Private Tales Gifts from the Lion God

[Reinlinde]

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The wooden handcart creaked and thundered down the rickety stilted docks noisily, drawing the ire of sailors and brigands both. But the old priest pushing it paid them no mind. Reinlinde admired his dedication, even if she felt like it was folly.

Father Gauzo had seldom pushed his cart as far as the shallows, and Reinlinde was reminded why. Every shack they passed, every bow-legged wayfarer that walked by them had a scowl for the pair, a sad thing considering what they were there for.

The lion God Esion looked out for all his children, but especially his most vulnerable; the poor, the homeless, the needy. And so Father Gauza had rolled his cart of clothes and shoes, potatoes and bread, all the way down from St. Jerimimum’s Abbey in the Outer City of Alliria, through the Areck slums and across the haphazard planks of the shallows, every turn of the wheel threatening to send Gauzo and Reinlinde plummeting into the bog below.

They were met with the casual derision of a class-based society. Murmurs of “tower folk” followed by spitting on the ground. Reinlinde had seen such contempt directed at Father Gauzo before; it was why the Order of Esion had sent the nun warrior to accompany him, as protection. But it disappointed her nevertheless.

“They spit on those that would help them,” she muttered darkly, as a one-eyed sailor frowned at her from the deck of his poleboat. The mists of morning had begun to rise. Father Gauzo only laughed.

“A proud people. And sometimes even proud folk need a hand.” That had ended the conversation.

The two continued to clop along the precarious boardwalks until they came across a sort of juncture, where an exhausted Father Gauzo finally let his cart rest. Despite the dirty looks and mistrust the two had been received with, it wasn’t long before the shallows’ most unfortunate began to gather outside of their moss-grown stone cottages and wooden shanties to bask in the gifts of the lion God Esion.

Reinlinde watched as the weathered old priest, with his balding ringlet of silver hair and his shaggy gray beard, gave out pairs of shoes and boots, apples and potatoes, wool britches and coifs. There was a lame old man and a dirt-covered beggar lady…a beardless dwarf and a gaggle of three small kids you could barely distinguish from one another…a dog without a tail, a cat without an ear, a raggedy barefoot half-elf in a vest. Reinlinde watched on with a mixture of pity, sorrow, and pride.

Father Gauzo was right. The winged lion God Esion was the protector. Whether the people knew they needed help or not, the Order of Esion would not stand by and do nothing. Reinlinde idled her hand off the hilt of her sword and smiled as an older woman in rags thanked her and the Father profusely.

“Praise be Esion!” the woman cried gratefully, tears in her eyes.

“He watches after us all,” Reinlinde replied, as she noticed a weak-looking child dashing back behind a corner.

Somebody was watching them without trying to be seen.

“You, girl! Yes, the one behind the corner! Esion sees you, as do I. Show yourself, you have nothing to fear,” she shouted assertively. The nun warrior stepped forward, the gold and silver armor she’d chosen to wear that day gleaming in the morning sun.

 

[Ivy]

A penny, a coin, bread, or anything else would have helped stave off starvation for Ivy. She begged all morning for something to eat, having eaten nothing since yesterday morning. She has been on the streets since she lost her family and tribe in a storm that washed her in The Shallows. It has been almost a year since she washed on shore in a strange land, having to learn the strange customs of the people of this land, the language, the currency, the societal norms that are extremely different from her island home. For the few people that saw her as the lost child of the streets, an innocent soul with no idea of the language or customs, her sight though pitiful, has become the norm, being ignored by others.

She slowly wanders the streets, her arms wrapped around her aching stomach, soothing her hunger pains. She feels the cold wind through the holes and tears of her tattered tunic and braies, having to embrace herself from the chill. Her bare feet trudged along the mud and sludge of the slums, having uncared for her appearance and hygiene. Her rags were the filthiest of many children of the Shallows, and her hair and skin were on a new level of uncleanliness unseen on others. Having desperately scraped the trash, finding fish bones that still have bits of flesh, which might sustain her for just a moment, she wanders into the ally, sulking behind the dilapidated buildings. She thought she could take a quick rest, chewing on the bones to soothe her hungry.

The sound of creaking woke her from her slumber. She weakly gets up, seeing a cart full of food in the corner of her eyes. She peaks out of the alley, sees two people, members of a church from what she has seen of their attire, handing out food, clothing, and such. She watches, deciding whether or not to approach them. She is usually a shy character which lends itself badly to her occupation as a beggar. That unfortunately doesn't last long.

“You, girl! Yes, the one behind the corner! Esion sees you, as do I. Show yourself, you have nothing to fear,” she shouted assertively. The nun warrior stepped forward, the gold and silver armor she’d chosen to wear that day gleaming in the morning sun.

The glare of the armor sends her to flich, but she eventually sees through it, walking out of the alley weakly stumbling on her feet. She stands there for them to see her, her bare feet shuffled together, hiding from judgemental eyes. She wrapped herself close to her tunic to keep what little warmth she had left. She was still gnawing on the fish bones she found, and tried to hide her face underneath her long and dirty hair, whose color can not be visible through the ash and dirt. All the while, her stomach growling becomes more and more audible.

"...h-hungry" was all that she could muster out in her quiet voice.

Reinlinde

 

[Reinlinde]

“Gods be cruel, look at the state of this child,” Reinlinde whispered, shocked by the pitiful half-elf that had slunk out from the alley. The little girl must have stood a foot shorter than Reinlinde and was blanketed in such filth the knight’s apprentice had ever seen.

Reinlinde dropped to one knee and beckoned to the girl with a loaf of half-stale brown bread, as if coaxing a stray cat from the bush.

“Come, eat girl…go on,” she urged in response to Ivy’s trembled plea. “Father, look at her! She is starved and lice-ridden. We cannot leave one of Esion’s children so.”

The leathery old Father Gauza grumbled, handing out what remained of his bounty to stragglers from the initial crowd. Gulls were circling and squawking overhead. “No, I don’t suppose we can. Nor can we adopt every beggar child we gift an apple.” The tan old preacher looked down his arrow shaped nose at Reinlinde . “The fool hearted notion of a silly girl.”

“Lucky I’m not a silly girl, but a knight’s apprentice,” Reinlinde shot back, to a smile from the Father. She turned to the pathetic little thing in front of her, now gnawing at the bread like it was her last supper ever. “And we’re not “adopting” her. That is to say, there’s food and a hot bath back at the abbey…a bed to sleep in as well. Though I can’t force a child to accept them at swordpoint…we are all our own people.”

“And Esion watches us all,” the Father added, smiling warmly at Ivy. “The knight’s apprentice speaks true. You look famished, girl, and while we are a church, not an orphanage, our wing-ed lion God watches over and protects us all…especially the young and misfortunate. Come, away from these streets of destitution–if only for a night, if only for a warm bed.”

 

[Ivy]

In her shy nature, Ivy was reluctant to reach out to the woman giving her bread. But, her hunger won out over her head as she grabs for the bread, tearing the crust with her teeth and filthy hands. To her it was the first proper meal in months, nevermind that it was stale. Free food is free food after all. She overhears the two talking to each other. She could understand what they were talking about over her munching on the bread. Having been on this rotten land for about a year now, she learned the basics of this strange language, though a lot is needed for her to master their language. She understands that the woman is pitying her and she sulks with the little embarrassment she still has left, as if she had any dignity to begin with, and scratching her head from the filth and lice she endures is not really helping her case.

The woman looks back to her, Ivy having devoured the bread in less than a minute and licking her fingers for the last remaining crumbs like a wild lark eating at the last remaining seeds of a field. She didn't catch the last thing the woman was talking about, focusing on the bread she was given. The man, a priest she figured, began talking to her directly. He talks to her about a wing-ed lion god, which she doesn't understand. Where she's from, there was no wing-ed lion god, though her tribe did worship several dieties whether it would be for a good catch at sea, plentiful harvest, good weather, or safe travels, which failed her for obvious reasons. She did understand that they wanted to take her somewhere, to their church. She has only been to a couple of churches around the Shallows, waving free food to the urchins like her in exchange for zealot devolution to their god, often by force. She approached with caution, but at this point she really did not care.

"Food... is there?" she asked meekly, and weakly. Still licking her finger for the last bit of crumb that might be on it.

Reinlinde

 

[Reinlinde]

“Food, shelter, warmth. A fair better smelling place than the shallows at the least, bless these folks.” Reinlinde smiled easily, trying to disarm the girl. The knight’s apprentice was a curious thing, with her boyish haircut and warrior’s armor. When she’d first spoken, it was with a false bass in her voice…almost like she was trying too hard. It was plain for anyone to see but her, especially in speaking with Ivy.

Whatever Reinlinde was trying to be to the rest of the world melted away when she laid eyes on the bedraggled, knobby-kneed half-elf.

“And you don’t have to stay if you don’t like.”

If Ivy had reservations, the prospect of a consistent source of dinner appealed to her better senses; moments later and they were three’s company, rolling back up the planks and boards of the shallows until the streets grew thick with clotheslines and thatched roofs, horse shit and wet markets, the trademark neighborhoods of the Areck Slums.

The noises and sights of the slums could be overwhelming. Through the throngs of scratchy wool-wearing peasants and the stink of feces from a sewer trench, a toothy town crier wailed of war in the Falwood. "The forces of evil are on the move, a people's fate in the balance!" A crafty half-elf revealed a collection of all manner of gadgets inside the lapels of his trench coat, while a beady-eyed old cook’s wife peered out from behind a bubbling cauldron with a toothless frown.

Whether it was hunger or the teeming crowds of people, it wasn't long before Ivy became light-headed, and Father Gauza offered her the comfort of sitting in the now empty handcart. While the Father’s back was bent and rounded, his forearms were thick from the manual labor of his youth. The teenage half-elf Ivy weighed much less than a cart full of food and clothes; and so the Father rode her up the ever deepening city, their nun warrior in tow.

By the time they got to the Outer City wall, a line of commoners and tradesmen had formed at the gate, much more respectable looking than the rabble that had just surrounded them. There was only one church of Esion in Alliria, a small white castle known as St. Jerimimum’s Abbey, and it resided in the Outer City limits. The Outer City was cleaner…quieter…safer. Reinlinde wondered if the child had ever made it this far into the city.

For a brief second, she had a flashback of her own first journey through these walls.

The city guards waved the trio through, having previously watched Father Gauza and Reinlinde make pilgrimages around the city, and it wasn’t much longer before the three found themselves standing outside the magnificent white abbey of the Order of Esion.

To a first-time visitor, it would’ve been an impressive landmark. While it wasn’t the most ornate church in Alliria, and it certainly wasn't the largest, the massive statue of a winged white lion out front was impressive, and the white stones and overgrown vines fit in with the aesthetic of the city. To a strange girl from a strange land, it all might have been intimidating if it wasn’t for the kindly old preacher’s reassurances.

“Here we are child; St. Jerimimum’s Abbey,” he rasped, as the handcart rolled to a stop. “Where the white lion himself told Jerimimum to build a castle to protect and watch over his pride. Five hundred years this abbey has stood.”

But before Father Gauza could further wax poetic on his chosen deity, the mother hen in Reinlinde took over. “First thing’s first…a hot bath is in order. The girl has more fleas than the church has clergymen. If she cooperates, perhaps we can reconvene in the kitchens.”

The old preacher tut-tutted his younger accomplice, sharing a mischievous wink with the cart-prone Ivy. “Perhaps…though I’m not sure how Sulla will feel about an outsider stealing away her treasured candied apples.”

“That’s what the sword is for,” Reinlinde joked, casually thumbing the hilt of her own weapon. She gestured at the grand white stone castle before them and locked her blue eyes with Ivy’s. “Shall we?”

 

[Ivy]

She regained consciousness in the cart after falling from her hunger and weariness. It was a pretty big building, at least to her given that she had never wandered from the Shallows (excluding times where she was forced to in search of food). The guards in this part of Alliria would have never let her through the gates on her own in an effort to cast out the beggars. She does not understand any of the religious gods stuff the lady was saying to her, but all she knows that there is free food, and a place to sleep for tonight. With a kind gesture, the lady held out her hand and Ivy grabbed it, following the two inside.

Stepping inside, Ivy felt something that she had not felt in a long while, warmth. For many months on the streets, she had to suffer through the cold winds and water that plagued the Shallows. Her only warmth was sleeping outside of taverns or the hot soups that she would indulge in when she was with a gang of destitute folk like her. But inside the gray, stone walls of the abbey, she no longer felt cold. She looked around seeing all the pretty colors of the windows and the soft glow of the candles that light up the church. She was then taken through the courtyard of the abbey, one that looked clean and pristine, something beautiful to her. It reminds her of home. She was taken into a room full of flowing water and large barrels, the water looking more clean than the water she is used to wading in for food or to get a semblance of being clean. An older and large woman takes her, the lady explaining to her where Ivy came from. The lady leaves and the washerwoman takes a good look at her and her clothes, a pitiful sight. Dirt, mud, ash and waste covered most of her skin, hair, and bare feet. Her hair and clothes were also crawling with vermin. Lice, fleas and maggots all over her rags.

"Gods be cursed, look at the state of ye" The washerwoman remarks at her state. "Doesn't matter. Ye need a good washing now". She takes her rags off to get into the barrel which was full of hot water. As soon as she got in, the water began to turn dark from the filth that had accumulated on her skin. once the washerwoman washed her hair with soap and warm water, her hair revealed a reddish-brown color underneath all of that filth. Ivy didn't complain, or said a word. She sat while the washerwoman was scrubbing her clean. It took several hours to scrub through the muck, but once she got out of the tub, she felt cleaner, smelt cleaner, and looked cleaner. There was fresh clothes for her to wear, the rags she wore being tossed out for being too far gone to repair and clean. It was a clean green smock, brown trousers, and she even has a pair of brown sandals. There was a rope for her to fasten her smock, which was large for her.

"Th-thank you" She replied meekly. The washerwoman giving her a warm laugh at the response. Ivy was laughed at before for her state of being and her destitution, but her laugh seemed to not be hostile like those in the Shallows. "Don't think about it child. It's part of my service after all". She gives her directions to find the kitchen as the woman was taking the rags and the filthy, sludge water out of the abbey. She walks along the courtyard, her feet no longer stinging on the ground thanks to the sandals. She arrives at the kitchen where the lady that brought her in, a room full of all sorts of food that she has never seen before. Her mouth waters from the smell and sight. Not really thinking too much of her manners.

Reinlinde

 

[Reinlinde]

It was hard for Reinlinde not to see some of herself in the girl. She’d never been half-starved living in the streets, but she certainly could have been. The Emerald Death had razed her village of Grayshore when she was just fourteen; her parents had been murdered by the unholy horde.

A kindly preacher named Gauza had found her in shock beneath some rubble in the aftermath, and so he took her back to his Abbey in Alliria…the very one they were standing in. If it wasn’t for the Order of Esion, who knows if Reinlinde would even be alive.

She’d only been a step away from beggaring in the Shallows herself. If anyone could relate to this child, it was Reinlinde. And so it was with some reluctance that the knight’s apprentice left her newfound friend in the hands of the washerwomen, knowing how vulnerable the child was more than likely feeling, and how long this bath was probably going to take.

To take her mind off of it, Reinlinde sought out the knight she was apprenticed to, the Master Alric Crane, to practice her sparring with. Every day the Knights of Esion drilled sword and shield in the courtyard and today would be no different. Reinlinde had promised Crane as much before departing for the Shallows earlier that day.

“I expect you to be ready and able when I get back,” she’d told the old man out of earshot of anyone else. He was hungover and stunk of ale sweat when she saw him in the mess hall, and looked like he was about to faceplant in his eggs. “Your consumptions should shame you, ser,” she’d added tersely before heading out to do the Lion God’s work with Father Gauza.

But hours later and the old man had indeed recovered. Reinlinde couldn’t wrap her head around how he did it. Every night Crane would get piss drunk, and yet by noon the following day he was back to being sharp as a whip. “Alright my apprentice,” he taunted, as he drew his blunted sword from its scabbard. “Let’s see how your piety does against mine debauchery. I hope you prayed to your Lion before you came down.”

“You mean our Lion. You forget yourself, ser.”

An hour later and Reinlinde was sweaty, tired, and beaten. “I yield,” she cried when she could take it no longer. She couldn’t stand submitting to this man, but at least he was humble as he was cheery in his victories. “A spirited affair, girl, a worthy effort. But you mustn’t overthink it. I know you don’t much care for me, but you can’t let your feelings guide your sword. Overall, a valiant attempt…but we’ve more work to do.” He plopped himself down on a bench to smoke his pipe while a frustrated Reinlinde stalked off into the abbey, muttering to herself.

By now Ivy had been cleaned from head to toe and escorted to the kitchens. When Reinlinde walked in and saw the beggar girl, her bad mood instantly melted away.

“I bet you’re feeling so much better,” she said as she strode through the great arched door of the kitchens, the homey aroma of fresh baked bread and potato soup floating just beneath her nose. Come to think of it, a bath sounded nice, especially after training with Crane. More like being completely demolished, Reinlinde mused bitterly, though she tried not to show it. The warrior nun picked up a candied apple from a pan and handed it to Ivy. “As promised. Eat up, girl. Here, we'll make you a plate.”

Moments later and the two had found a seat at a wooden bench in the mess hall.

Reinlinde watched as the teenager devoured the plate of food ravenously, occasionally slurping from her own bowl of soup. The training session had given her an appetite as well. Poor girl, Reinlinde thought as Ivy shoveled food into her mouth. She waited for Ivy to take a breath before she asked her question.

“You haven’t told me your name yet, girl. I am Reinlinde, apprentice knight of the Order of Esion. What is your name and where are your parents? The Shallows are no place for a child.”