Recent content by Harrier

"I'm sure you'll hear it from others," said Harrier after a long drink, "so I'll save you time. I was a full Maester. I was exiled from Elbion and the College for necromancy. "I've only recently come back home; the dragon attack changed so much that there was space for me here again, at the...

Harrier drank too, and plenty of it. There was nothing wrong with the wine, but certain...ideological opponents...within the Maesters always looked askance on anything she was involved in. If anyone asked Xia what Harrier had been up to, 'corrupting students with alcohol and disreputable...

This felt like an opportunity. Though she'd sneaked into the College library once or twice in past years, particularly since the dragon cataclysm, a more permanent arrangement could be valuable. For Harrier, the simplest way to do that was to weave a quiet little ghost into the book. Among...

"Hmmm. Stiff pages, discoloration, stains, broken binding, loose pages...this is salvageable, but I need to know what value it has to you. Do you want to preserve it as an artifact? Do you want it fully restored, made to look as new as possible? Do you just want it usable, readable, intact...

There were days, like in any line of work, when the task at hand bored Harrier to tears. Today was not one of them. The book in Xia's arms looked just ruined enough to be a challenge. It wasn't a book Harrier recognized from her long-past years as a Maester of the College. It might contain...

Harrier Wren kept a shop in Elbion these days, or some of these days: she wandered too much to make any claim to constancy. Her shop fixed ruined books. Business was excellent. The front counter held a stack of letters from the College insisting that she cease and desist her disreputable...

Like Cerak At'Thul and the bad parts of Alliria, Crossroad Mire had the ambiance and functionality of a junk drawer. Unusual folks (like Maraad and Qiven the Tall and, indeed, Harrier) were the usual, accents and all. Along similar lines of assumed normalcy, Harrier didn't bother explaining the...

Crossroad Mire's library boasted one of the world's largest collections of mildew. Harrier unlocked the door just long enough to verify the interior was undisturbed, then bolted it firmly and turned back to the chaos. Big brutish shapes, somewhat manlike, moved against the backdrop of the...

Thanks for this, Velaeri — drabbles are a fantastic exercise. A little something: A footfall in Elbion's grit crunched louder than any ruin or graveyard Harrier knew. The city — half rebuilt, shadowed by floating scraps of greatness — felt like a breath forever indrawn, or a hammer frozen...

CROSSROAD MIRE BAYOU GARRAMARISMA MIDNIGHT Harrier Wren gasped herself awake, choking on bad dreams and smoke. For just a heartbeat, the necromancer thought she'd left the fire on, let the pot of bones boil over, but the smoke tasted heavier, as if the swamp was burning. She scrambled achily...

Harrier Wren's backpack held trinkets, books, barter, bones, and bubbling apparatus. It clattered and clanked when she set it down by a table in the Hill-Hen. Nere Ashorn would catch a familiar scent of the Bayou Garramarisma. If she knew anything of Crossroad Mire, she might even recognize...

Harrier neither allowed herself to be pulled away, nor followed as the man she'd challenged moved on. "One would think," said Harrier softly, in a voice that somehow carried throughout the assembled fae, "your kind above all others would understand the risk of offending a mysterious stranger on...

There was a sound like a gigantic polearm suddenly becoming a tiny polearm. "Interesting..." There was a sound like a tiny polearm being inserted into the lock of a corroded strongbox. There was the sound of a tiny polearm becoming a gigantic polearm again, despite the complaints of the...

Still slouched at the edge of things, puffing her human-rib pipe, Harrier watched a seven-foot fae do his dominance work. "That one," she said quietly. "What do you know?" Beside her on a stump, a haunted pen dipped itself in a small jar of ink and scribbled on a parchment scrap. It didn't...

A study in contrasts between the event and the nearby watcher. Here, a scarred human in a ragged cloak. There, a crowd of elegant, lively fae warriors. Here, transcendently awful posture. There, grace and finesse. Here, a spark of light from a rib-bone pipe. There, a deepening twilight...