees join the perfunctory patrols of disgruntled watchmen on the paths at this hour.

Except for, well, the small form beyond the hedgerow bordering the cobblestone path a block or two from the Defense. There's a little half-erected canvas tent beneath the trees trying desperately not to sag into itself and collapse. Snow has been kicked away in a slapdash perimeter.

Boti hunches over a small stack of twigs and clacks rocks together swimming in the coat he 'acquired' the other night, trying to start a fire. Sadly, it's not a proper flint, just standard grey rocks he likely found lying in the snow.

What a horrible night to have the cold.

Ravenstongue's breath is thick in the cold air as she walks through the garden, a thick wool cloak and dress cutting the chill of the wind from blowing right through her. Her arm is linked through the handle of a picnic basket covered in lilac-colored roses that sparkle slightly as she passes by the light sources that exist in the gardens.

An odder sight besides Ravenstongue being out so late at night is the fact she has a different raven on her shoulder. This raven is black with violet eyes, and appears to be talking to the half-elf in a much more intelligent manner than Pothy, his deep voice reminding one vaguely of temple bells. "Apologies for waking you so early--time passes differently in Quelynos, as you know, little one."

"You're okay, Grandfather. I just didn't want to leave you all the way outside Alexandria waiting for me for hours," Ravenstongue replies. She finally spots Boti as she turns onto a path close to the Defense and her eyes narrow, her arm wrapping a little tighter around the basket. "Aww, no..."

"Someone you know?" Grandfather asks, quirking his head.

Ravenstongue silently nods and approaches the makeshift campfire. "You know, you could come find me and I could get you a fire," she says quietly.

Boti is a good chunk of the way there; his fire is built properly with the thicker wood at the center surrounded by and beneath kindling and tinder. He's even dug a little trench beneath for airflow. He's just going through motions now at the very end with improper tools.

The boy starts and turns, always ready to run as he first reaction. His blue eyes linger on Ravenstongue for a moment, most of his face obscured by the collar of the over-large jacket he wears. He has loose woolen bottoms on that are stuffed into his boots. "I can do it," he counters defiantly, bouncing on his haunches and turning back.

"'do it all the time." He mutters and returns to clacking the rocks together over the pile. The skin is his hands is going a pale blue except for his knuckles and fingertips which glow an angry red. After the eighth or ninth strike he drops one of the rocks and has to fall to his knees and chase it down.

"Pothy changed colors." He finally says, looking back one more time. There's a little pack half-in the leaning tent.

The black raven laughs--less like laughter and more like the rhythmic tolling of bells, really. "I'm not Pothy, child. Are you one of Cor'lana's friends?" he asks, amusement in his voice.

"He is. His name is Boti." Ravenstongue's lips press together as she sees the color of Boti's hands, adopting a stiffer body posture as she sees the situation Boti's got himself into. "You're going to lose your hands if you keep going like that," she says. She draws a wand from within her cloak. "There's no shame in asking friends for help, Boti. I can light it for you, but you need to step back."

Boti narrows his eyes at not-Pothy and then looks around for whoever is playing a trick on him. He opens chapped lips and then closes them, frowning, unable to put to words his disbelief. The adolescent knows the difference between mimicry and sapience even if he lacks the vocabulary to describe. And then Ravenstongue is producing her wand.

"No, no, no!" The half-Sil lunges and almost makes to throw one of the rocks but just reaches his arms out to block the stacked wood instead. His cheeks are red and blotchy from the cold, too, and his shirt beneath the coat is woolen sleepwear to match his pants. "Please don't. I have to do it."

Waiting long enough to make sure the woman won't cast her magic, he drops the rocks into his pocket and turns back to the fire before sitting criss-cross applesauce. He picks up a straight stick and starts rolling it between his palms; attempting an alternate method.

"It's just gonna be me when I go. I have to be able to do it." He drops the stick and picks it up, his hands shaking. "Can't stay at the stupid hospital forever with stupid Shinesheen learning stupid lessons. So boring." He goes back to spinning the stick but the log beneath it rolls away and he issues a groan of frustration.

Ravenstongue looks at Boti for a long moment, her mouth now a deep frown. She eventually shakes her head and sighs. "Boti... If you really hate it at the hospital and you're all physically cured, you could live with me. I have an apartment I rent. I could set up another bed for you." She takes a couple of steps forward, cautiously. "You don't have to do everything by yourself--people aren't islands, you know. We help each other do the things that we can't do or can't do well. At the very least, can I warm your hands with a little magic? You're struggling because your hands are almost frostbitten."

Grandfather peers at Ravenstongue with a hint of... Well, he seems vaguely impressed. "Hmm. You really do care about the boy," he says. He flaps down to sit by Boti's side, observing his movements as he tries to kindle the flame.

"... fine." Boti relents, pouting, just before frees one leg from beneath himself and kicks through the stacked wood. It scatters and he gives a little huff and then puts his hands out for the sorceress. "Yes, please," he corrects himself.

"... but I'm not supposed to go anywhere. I'm still in trouble." He complains. "The people at the hospital say that I'm not in as big a trouble as I was but I have to stay there for at least a year and help them and learn stuff. And then if the man in charge says I'm not a bad person I can go but I don't have to if I want to stay."

Grandfather is considered for a moment and then he looks back at Ravenstongue. "So I can't just go someplace else. I have to run away and go back to where I was before--" his voice hitches and his already-moody expression darkens. "Where I was before."

Ravenstongue can't help but smile a little as Boti corrects himself and holds his hands out. She reaches into her bag and finds a pair of gloves, which she slips onto Boti's hands, then takes them in her own and murmurs a long string of words beneath her breath. The spell takes hold and Boti's hands are gradually warmed by warming the gloves around them.

"That will help for now, but you should really get inside somewhere warm," she says, her violet eyes darting back up to Boti's face. "So you're court ordered to stay there for a year. Okay. But... Well, you don't look happy about going back to where you were before, and I don't blame you. Where I found you was kind of perilous. Is it really worth a quick death at best, mindless slavery as your body crumbles away at worst?"

Grandfather looks up at Boti and Ravenstongue. He flaps back onto the sorceress's shoulder. "Could come live with me in Quelynos," he says, although it's clearly a joke by the impish glint in his violet eyes, the same color as Ravenstongue's.

"Grandfather, no. I doubt Boti wants to live the rest of his life surrounded by birds in a completely different plane," Ravenstongue says, rolling her eyes. "Don't mind him. He's... my ancestor. It's a long story."

It's well-past Boti's bedtime and toiling out in the cold has made the growing boy exhausted. It wasn't immediately obviously but sitting still and being patient while the gloves are warmed has nearly smothered the flames of wakefulness. A contented sigh prefaces him pulling the gloves to his face and resting the warmth against his cheeks.

"'was fine before getting sick." He mumbles, busy warming his face and hands and watching grandfather. "Lived in the trees by myself a long time and sometimes got bread from the nice people at the little house. But I can find berries and catch rabbits, too." His breathing is starting to slow.

"I don't know a Kwelli-nose. My ancestors are from..." a pause and he hums, trying to find the shape of a word.

"... Llyranost." The boy finally manages to say, half-remembering the word as he speaks it." <Sildanyari>

"How many more talking birds do you know?" Boti wonders of Ravenstongue, still watching grandfather. "Do they make friends with you because you're so nice?"

"You can keep the gloves," Ravenstongue says. She smiles a little to see him enjoying the warmth. "They won't stay as warm as they are now, but they're nice to have in the winter. That's why I'm wearing a pair."

Grandfather bird seems even more amused than with his little joke. "Oh, child, do you not know of the fey?" he asks. His voice rumbles a little with warmth. "The Children of the now-fallen Veil have become so detached from their origins. All elves once came from fey lands until the World Tree was struck and wounded. That was... Hrrrrmgh." He shakes his feathers as he seems deep in thought. "Very long ago. Very, very long ago."

"He's not actually a bird," Ravenstongue explains, looking to Grandfather with somewhat of a bashful explanation. "His true form is... Well, it'd get a lot of attention around here if he were to show you, and even then, it's not really him. Grandfather lives in Quelynos, where the fey live--it's not so easy for him to cross planes. It's easier for him to send messengers for him to speak through. If that makes sense."

"I think I like Pothy more," Boti decides, sitting up and looking at Ravenstongue. He puts his hands in his lap and looks over at grandfather. "Sorry," he apologizes. "He just does voices and his feathers are neat and soft and white."

"It's neat that... you're so old, I guess." He adds, trying to find a compliment.

The half-Sil has worked the gloves under his shirt and holds them against his sides, feeling the warmth fade. He blinks and looks down, chewing at his lip. Rolling onto his hands and knees he reaches and pulls the pack from the tent, dragging it over and sitting back down. Boti half-turns away from Ravenstongue and digs into a side flap, sorting through the content before turning back.

Without looking up from the ground he holds out one fist and waits for the sorceress to extend a hand before returning most of her coin. Then he quickly extends his other hand and drops something else atop the pile.

It's a little carved wooden bird in a diving pose. Obviously whittled by a skilled hand it's been painted white with the sloppy enthusiasm of youth. Two blue dots have been added for eyes above the beak.

"... sorry. Please don't be mad." Boti mumbles.

Grandfather laughs again. "The boy has his wits about him. Better to trust and like Pothy than any one of the fey, that is for certain," he says, peering at Boti as he dips away to rummage around in his pack.

Ravenstongue follows suit--it's rather comical to see both raven-named lady and raven bending their heads slightly in an identical fashion--and she is visibly surprised when Boti presents the coins. She opens up her hands to accept them, and... Well, her expression melts a little as she sees the carved bird. "Aww, Pothy's going to love it," she says, very audibly touched by the gesture. She looks back at Boti and adds, "I'm not mad. I'm just... Well, if you needed money, you could have told me and I would have given it to you. You know that. I want to help you."

Boti just looks at a strap on his pack while he plays with it, unable to explain why he did what he did and embarrassed and ashamed for doing it. He does look up-- hugging the pack close to his chest a bit defensively-- when Ravenstongue sounds pleased. He explores a hopeful grin and nods, looking down again at the pack and then the gloves.

"I... just, mmm." A shallow shrug and he opens the top of the pack and looks inside. "I have to be strong like my family taught me. People just act nice because they're supposed to. Or... or they go away. Or they just don't like me."

The half-Sil looks down into the pack and makes a face before glancing up. "The man in the building with the big pipe-y cupboard-- where the giant was-- the one with the bird. He was mad because I was there and he wanted to talk about grownup things. And those two soldiers... they acted nice, first, but then they said they had a present and..."

There's a sound of quiet distress and another shrug. Boti gets up and leaves the open pack there to start breaking down the tent. He takes the post and hides them in the hollow of a tree, then folds the canvas and stuffs it beneath an arcing root. Next, he kicks around his firepit, scouring the trace of his little camp.

The half-Sil stumbles a little going about his work. Clearly near ready to fall over.

"Well, I'm not going to go away--not of my own free will, anyway," Ravenstongue says, a tiny bit of a huff in her voice. "Just because everyone else has failed you doesn't mean I'm going to. You and I are half-sil--and that's a hard place in life to be, because people reject us for not being sildanyar enough or not being human enough. So when we find each other, we have to stick together."

She doesn't even wait for Boti to indicate otherwise--she just starts helping him with the tent and breaking down the camp. "Like I told you before, I'm old enough to be your big sister. So, if you can't handle being in the hospital because it's boring, come sneak out and find me. I'll get you a meal, I'll get you nicer clothes. And when the year is up, I'll hopefully have a house by then, and you can live with me if you want--or, if you really want to leave by then, I'll get you a nice big bag of traveling gear. But I think you should stay. Alexandria's not a bad place to be like us once you're out of that place."

Grandfather just watches as Ravenstongue delivers her lecture. He seems to be watching Boti to make sure he doesn't fall over from sleepiness.

"You don't have to want to go." Boti tells Ravenstongue, pushing some dirt into the folded canvas beneath the tree root to disguise it. "When you see Mahal..." His voice takes on a different timbre, briefly, but he forgets the phrase and let's it die away half-said with that same frustrated, instrospective frown.

Boti stands back up. "I don't want to stay a year. I miss talking to my dad even if he doesn't talk back and I have to throw rocks to at the wolves so they don't dig him up from under the rocks." He voice raises a little and he looks up at Ravenstongue, managing to muster a bit of challenge in his tired ill-temper. "If you were really my big sister you would help me remember how to make a fire the right way so I could leave sooner!"

He huffs and bends over, snatching up the pack and reaching inside of it with the same motion. Pulls out a noose and shoves it towards the sorceress. "The mean soldiers said I should have this. I don't want it but I can't set it on fire because I'm too dumb. Can you make it go away? Please."

GAME: Ravenstongue used a Wand of Burning Hands.

The violet eyes behind the spectacles flash with something like anger at the sight of the noose. She snatches it, tosses it into the air, and, with a knocking motion of the wand she quickly draws from her cloak, the noose is incinerated. It's something that looks like it belongs in an acrobatic act rather than a broken down and hidden camp nestled away on a little path.

Ravenstongue looks back to Boti as she smiles, putting the wand away. "I'd teach you, but the only way I know how is magic," she says. "Everyone can learn, though. So maybe I can teach you what I know--and how to use cool magic items like that."

Grandfather seems to be weighing the ethics of teaching a teenage boy how to use objects that set things on fire in his head. After a moment, he simply sighs. "Perhaps you may want to introduce him to Madame Sandy or Archmage Mikilos, then. You are still learning yourself, Cor'lana."

Ravenstongue sticks her tongue out at Grandfather bird in response. "We just won't know if we don't try. Besides, I taught Tel Handspeech--so I think I can manage magic lessons." She looks back to Boti. "What do you think?"

Boti is running on empty and the pyrotechnic display making him amazed when he's trying to be upset at Ravenstongue leaves him discombobulated. He looks between fey lord and sorceress as they speak and his brow grows increasingly furrowed. "I'm going to become a woodsman like my dad and Mahal will love me again."

A brief pause. "What's Cor'lana?"

Ravenstongue purses her lips again at the mention of Mahal not loving Boti. "I've never given much thought to the White Stag--but I don't think he hates you. It takes a lot to get the gods to hate you. But there are plenty of woodsmen who know magic, you know. It's helpful to have it when you're tracking animals through the woods."

She gives Grandfather another look before she says, "Cor'lana is my real name. I don't know if you heard what I was telling that huge man the other night, but I don't remember bits and pieces of my life--and for a long time, I didn't even know my real name."

"I named her when she was a baby," Grandfather replies, his voice proud and his chest feathers puffing up. "Her name is Sylvan, the language of the fey. It means 'raven speaker', roughly. We think she remembered the meaning of her name and translated it somewhat into Common after she forgot it."

Ravenstongue nods to the explanation. "But you don't have to call me that. You can call me Raven or Lana for short. I don't mind."

"Oh." Boti says, thinking and looking at the ground. He futzes with the straps of the pack and secures the top flap before sliding his arms through it. He takes a step closer to Ravenstongue and looks up at her. "Hi, Cor'lana."

The adolescent gives his would-be sister a quick hug. It lingers just a heartbeat too long and makes her wonder if he just won't let go-- but he does and he takes a step back, looking down and folding his arms. "I forgot some things, too, I think. But not my name.

"I'm Saleh Saboti but Boti is fine. My dad called me Boti. Everyone else called me Saboti... so that's fine, too..." He looks down and then up again. "Thank you for making the rope go away. Please don't tell anyone I'm running away."

He looks down to Grandfather and nods. "I'm sorry people forgot you. I won't forget you. I only know two talking birds-- even though you're not really a bird." And then he starts walking towards the Soldier's Defense.

"Hee hee, hi, Saboti," Ravenstongue says, smiling as she pats Boti on the head. She can't help but do it. He is, after all, the little brother she's never had--and he's planning on leaving, of course, but she appears to not be lingering on this fact. "I won't tell anyone. Just be safe--and if you're in trouble, come find me."

She watches Boti walk to the Soldier's Defense and she sighs, looking to Grandfather. "I wish I could... I don't know, actually adopt him as my little brother and get him out of there. But... Well, he wants to go home. And his home isn't me."

A moment passes on that little sad note when Grandfather breaks the silence. "You could build a home with that Mister Telamon of yours and give me more grandchildren."

"Oh gods, please don't start," Ravenstongue murmurs, walking briskly back to her home in the late hours of the night.